Thackeray

3 hours ago, ColinBarber said:

Correct. This is specific NX information showing how the state of charge changes as the vehicle is driven - it lacks scale detail but is essentially the same as all the Toyota/Lexus hybrids with a NiMH traction/hybrid battery.

That's helpful to see a graph for the computer's strategy for the state of charge.

My own testing on the IS300h (I had nothing better to do during Covid lockdown!) showed that the engine would start when the Battery charge dropped to 40% (two bars showing) and would stop when the charge had risen to 50% (three bars). Four, five and six bars represented levels of charge from around the low to mid-50s up to around 60%. From memory seven bars would only appear above about 70% and eight bars at 80%. I was reading the percentages from the Hybrid Assistant app.

The videos on the Hybrid Assistant app website seemed to show higher percentages than I was finding, so maybe the fine tuning varies from one model to another.

11 hours ago, Gaffer said:

Or is the battery meant to get to 8/8 full when driving and I'm just not getting it?

Most people's first instinct is to regard the Battery charge level in the same way as the fuel tank level - Full is good, Empty is worrying.

But this is not the way to look at it. On these hybrid cars, the hybrid Battery is not primarily to drive the car along. Instead, it's a receptacle to store regenerated electricity. If the Battery is full, there's no room for any more regenerated electricity so the power has to be discarded as heat instead. Trying to keep the Battery full would be like going shopping with a full shopping bag so that you have no room to carry your groceries.

After the electricity has been stored, it can then be used to help drive the car along and make use of power that would otherwise have been lost as heat from the brakes.

The computer aims to keep the Battery about half full. This leaves plenty of room for more electricity to be stored, while at the same time having a decent reserve available to power a sudden burst of acceleration.

As others have said, the gauge doesn't represent reality. On other models and probably the NX too, one bar represents around 40% full. The engine will start if it reaches this level to prevent it going any lower. Eight bars is around 80%. Keeping the Battery in this range helps to extend its life.

Just out of interest, are all the VIN stickers present and undamaged on the inside edge of each metal panel? Or are any missing or painted over? There should be about eight of them.

On 5/21/2024 at 7:47 PM, Jim1977 said:

balancing, fitting and nitrogen

Air is already 80% nitrogen so I've never bothered to pay extra for the other 20%, which would be mostly oxygen. It probably makes a difference on formula one cars but I doubt it makes much difference on road cars.

Even if all the oxygen were to gradually seep out, which is quite unlikely in the short term, one topup with air would take it to 96% nitrogen.

The Which? magazine website has a useful guide to Consumer Rights. It looks as though the website will also help you draft a letter of complaint if necessary.

One thing to check is whether all the VIN stickers are in place, or possibly painted over. Each metal panel should have a VIN number sticker on the inside edge. This includes the bonnet, boot, the inside edge of all four doors and the central pillar. If panel repairs are done, Lexus workshops will replace the VIN sticker if that's necessary because of respraying. Other workshops may not bother because each sticker costs something like £100.

This may not be relevant to your problem but it may be worth checking as an indication of whether repairs have been done.

If you decide to reject the car, which I suspect you can still do, I believe the key phrase to get their attention is "Not of Satisfactory Quality" which can be included in an email subject line, as well as the text of your complaint. 

5 minutes ago, WhatNext said:

1. What do the steering wheel paddles control in a hybrid with CVT gearbox?

This topic came up a few days ago on the IS300h forum. I expect the principles are the same. Here are the comments about it.

18 hours ago, Stever750 said:

Other things I've tried an wondered just how/why is the manual sport mode with the paddles. Briefly tried it, and thought it might just be an engine revs thing; but how is it supposed to work? And just why on a vehicle with a CVT

I think it's mostly just for fun. In a manual car you might change down to get more power for faster overtaking. You can simulate this for the same reason - higher revs gives more power, perhaps when you're about to overtake. But with this transmission you can get higher revs just by pressing the accelerator in a way that is not possible in a manual. In past years, journalists who didn't understand this described the transmission as being noisy. This is wrong. It's not the transmission that is noisy it's the engine, which like any other engine is noisy if you change down to the lowest available gear when the car is moving at speed. It's just that you can get maximum power in this transmission just by pressing the accelerator, rather than having to manually change down.

