Assa1974

I bought my RX400H last March and after a short 15 months I've now sold it. For the first time since in 25 years of driving I do not currently own a car and it's a bit scary right now. Anyway I wanted to give my short-lived but exceptional companion a quick eulogy. It was by far and away the best car I've ever owned or had the privelage to drive. Completely reliable, comfortable, quiet, quick when required and totally capable in every way. However, the one thing I have noticed as the whirlwind sale took place over the last 24 hours is that I've come to realise I did't have the same personal connection with it that I have had with other cars I've owned. Technically it's utterly brilliant, no doubt, but I never found it's personality. Was it simply too good? I think perhaps the lesson I've learned is that the cars I've loved the most in my past have not been the ones that ticked all the boxes. They weren't the most practicle or economical or reliable (far from it thinking about my Alfa). Something for me to ponder as I search for my next car. That said, I can't argue with getting back exaclty what I paid! I suspect I'll file Lexus Ownership under 'unfinished business'.

I'm seriously thinking about getting a Saab convertible at the moment. Used to drive my parents' 900i and then early 9-3 back in the 90's. The 900 in particular is an appreciating classic these days.

What do you consider high miles / low miles, old / young? For £6500 you're looking at 2005 - 2008 cars with anything from 70K to 150K miles. My advice would be to not worry so much about the age or mileage and just concentrate on the history & condition. An older car that's done more miles but has been only ever used for the daily commute by an older owner is likely to be in much better nick than a younger car with lower mileage that's been an abused family car.

Had my car serviced by my local garage last time - £130. Got a quote for a timing belt change. He said £450 but he also said he didn't want to do the job after talking to Lexus and being told there were potential complications with the start-up routine after disconnecting the battery, which is a load of bull**** and sounds like the local Lexus dealer scaring off an independent in the hope I'd take it to them. Unless the car is under warranty or still young / low mileage I would never consider using a dealer for servicing. I'd also try to source parts myself where-ever possible even when using and independent.

If it's a direct comparison then obviously the 450H is the way to go. However if it's the choice between a high-miler 450H and a low miler 400H then there's other aspects to consider, mainly how tidy the car is. Do you want all the modern toys and don't mind the scratches/chips and/or worn interiors the 'cheapest' 450Hs are bound to come with or are you happy to put up with 15 year old tech if it means a near-perfect body & interior?

There was a thread on this very subject I posted to only last week: http://www.lexusownersclub.co.uk/forum/topic/98620-rattlefrom-underside-of-my-400h-se/ The putty did the trick - super easy.

I'm chuffed I found this thread! I've had an annoying rattle at MWay speeds for a few weeks now. Thought it was some loose trim in a rear wheel arch but once patched up the rattle was still there. Just had a crawl under the car a lo', it's the heat shield. Thanks to those who went before I can now fix this easily enough. Forums to the rescue again!

Oddly mine had stopped working but when the car came back from it's MOT/Service last week they're working again and I'm sure the garage didn't do anything!?

I tracked down the source of the noise. The trim on the inside rear of the rear left wheel arch has split along the bottom edge where the rear bumper attaches. It looks like there's a attachment that joins the rear bumper, this piece of trim and a third section of trim together (unusal to attach three sections at one point) on the underside. I suspect this has failed and the split has propogated along the bottom edge of the trim. The result is the bottom edge of the rear bumper inside the wheel arch is hanging loose so at speed it is being defelcted and banging. I'll tape it up for the short term and source a new piece of trim. It doesn't look too hard to remove and refit.

Driving down to work today I became aware of a loud rattle coming from the rear of the car, apparently under the rear seats on the left hand side although it's hard to pinpoint from the driver's seat. My first thought was the exhaust was coming loose but it's the wrong side. I then wondered if it was suspension but the noise didn't coincide with the movement of the car on the road. I've just done a short run this lunchtime at low speed and there's no sign of the noise despite numerous bumps, potholes and traffic calming humps. My conclusion is there's something loose that is moving around in the airflow at higher motorway speed. I had a quick scan under the car but nothing is immediately apparent. Any ideas what it could be? The car is due in for a service / MOT so hopefully they'll be able to track the issue down.

Those don't look like the standard rear screens. The standard ones are in the headrests of the seats with the DVD player under the driver's seat. These look like (better) after market players. IIRC the rear entertainment system was never a factory fitted extra, it was installed by a 3rd party when the cars arrived in the UK. I viewed a lot when searching for my car and the quality of the installation was variable. Personally I avoided the cars with rear screens (I was looking at the same age of cars) because the quality of the screens compared with today's tech is poor, most had some sort of issues and they generally went hand-in-hand with less-than-prestine interiors in the rear. Portable DVD players are cheap anyway.

