Delphius1

Funnily enough it was the hills of Devon and Cornwall that showed up the deficiencies of E10 with mine. Filled up with E10 (first fill with it) to go on holiday and thought something was wrong as the cruise control tried to wring the neck of the engine getting up hills on the A30.

Almost redlined it on some of the steeper ones. 

Those supposedly more gentle hand car washing places can actually be quite aggressive due to over-zealous jetwashing inches from the bodywork.  I'd guess the pressure from the jetwash has got past the rear wiper seal.

I now avoid them because I had one jetwash my wheels on a previous car and destroy the rubber seals on the caliper slider pins.

I've also seen them jetwash the lacquer off paint. 😮

I prefer to wash the car myself then I only have me to blame. Plus my wheels are so scabby if they jetwashed them like they usually do I'd have no paint left on them.

Cruise control only uses engine or regen braking when going downhill, it normally doesn't apply the brakes. 

On steep hills the car may exceed the set cruise control speed.

If it's a regular route you are taking, then maybe selecting more aggressive regen braking would help slow the car down more and also help charge the hybrid Battery up more. 

Of course if the hybrid Battery is fully charged I don't know if the regen braking is reduced or disabled, which may be part of your issue.

I've also noted a drop in MPG and a drop in performance. Hills that the car would have easily crested dropping down a gear took at least another drop in gear to get up. Not impressed with how the car reacts to E10 at all. But then the fuel could have been in storage waiting for release and could have gone off a bit.

I've gone to super-unleaded for a while. I might try E10 once things have stabilised and the fuel that has been sat months waiting for a release date has been used up.

The conspiracy theory is the fuel crisis was created to do just that: use up the stock that has been sat months and is close to being unusable. 

I'd be inclined to ask why he can't ask a colleague to drive the car while he monitors live data from the two sensors to pinpoint the faulty one. Surely if they are faulty they will give wildly inaccurate outputs, or no outputs at all.  From the live data you should be able to determine which is the guilty sensor. The Lexus technical database should have details on pinpointing which is the faulty one.

Unloading the parts cannon at the car isn't very professional. And not cheap given Lexus dealer prices.

With a dealer you're paying over the odds supposedly for superior knowledge when it comes to the cars and that superior knowledge base should be able to supply instructions on how to determine which of the two sensors is faulty.

Or so you'd think.

My 2005 RX300 is now worth at least £500-£1000 more than I paid for it. The first time I've had a car appreciate in value while I've owned it.

I've had plenty that appreciated after I sold them however. I call it "The Clarkson Effect"

On 9/21/2021 at 4:01 PM, Herbie said:

That's true, and it sounds so trivial doesn't it?

In reality, it's been shown that as little as 1% contamination with the wrong oil can cause damage running into thousands of pounds.

I think this is the reason why some places specifically refuse to do hybrids. Ideally they should have two machines, one specifically for hybrids and the other one for non-hybrids, in order to prevent cross-contamination but I suspect that the cost of said machines is high and small places just can't afford two.

There's going to be an increasing number of Hybrids and fully electric vehicles on the road using the same technology and the same lubricating oil, so at some point the garages will have to cater for them. 

It's a bit short sighted to refuse to service hybrids or electric cars. I'm surprised there aren't more garages springing up to cater for them specifically.

I took advantage of the £35 Groupon offer of a recharge at ATS Euromaster. It's about the cheapest offer I could find.

I've had ice-cold aircon ever since they recharged it. I'm very happy. 

Not sure it includes Hybrids, but could be worth checking out. Just read the small print. The only difference is the lubricating oil.

I've had variable results with E10 so far. First fill, the engine was gutless, the second fill at a different station was lots better, but still not as powerful as previous E5 95RON.

I put it down to fuel being stored for months before the switch-over and the fuel going stale.

My advice to anyone looking to purchase an RX300 on a tight budget is to avoid the SE-L. It's not a case of if, but when you replace the air struts. 

I sought out the SE-Nav option instead: proper springs but you still get the reversing camera and the (16-year old so well out of date) sat-nav. 

The only things I've replaced are suspension bushes, drop links, disks and pads. I do need to get a handle on the subframe corrosion soon. But all relatively cheap things to DIY if you are able.

23 hours ago, b4u2 said:

Does anyone know of an air conditioning specialist in or near Manchester? 

If you just need a regas, then the £35 Groupon offer with ATS Euromaster is a pretty good deal. They vacuum the system and if they detect leaks they don't proceed with the regas.  ATS is all over the country so you should have a local branch.

If you need something more complicated, then unfortunately I can't answer your question.

On 8/9/2021 at 10:19 PM, m4rkw said:

Ethanol has 33% less energy than petrol so you're losing about 3.3% of your mileage with E10 and thus burning more fuel overall.

I'm somewhat skeptical that this is going to make a significant difference to the carbon problem. Seems much more like an easy way for Bojo&co to say "look what we're doing".

It'll also make old cars obsolete quicker, so you'll have to consume a newer car sooner than you would have without the fuel being changed.

Most of the solutions to this "environmental catastrophe" seems to be "consume more, newer products" which to me seems to create more CO2 than if we just kept running our reliable old cars. Of course the option is never to stop consuming or consume less. Also, electric cars don't run on pixie dust and unicorn droppings: there's a coal or gas fired, CO2-belching power station providing the electrons to charge your electric ever-so-righteous-mobile, so they are never the pious proposal owners delude themselves they are.

At least the hybrids harness kinetic energy that otherwise would be wasted. They do save CO2 emissions over time. But just ignore the toxic lakes produced by the lithium mines... 