You can also use the paddles on a long descent of a hill. But I generally use the brakes in order to get maximum power regeneration. If the hill is not too steep you may be able to slow the car enough with a light touch of the brakes which will only use the motor-generators, rather than the brake pads, to feed electricity into the Battery. And when the Battery is full, the car will increase engine revs automatically to provide engine braking when the Battery can take no more electricity. Sometimes you might think the engine is running when in fact no fuel is being used but electricity is being drawn from the Battery and the motor-generators are turning the engine without petrol. This is done to reduce the charge in the Battery when it's close to the maximum.

18 hours ago, Stever750 said:

Another refuel, trip said 42.3, app calculated 39.5 What's slightly bizarre is that the average dropped by around 3mpg after a 220 mile on the M4, followed by pootling around the lanes of Pembrokeshire for the last couple of weeks. Could that be a symptom of impaired battery cooling? using E5 petrol makes no difference either.

My average since 2017 is 42.25 mpg, calculated from one fill-up to the next. I've excluded the covid years when it was averaging mid-20s because I wasn't using the car much. Peak real mpg was around 50-54 mpg, always in August or September for a 300 mile motorway journey. I think the mpg might have benefitted from long motorway 50 mph speed restrictions. Incidentally, I never turn off the air conditioning. Expect to see better mpg as the weather improves.

The highest number I've seen on the car computer is 71 mpg after a 20 minute drive starting with a warm engine. I found it hard to believe and the only thing I could think of was that it must have been downhill all the way, even though from the car it looked like flat countryside. I checked on a map and sure enough, although it didn't look like it at the time, there was a gradual decline in altitude for the whole journey. It's a trip I've done more than once and fuel consumption is always much better than usual even though you don't notice the downhill effect while you're driving.

37 minutes ago, wharfhouse said:

First in Audio Settings / DAB Settings / DAB Alternative Frequency - set this to ON

Then when the DAB signal is too low for good reception, the radio automatically switches to the matching FM station (I think it only works for DAB national stations with a matching FM station - it works well for Radio 2 that I listen to mostly).

Many thanks for this. After having had the car for so long, it's a surprise to keep discovering new features that I knew nothing about! I'll check this when I'm next in the car. Of course, it might be turned on anway and I've simply never noticed.

2 minutes ago, wharfhouse said:

The BBC presets work all over the country (and revert automatically to FM if the DAB signal is poor)

I didn't know that. I've never noticed it happening on my car. How can you tell if the station has been switched to FM? Is this something you have to set up in advance and if so do you know how it's done?

16 hours ago, Stever750 said:

Biggest gripe so far is that DAB radio is dead radio. I've tried it in multiple locations between south Wales and the Midlands and all I get is no signal. No amount of fiddling in the menu has woken it up, so welcome any trouble shooting suggestions.

Most owners seem to struggle to get the DAB to work. I imagine most just give up and stick to FM. But in case you feel like persisting, I'll add a link to a discussion from three or four years ago. This may or not be helpful as your car may have a newer system. But just in case it helps, here's an explanation of how I got DAB working on my 2014 car.

2 hours ago, Mr_Groundhog said:

higher octanes are for engines with a compression ratio above 12 to 1, and this Lexus has 13 to 1, so I have always given her the slightly more expensive E5 for peace of mind.

A long time ago there was a discussion about whether the compression ratio was really 13 to 1. I know Colin Barber explained the setup but as I can't find the thread I'll relate what I remember and hope that someone will correct me if I've got it wrong.

The engine uses the Atkinson cycle for improved economy. What this means is that the exhaust stroke is effectively longer than the compression stroke because of the timing of the valves opening and closing. This is aimed at making best use of exploding fuel before it's extracted from the engine. As I remember the discussion, it was concluded that the exhaust stroke is indeed 13 to 1. But the compression stroke after the valves close is actually less than this because of the Atkinson cycle. I got the impression that it's therefore not strictly true to say that it has a compression of 13 to 1, when it's actually the exhaust stroke which is 13 to 1.

On 3/3/2024 at 5:39 PM, appuku10 said:

I was more worried that there is something removed from the hood. I could see some naked nuts on the left of the engine

I don't think there's anything missing. Mine looks exactly the same.

On 1/18/2024 at 12:06 PM, Notamech said:

we have a honda jazz also with summer tyres but that doesn't crab

Maybe an additional factor could be that the Jazz is front wheel drive and the Lexus is rear wheel drive?

15 hours ago, JeffL said:

I am considering the pros and cons of disconnection of our home landline telephone (3 cordless phones).

One factor to consider in giving up the landline, is how reliable the local mobile phone masts are and how good the mobile reception is at your house. We had repeated problems with reception from local masts, while they were doing upgrade work for several weeks.