Friends got an Evoque 18 months ago - it took 9 months to arrive and even then LR had mucked up the interior. Their cars are hideously over-priced and it's the worst kind of badge prestige. The Evoque is a horribly compromised design and I don't really get where this new one fits into the range other than, as others have said, by making room by changing the RRS. Still why would you get one of these over the Disco? That's what annoys me about LR these days. They had a perfectly good range with the Freelander, Disco, Defender and RR but by pandering to the urban chic crowd they've diluted what made the brand great IMO. To answer the question, though, no it's no competition for the Lexus. Completely different market.

On my 400 the warning light comes on early into the final quarter and I;ve had the needle firmly on R for a few miles several times and it's taken less than 60 litres to fill so there's a healthy reserve. I reckon I can easily get 75 miles from the warning light coming on. It's very conservative.

On my two 200 mile commutes this week, including cold mornings, I managed and indicated 34mpg. I estimate that cruising along at 65mph gives me about 4mpg extra compared to the 70-75mph that I used to consider 'normal' motorway speed. The revelation is that it barely costs me any time mainly due to driving in rush-hour traffic so my average speed is not effected much.

It's a little bit of a faff TBH. If you do a google search you should find plenty of advice and I'd suggest you do that even if just to verify what I've posted below. This is a procedure I picked up myself doing just that. I can't promise what results you will get but it seemed to give me an immediate improvement even if it was only a couple of MPG on a long drive. 1) Make sure the vehicle is fully warmed up. Do the procedure immediately following a long drive that runs the engine (highway speeds are best - not long gliding stealth runs at low speeds with the engine off). This will insure the coolant temp is at FULL operating temperature - it is not necessary to actually measure the coolant temperature if you warm up the engine sufficiently and don't let the engine shut down too long and cool off before doing the procedure. 2) With the vehicle stopped and in drive, press firmly on the brake to keep the vehicle from moving and then step on the accelerator while watching the power meter (to the left of the speedometer). Press down on the accelerator to keep the needle between 1/2 and 3/4 up the scale. You will find that the engine management system will automatically limit the engine load no matter how far you press down on the pedal so the amount you press is not critical as long as it is either 1/2 scale or to the engine's self-limiting load value. Keep the engine loaded for a full 30 seconds but not longer than 40 seconds (this procedure brings the hybrid battery up to a maximum state of charge - if you watch the battery symbol, you willl see it tick up to a "full" display). 3) Shut off the engine and place it in park 4) Wait 5 seconds. 5) Turn the ignition key back on to display "ready" 6) make sure the A/C and heater system controls are set to off 7) Lightly step on the accelerator pedal until the engine starts -then immediately take your foot off the accelerator and let the engine run until it stops by itself. This completes the procedure.

Hi Stuart, I don't think there's any right or wrong answer here. I bought my 400H in March and spent more time and effort looking for the 'perfect' car than I've ever done on a car before. I was looking in the same price and age range and TBH was dissappointed at the quality of the cars available. In particular the state of interiors was a let down. I do a reasonable mileage (done 15k miles since getting it) so the exterior is never going to be perfect but the interior is something I can look after and so wanted a good standard to start with. I started looking for SE-L models with the DVD screen but quickly realised that often these were family cars that usually carried kids around in the back and showed the signs of that. Anyway, to cut a long story short I had given up when I got an alert of a new car at a car supermarket in Coventry. It turned out to be perfect - 80K miles, 2007 plate with a perfect interior, asking price £7,500. Most importantly though it had full LSH and all of the paperwork including the hybrid checks and had 4 new tyres fitted only 2 months before (basically £750 for free). Based on my experience up to then that was a good £1k or more under the market price. Best I could tell they'd picked it up cheap at auction and being a car supermarket they use a standard pricing model to value their cars to ensure high turnover so just added their standard profit margin. I drove away with what so far has been a faultless car which IMO (and the opinion of may people who've been in it) looks and feels like a luxury car worth two or three times as much. I am using a local garage for servicing as I have no intention of changing it before it effectively depreciates to zero so there's no monetary advantage using Lexus. I looked at the warranty options but decided that given the reliability of these things it was a 'safe' bet not to worry. In my experience a car that's done 80K miles and is nearly 10 years old and has never needed a thing doing isn't going to suddenly start to be unreliable. If you want piece of mind then go through a dealer and get the warrantly but the chances are you are going to pay a fairly big premium both on the purchase and maintenance. I totally understand and would most likely go that route if I were going for a younger/more expensive car but IMO you can safely buy 'cheaper' from a non Lexus dealer or private sale if you are careful about your choice i.e. full service history, complete paperwork, obvious signs of TLC. Don't get sucked in by the idea of the car and settle for something that feels wrong. I deperately wanted my 400H and put in days of searching and viewing cars over two months but had to force myself to walk away from at least a dozen examples because they just weren't quite right. Good luck.