I get roughly 200 miles out of 40 litres of petrol. MPG averages between 22-26 depending on the amount of dual-carriageway I do. Normal mixed driving to work I get usually around 23mpg but a couple of days doing 10 miles up the motorway to pick the Mrs up from work and it goes up to 26mpg.

The thing to remember with the RX is it's a big lump, so there's lots of inertia. If you take your foot off the throttle it shouldn't slow down much and keep rolling for quite a way. Learning to take your foot off the gas well before a junction will increase your mpg. 

One thing I've found is that accelerating, no matter how feather-footed you are, gets you roughly the same mpg. Doesn't matter if you floor it and get up to speed quickly or lightly press the throttle and take longer to get up to speed, it seems to work out the same.

Using the car's weight seems to be the key to better mileage, which makes sense because on the overrun, when you shut the throttle and coast up to a junction the injectors stop pumping fuel into the cylinders. The longer you do that for, the more fuel you save.

I had the same problem but thought the cost of the pipe was a bit excessive, so I bypassed it and fitted hoses direct from the transmission to the oil cooler. 

A bit tight as there's very little space around the connections. Probably why Lexus had the steel pipes on the crossmember, for easy assembly at the factory.

From the button by the cigar lighter it looks like it's an SE-L model with the air suspension. You are hopefully familiar with the pitfalls of the air suspension on the earlier RX's and the expense of replacements should they go wrong? If not, do have a look as paying £700 a corner for new shocks and/or a new compressor unit isn't for the fainthearted especially on an older car. 

Prices of old RX's seem to be firming up a bit (what I call the Scotty Kilmer effect) although other YouTubers Like Matt at High Peak Autos have praised the RX's virtues as well. Maybe you could call it the YouTube Halo effect.

I paid £2500 for my RX with just over 100K miles back in 2018. But it seems the going rate now is £3000 or more for a similar car. It depends if you are happy to pay the premium for a car with lower miles.

If you doo look at it, make sure the suspension hasn't deflated when you first see it, the tyres are all matching and evenly worn, the handbrake works and all the electric bits do what they are supposed to do like the reversing camera and electric tailgate and the aircon is cold.

For anyone wanting the roof bars but missed out, it looks like Aldi are doing a motoring special buy with roof bars and roof boxes this Thursday (20th May).

They're branded XS (Aldi's own motoring brand) but look the same as the Lidl ones. They have 120cm and 135cm roof bars available.

Thanks for the heads up, I bought a set today. They fit my RX fine.

The downside is the missus is planning more tip runs with large items now. ☹️

On 4/20/2021 at 10:58 AM, Dylanlewis2000 said:

It's strange why they are targeting some and not others. The problem is it kind of gives them a bad name. 

The thing is, some cats have a bigger matrix inside than others and so they are correspondingly worth more to the scrap man. If the scrap value of one cat is £20 and another is £250 then the thieves are obviously going to target the cars with higher value cats. The rumour is that earlier Hybrid models had higher levels of one of the rare metals, so that's why hybrids are getting targeted. Obviously petrol models with bigger cats are also among the main targets.

Aluminium aircon parts can become porous or gain micro-cracks with age and it's not unusual for aircon systems to lose a little gas especially over several years. A re-gas may well enable the system to regain frosty-cold air again for a few more years. It probably won't last as long as it did from new, but it should give the system a few years of life.

Of course if the system has taken a shorter amount of time to lose it's ability to cool the air, then a more obvious leak would be the prime suspect.

My current most hated car at the moment is the Rolls Royce Cullinan:

Sorry, I meant the Cullinan. It's a bit too easy to mix them up. Why would you spend so much money on a car that looks like a taxi? Surely the designers looked at and realised? 

I ordered a cabin air filter for my Rx300 from this link: Blue Print Blueprint Interior Air Cabin Activated Carbon Filter ADT32512 5050063325126 | eBay

I was expecting a BluePrint filter like last time, but got a Champion one sent instead. Still happy, it fits and works fine.

You can get FM transmitters that receive Bluetooth from the phone and then broadcast the music on an FM frequency. All you have to do is tune your tuner to that FM frequency to receive the music signal. Once upon a time they used to be illegal, but have been legal since 2006.

Usually the units plug into the 12v lighter socket and once set up are pretty easy to use. No messy wires. 

There are loads of different ones available in the online sites like eBay and amazon. Some also take and make calls, some also provide USB charging ports.

A search for car Bluetooth FM transmitter will show you how many options there are. 

Or alternatively a Bluetooth cassette module that is slotted into the cassette unit and converts Bluetooth to cassette audio. But the wireless ones run off batteries and only last so long.

19 hours ago, rich1068 said:

I ended up getting one of these for a particularly tricky filter. As you know by now it's idiots over tightening.

I started using the same removal tool, then I found K&N oil filters that have a hex on the end. Hallelujah!

Hi,

Once you open the driver's door with the key manually, if the alarm sounds, then you put the key in the ignition and switch the ignition on to silence it. 

Then it's down to finding out which Battery is flat: the keyfob Battery or the car Battery. 

The security system will detect your key in the ignition is the correct key. That part of the key doesn't rely on the fob Battery.

7 hours ago, elche286 said:

Drive way, jack Russell - wife who seems to hear if touch a beer can after midnight.

 

Gone - no-one heard a thing. Look how straight the cuts are.

Not the 1st one me thinks

Oh and until I could get an aftermarket CAT TGS in Stockport saved my life by manufacturing custom temporary join. Thanks Danny and the team at TGS

Ashton, Stockport, looks like the thieves like to travel! It's scary that people are roaming the streets looking for likely targets. 

I think I need to act on my suggestion a few months ago of wrapping the cat in Razor wire! That way the tealeaf will earn his money if he nicks the cat and the Police can get a DNA sample from the blood left at the scene. lol.