So, as you may know, the easy solution is to make sure you have Wifi calling available from your mobile phone service provider. This means that if the signal from the local mast is unavailable, the phone automatically switches the call to the internet router in your home. This means you have the convenience of the mobile phone being in your pocket but you also have the reliability of the wired connection to the house. Not 100 percent reliable, of course, but the fibre connection is likely to survive most of the time except for when remote parts of the country are cut off by snow.

11 hours ago, MLW said:

Never jump start a hybrid, the electrics will blow out and cost a fortune. Hybrids work by the 12v battery telling the computer to start the engine. You cannot and must not 'shock' it into action.

It's true to say that you shouldn't attempt to help someone jump start a broken down conventional car from your hybrid Lexus or Toyota. The hybrid 12v electrics aren't designed for the heavy load produced when the conventional car's starter motor draws on the hybrid car's circuitry. Having said that, I seem to remember someone reporting that they had done this without any problems but the possibility of expensive damage is probably too great to take the risk.

By contrast, if your hybrid car's 12v Battery is flat, you can jump start the car from a conventional car in the usual way. The manual describes how to do this and there's a convenient jump lead connection point under the bonnet so that you don't have to connect directly to the Battery.

I was once asked to help someone start a conventional car by jump starting from my hybrid Lexus. I said I couldn't do that but I had a cheap Chinese jump start pack we could use. I connected it up and he tried the starter motor. The starter motor didn't turn but the jump start pack started to smoke and looked as if it was about to burst into flame. I decided not to buy another cheap Chinese jump start pack after that experience.

3 hours ago, Casaubond said:

I am messing with the fans to find an optimal position setting.

There was a thread a couple of years ago (I can't find it at the moment) where a new owner was reporting something similar. It turned out that this driver was trying to adjust the fans to a preferred setting. But the problem he/she had was that when you adjust the fans, their auto speed setting is also turned off. Everything else remains auto but the fans will continue at high speed if that's how they were set earlier.

With climate control set on Auto and the car starting from cold in cold weather, my experience is that there is initially little air coming out of the vents. This is because the air is still cold, even if it's being drawn from inside the car rather than the freezing air outside. But when the engine is warm enough to provide heat (maybe three or four minutes - maybe longer in cold weather) the fans start to speed up to provide warm air to the cabin, including from the face vents.

This continues until the cabin has reached the set temperature. The fans then slow down again and the face vents gradually switch to cooler air. So you then have warm air near your feet and cooler air towards your face.

But if you make any adjustment, the function you've adjusted will no longer be automatic until you reset the Auto button. I find this works fine.  If yours is not doing this when climate control is on Auto and no adjustments have been made manually, then, as you say, there might be a software or sensor problem. Let us know how you get on.

Incidentally, here's the link to the earlier discussion, though this was mainly about demisting.

18 hours ago, yaboyking said:

I do drive the car almost every day, (about 50-100 miles everyday) 

Can anyone tell me, is there a specific 12 v battery I need to replace it or will any do?  I know there is a temperature sensor in the Panasonic battery, what do I do with that?

I would have thought 50 miles a day was plenty of driving to keep a healthy Battery charged. It's also worth remembering that it isn't necessary to drive the car to charge the Battery. It doesn't have an alternator like a conventional car that might produce more electricity if the engine is spinning faster. Instead the 12v Battery is charged from the hybrid Battery and it only needs to be in the Ready state and the gear selector not in Neutral for the 12v Battery to be charged. It makes no difference whether the engine is running or not.

I was asking the same sorts of questions around three years ago but I can't now find the thread. When I was asking about the temperature sensor, I think it was Colin Barber who said the temperature sensor is under the Battery in the frame (Apologies if I've misremembered this.) So there's nothing to actually connect on this model. But there is a tube for the hydrogen vent that should be reconnected to a new Battery, assuming it has a vent. This is to avoid the remote risk of a build-up of hydrogen in the boot area.

19 hours ago, ALAW said:

The steering wheel paddles. Never use them should I. Posted a long time time back about them used for regeneration

19 hours ago, PaulWhitt20 said:

The paddles may be useful if you want to keep a higher “gear” to provide engine braking when going down a long steep hill.

Back in the 1930s, brakes on cars weren't very good. They also suffered from "fade", which meant that if you applied the brakes continuously down a long steep hill, there would come a point when they didn't really work any more! (Or so I was told - fortunately I've never experienced this.) So it was pretty important that you didn't use the brakes continuously. Instead, people would change down a gear or two and use the resistance of the engine to slow down the car a bit and give the brakes a chance to recover.

