sorcerer

My 63-plate RX450h Advance has got DAB and, according to this pdf, if yours is an Advance then you should have it too.

My only gripe about the DAB is that it doesn't show artist and track info like other DAB radios do.

Lexus RX Series III.pdf

52 minutes ago, polymoog said:

Just had word from the specialist: car is all back together and the transmission is fine - "drives beautifully".

Assuming it holds up I've dodged a bullet there I reckon. Or should I say it's just a flesh wound :)
 

Excellent news!!

So what happened rad-wise in the end? Did you show your garage the post about how to modify an aftermarket rad or did you go for an OEM one?

This is what the workshop manual shows for a 1995 LS400 but I don't know if yours will be the same:

They do indeed make an amazing difference as you'll see from the photos of our old RX300 below. There's no camera flash used here, just the LED lights in the car:

Easy answer - no.

Longer answer - search the forum because I know it's been covered before but for the life of me, now that I want it, I can't find it myself. Someone officially asked Lexus UK that very question and the reply was along the lines of no, because the headlight beams are flat and do not kick up to the left, so you won't dazzle oncoming drivers.

Whoever it was actually scanned the Lexus reply letter and posted it somewhere on here for us all to see and print out to take with you if you want but like I said, I can't find it now.

It's not so much about how many miles you can run after the light is on, more about risk vs cost.

Most modern fuel pumps are actually inside the tank and the petrol itself acts as both a lubricant and a coolant. Imagine most of the pump being dry, the small amount of fluid left only covering the bottom of it - no lubrication and the possibility of damaging the pump by overheating, or by drawing up crud.

Just not worth the risk of doing expensive damage in my opinion.

You could drag up all sorts of crud from the dregs of the tank. Do as Les suggested and either borrow a tenner from someone at work, leave your watch as security at the petrol station, ring the wife to pay with her card as a 'Customer Not Present' payment or something else, but I wouldn't risk it.

I would never have let it get so low in the first place - I never let it get below 1/4 full.

16 minutes ago, jumbojake said:

[...] and the parking mode options are a must have for supermarket car parks

It's your money and if you have enough of it to spend in that way then you have the right to do so and fair enough - but I really must take issue with the above.

It still only has front and back views - you could easily be hit from the side either by another car, a supermarket trolley, or even some ne'r-do-well smashing a side window to get something from inside and you would not see the culprit. You'd come back to scratches and/or dents and/or broken windows and be none the wiser as to who or what had caused it.

Mine's a Celestial Black 63-plate Advance, but there's pictures of her on here somewhere 

Of course we like to see pictures 😀

One thing I'm disappointed about it that DAB radio has the ability to show both artist and song title but this information doesn't come up in the car.

This may give you some info:

New - probably Lexus dealer

Used - seems to be a few breakers on eBay, this being one of them.

In case you've never bought secondhand parts from eBay before, you contact the trader who's breaking the car to see if they have the part you want. If they have and you agree the price, they then list the part on a Buy It Now private listing and email you a link to it. You then simply click the link, click on Buy It Now and complete the transaction as you would with anything else.

Big thread about it all here:

Probably gunge in the nozzle where you're getting the weak stream. Pull the nozzle out and pull the pipe off. Use an air line to blow air through the nozzle 'backwards' - you'll be amazed at what comes out.

Not trying to be flippant or facetious here but a serious question - why spend money on something like this? Can you not just put your music on a USB flash drive and plug that in to the USB AUX socket to play your music?

And... even as I'm typing this I think I know the answer - your cars don't have a USB input do they? My 2005 RX300 was the same; it's only since we got this more recent car that we have this facility.

Sorry - ignore the numpty over here 

15 hours ago, bobmc said:

Isn't this more likely to be a tpms sensor problem? 

Is the dealer a Lexus dealer or an independant?

 

I did think that myself but then thought that the OP must have already queried it or ruled it out but yes, always start with the simplest things first - it may well just be a tyre pressure sensor.

Lexus dealer?

A Google search for a "Lexus GS450h gateway processor" (without the quotes) returns very little information and no information as to what a gateway processor even is.

There may be a clue in this post here and if that is the thing, I'd suggest looking on eBay for a secondhand unit. Hopefully someone else with greater knowledge in this area will be able to help you further.

55 minutes ago, malcolmdc said:

Thanks John! I hadn't got round to that because I imagined (poor old bugger!) that it wouldn't be quite so openly described! Happy Days . . .

You're welcome Malcolm; I always like to help if I can 

A bit more info would be a good start, as in what's wrong with the car? What symptoms is it exhibiting? Engine problem? Hybrid problem? Something else?

A search on Youtube for "Lexus LS400 odometer adjustment" (without the quotes) brought this up as the first result:

Welcome to the club Tim.

There are lots of very knowledgeable folks here so I'm sure someone will be able to help you but I'd suggest that you'll get more answers if you post directly in the dedicated LS forum rather than here.

Good luck with your quest - and we need to see photos of it when you do buy one 

50 minutes ago, Malc said:

There didn't seem, amongst the Posters,  any need for a genuine Lexus radiator at all

That's correct, there isn't.

All radiators that have transmission oil-cooling pipework in them, are equally at risk of failure and possibly allowing transmission fluid to enter the cooling system and/or coolant to enter the transmission, irrespective of who manufactures them,. It's a silly design really but it's used by many car manufacturers.

The only way to be sure of avoiding an expensive disaster is preventative maintenance. As soon as you begin to see any signs of corrosion on the pipework that's more than just a bit of surface rust, change the radiator - and you may as well use a cheapy third-party one because you may have to do it again if the car is long-lived.

30 minutes ago, GrahamG said:

Their master technician with Lexus 10 years reports he does know of this problem [water from rad into gearbox] but that it is very rare.

This isn't just a Lexus thing. Many cars have pipes taking transmission fluid through the rad to cool it, including my old Nissan Maxima and Nissan Maxima QX to name just two. If I remember right, my old Rover 800 Sterling also had this arrangement

It's a poor design as, sooner or later, most will corrode to some extent.

Well put Neil.

Our car is still so new that I'll be sticking to Lexus for a while yet but as soon as it hits 7 or 8 years old then it's a local indy all the way (but with the £60 hybrid healthcheck done at Lexus).

Same with parts. Lexus don't make brake pads or discs; they don't make batteries, exhausts or anything else like that; they merely buy in from those who do and add a mark-up before selling to the end user, so there really is no such thing as "genuine Lexus" parts when talking of such components.

Thanks Mark, you're a star 

Very nice, looks well.

We had our RX300 converted to run on LPG and the gas tank was installed in the spare wheel position, so we had no spare and just carried a can of goo. Thankfully, we never had to use it but carried it for smaller punctures and would have contacted breakdown services to come out for anything bigger.