No the 400 does not have USB input or any other auxilary input. As I posted earlier the only option for a direct input into the head unit is to use the external CD input. Alternatively you can use an FM device to stream input to the radio using an unused FM frequency but IMO they are a step back in technology and aren't worth the money.

You can buy kits that plug into the external CD port in the back of the head unit. It's the same principal as the iPod connection. There are plenty of threads giving more details, links to products and instructions on how to fit.

Not being in any hurry to get to work yesterday I decided to have a little experiment. I was travelling late morning so the motorway was clear. I cruised along at a steady 65mph and over my 110 mile trip into the office the car recorded the mpg as 33.2. Coming home last night after the rush hour, so basically thr same traffic conditions, I cruised at 70mph. Take into account the colder temperature if 6 degrees compared to 13 degrees in the day... my average mpg came out as 32.5. I am surprised firstly that either run was as low as these readings given the conditions on the road and average speed, and that there was such little difference between the two. My conclusion is that even over a reasonably long run small things like having to brake then re-accelerate just a few times or put your foot down hard to over-take someone quickly has a big impact on your over-all fuel efficiency. Hardly scientific I know but thought it was interesting.

When I first got my car last Easter I was dissaponted with the fuel consumption and didn't feel the batteries were doing their job. After a bit of research I found that you could 'reset' the battery levels and control system. After that there was a definite improvement in the mpg and only a couple of weeks ago I achieved my best ever run of an indicated 34.7mpg over my 100 mile journey to work. My conclusion is that by far the biggest factor impacting fuel consumption is my right foot and it's taken a concerted effort to alter my driving style to achieve what I would term 'reasonable' economy.

DVDs play as audio only while the parking break is off, so music DVDs work very well as an alternative to CDs. I don't think there's any work-around to activate the screen while driving, for obvious reasons.

I've been on the road for around 10 hours over the last 2 days and it's probably been the best place to be. Super-cool A/C and tinted windows. Coming back up the M40 today the temp rose from 24 to 30 in the space of about 10 miles as I got away from London. It's a hell of a shock when you finally get out, though!

The whole industry is a scam. The 'authorised' repairer sees the opportunity to quote high knowing that if it's approved they're quids in and if it isn't they'll make an offer to the insurance company to buy the car themselves, repair it cheaply and sell it on for a huge profit. My Alfa was written off by a relatively minor accident which the repairer hugely over-estimated the repair on (total respray to match the damaged panels which added massive labour charge). As it was deemed to be my fault (which it wasn't, at best it was knock-for-knock as the other party drove into me as I was reversing into a parking space but because they claimed to have stopped I was deemed at fault) I was in no position to argue. Next thing I know I'm getting a letter from the DVLA to ask why I'm trying to export the car abroad! The reparier had bought and repaired the car and was shipping it somewhere but the DVLA hadn't yet been notified of the change of ownership by the insurance company. Graham's advice seems the soundest. However, if the insurance company values your car at £17k and the repairs are going to cost £15,600 then presumably they will sell it back to you for £1,400 in it's current state and you'll get the £17k as your pay-out. Even if you end up with a Cat C/D registered car I'd say it's worth thinking about getting it repaired yourself. I bet it can be done for around £10k as a private job. My wife bashed the door in on her old 307CC and we were quoted £2700 for an insurance repair and £400 for a private repair. It's amazing what little extras insurance repairers will find to do.

No worries, I'm sure we've all had an "oh, that's how that works" moment with these cars. It took me at least a week to work out the navigation DVD didn't go into the dash.

For me the DVD capability comes under 'nice-to-have' although I'm not sure when I'd ever find myself sat in the car, stationary, for long enough to actually feel like watching something. That said what I have used it for is listening to a music DVD as an alternative to a CD (usually live concert DVDs). You get more music on the disc and in 5.1 DD, and with the move to Bluray, DVDs are becoming less expensive.