The habit continued into the 1960s and 1970s when brake linings were beginning to become a lot more effective and less prone to fade. People have continued to use engine braking down hills even though the original reason for it scarcely exists now.

With a Lexus hybrid the situation is different again. When you apply the brakes gently, initially the only braking force comes from the resistance of the motor-generators. Instead of wearing out the brakes, the car generates electricity and stores it in the hybrid Battery. Press the brake pedal a bit more firmly and the actual brakes may come into operation as well. But for day to day gentle driving a lot of slowing down can be achieved from the resistance of the generators as they produce some electricity to save in the Battery. So to regenerate electricity use the brakes.

So what happens when you use the paddles to shift down to a lower gear ratio? As expected, you get some engine braking like on the cars of 80 years ago. But just as 80 years ago this resulted in less brake wear, nowadays in a hybrid it can result in less power being passed to the generator and hence less regeneration, not more.

On 10/21/2023 at 1:06 PM, Paul Brooksbank said:

I've got everything back except DAB tuning, it says "No Signal" which is strange as the pre programmed stations work!

You probably already know this, but the DAB radio can say No Signal if it's out of range of the selected "Ensemble". When this happens, you have to find an Ensemble which is in range. If the pre-sets are working then the No Signal message might be something to do with this.

3 hours ago, boothy said:

Any advice and thoughts welcome 😁

Everyone to their own tastes, of course.

But personally I can't see the point of spending a lot of money on changing the visibility/non-visibility of exhaust pipes. I'd rather spend the money on a holiday in Majorca.

I await the people shouting me down for such an extreme view on a car forum!

On 10/22/2023 at 8:33 PM, David lings said:

l would suggest you have the battery checked for a defective cell but also get your alternator checked and what your parasitic loss is.

Just to clarify, the Lexus/Toyota hybrid system doesn't have an alternator. The 12v Battery is charged from the hybrid Battery whenever the car is in the Ready state. It isn't necessary for the engine to be running, so long as it's in the Ready state. I'm assuming a 2006 GS450h is the hybrid model.

17 hours ago, wharfhouse said:

when put alongside any new car it doesn't look out of place and the lines still flow very nicely

Speaking of lines, I've had mine six years and only just noticed an elegant bodywork feature on the side of the car. There was an IS300h on some drama I was watching on television and for the first time I noticed something that the film lighting managed to clearly highlight.

There's a bodwork line that begins below the front door and rises gently towards the back wheel, leaving space for the word Hybrid below the back door. But what I had never noticed is that the line continues on the other side of the back wheel until it ends just below the rear light cluster.

Maybe I'm the only one who's never noticed this line extension below the light cluster but I can now see that it looks very elegant, swooping all the way from the front door to the back of the car.

18 hours ago, Dells said:

I had to do a 130 mile round trip today and according to the computer I averaged 56mpg so hoping that is somewhere near accurate I will be happy with that although to get a really accurate take I would need to do a tank brim to brim but considering my 1600 Bclass could only manage 40 I am chuffed, as for the sat nav why do they take you one way and back a completely different way, it’s not just Lexus all my Mercs were the same.

Dell

Hope you're enjoying the car - I think you said on another thread that you recently acquired it. I've had mine six years and I'm still very happy with it. Quiet, comfortable, reliable, and the fuel consumption can be pretty good.

However, on the mpg computer, I've found that it's about eight pct optimistic over brim-to-brim fuel measurement. That's to say, typically, if you subtract three or four mpg it'll be close to the real figure. Nonetheless, even 52-53 mpg seems pretty satisfactory for a car of this body and engine size.

The best I've seen was 54.1 mpg over a run of 299 miles and the computer showed 59.5. But that was in August four years ago and as autumn comes the mpg will deteriorate. At the moment, the outside temperature where I am is averaging around 20-22 degrees, so no need for heating, little need for aircon, no lights, heated seats, screen defrost, windscreen wipers etc. But as the weather gets colder, the engine will not stop so often because the car uses the engine heat to warm the cabin. Plus all the other electrical items are ultimately powered from use of the petrol. At worst, I found that one winter, doing repeated four-mile runs that scarcely warmed up the engine before it started to cool down again, I got as low as 29 mpg over the course of a tankful.

More typical over the whole year is around 44 mpg, or 48 on the car computer. I'm happy with that.