Herbie

I seriously doubt that a remap would be possible and probably even less desirable, but someone with more knowledge than me will hopefully enlighten both of us. Hybrids get their best economy in town driving, where the hybrid side can do its job. On a long motorway run it really just becomes a 'normal' petrol-engined car dragging around a big heavy battery or at least that's been my experience up to now. Again, someone may come along and tell us otherwise and that's fair enough - I'm always willing to learn.

That is utter rubbish. The hybrid system has got nothing to do with the audio system whatsoever but the HV side can be completely isolated from the car anyway by pulling the plug and putting the hybrid system into service mode. They obviously either have too much money and don't need new customers or they haven't got a clue and it's perhaps better that they aren't let loose on the car anyway.

Because they cut out too much light when driving in actual darkness - two candles would be brighter!

I've got Goodyear Vector 4Seasons Gen 2s on my 2013 RX450h Advance and they are excellent. Definitely not cheap at about £180 each but really, REALLY good tyres.

Sorry Ian, I don't know about the sun/moonroof. I've never had a 400h so I never really researched into them very much. To be honest, although almost all of my cars have had a sun or moon roof, including our current one, I don't particularly like them and never use them, preferring instead to use the climate control all year round.

Good point Lee, you may well be right there.

Now I never knew that! Takes a bit of the fun out of it though doesn't it? When you figure things out for yourself and make a nice neat job of it, you've got a sense of achievement at the end of the job rather than just working Lego-like and putting things together

Because they must automatically go off when you switch on either the side/tail lights or the headlights, so a couple of relays is the way to do it, just like this guy did here:

Just use a multimeter to check which fuses are dead with ignition off and live when it's switched on, then use a piggy-back fuse connector on it. Did you get the relays in with the DRLs or did you have to buy them separately?

To do a proper check you need a heavy discharge tester really. A starter motor in a 'normal' non-hybrid car draws about 300A so the heavy discharge tester checks to see if the battery can provide that for about 20 to 30 seconds without the voltage dropping below 10V. As it's been a very long time since I did anything like this I would take those figures with a pinch of salt but you'll get the gist of it - have the battery properly tested by an auto-electrician.

Sadly not, not directly anyway. Bluetooth works for phone calls but not for music, but there are various adapters and aftermarket units out there to allow you to plug in an iPod etc., etc., it's just a matter of how much money you want to throw at it. Now that we have a 450h rather than the 300, thankfully it works straight from the factory. Just a final point about your cam belt - if you let Lexus do it, the price they give you is purely to replace the belt; they don't include the idler/tensioner/pulley so you have to pay extra if you want those changed as well. Most independent garages I've used in the past tend to replace the lot and buy in the new parts as a kit.

This looks a decent one although there may be something newer out there now

Forget the integrated satnav and stick with your TomTom - the integrated ones are very clunky, outdated and very, very poor compared to the TomTom. I think your satnav will be the same as my old 2005 RX300 in the sense that the maps are DVD-based, so no way to input your own POIs, speed cam warnings, or anything else. You can't even input a full UK postcode when trying to plot a route. Again, I'm not familiar with the engine in that model but it sounds like it does have a cam belt rather than a chain, so I strongly suggest that you also have the water pump replaced at the same time as the belt. The reason for this is that a lot of cars, the RX300 included, have the water pump situated in the same area as the belt. Just plucking a figure out of the air as an example, if replacing the belt costs £350 then changing the water pump at the same time will add maybe £50 to the bill. However, if you have it done later, replacing the pump could cost you another £300 on its own because almost all the work done to change the belt will have to be done again to change the pump.

Never had to use him myself but I'd give a '+1' for Richard, or maybe there's someone else closer to you. Anyway, here's a short video from Richard himself:

You're talking about a completely different thing there - the dim-dip system. It was outlawed by the EU which is why you no longer see it in use. I seem to remember reading that it wasn't very efficient or good for the bulbs as they only placed a resistor in the circuit to dim the bulbs, which meant that they didn't run at their designed temperature and caused problems.

I don't think so. There's a posting somewhere on these forums that contains the text of a letter from Lexus UK stating that the beam patter is flat and doesn't kick up to the left, therefore no adjustment to headlamps is necessary. However, you definitely switch off the AFS system, which moves the lights left/right as you turn the steering wheel.

Great job, well done Mark.

Ok, I only managed two broken hours of sleep last night so I'm not performing at my best and I'm willing to accept that it's me being thick here but, if I understand correctly, you want to make the sidelights come on with the ignition and then tee into that to power a couple of lights under the bonnet (for working in the engine bay?) and then a couple of W5W bulbs in the headlights? In a word - no. The sidelights and headlights are monitored by the CANBUS system and any more or less load than the system expects to see will cause problems there. I've never had a GS450h so I don't know the lights but I doubt you'll be able to modify any of the existing lights other than maybe the indicators like Sorcerer did with his RX300 above. If you don't want to or can't modify the indicators like he did then I think your only option is to find a place to install aftermarket DRLs. Any DRLs will require an ignition-fed power source and a relay or two for the switching. I can draw out a circuit diagram for you, showing you how to connect the relays etc., and it's a simple enough job to do.

Beautiful car, well done Jonathan!

Yeah, the RX300 was the same. I got the guy who did the LPG conversion to change the plugs at the same time, knowing that he'd be doing a lot of dismantling

Can you do it again please Barry, as a proper tutorial with step-by-step instructions and lots of photos? Seriously though, good job, well done. I've always enjoyed working on my own cars and you do get a fuzzy feeling inside knowing that you've achieved something.

Yeah but, if I understand you correctly then, all you've done is to replace the incandescent bulb with an LED so effectively they aren't DRLs are they - you're just driving around with your fog lights on. That in itself is an offence as they're only meant to be used in fog or falling snow. No offence Lee, but if you're going to do a job you might as well do it properly

Be aware that if you do this though, you must make sure that you have measures in place to switch the DRLs off automatically when the side/tail and/or headlights are switched on. It would not be legal to work solely on the manual 'fog light' switch and your own remembering to turn them off - you could easily forget.

The above is taken from https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/daytime-running-lights/daytime-running-lights

I don't know what would be involved in doing that but maybe an alternative is to use switchback LEDs in the indicators if possible, just like this RX300: