Herbie

That right there is your problem............^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ A conventional car will have a 12V battery rated at something like 75Ah, quite probably more, to supply 300A plus to the starter motor. Hybrids don't have a starter motor and only take about 20A to 'start' the car, ie, get it into READY mode. This was probably just one of the factors that drove Toyota/Lexus to fit lower capacity batteries of around 45Ah or even just 41Ah in their hybrids. When parked up and unused, there is still a current draw from the battery to feed the alarm, the clock, the radio presets and more. This is called the quiescent current and a figure of around 50mA is considered to be the norm. Plus, all batteries will self-discharge anyway, but we'll leave that out of the mix for now. I don't know what capacity your battery is but we'll use 45Ah for this example and we'll also assume that it's brand new and fully charged. 45Ah means that it can supply 45A for one hour or 22.5A for two hours and so on. 45Ah divided by 50mA (0.05A) = 900 hours or 37.5 days or 5.35 weeks between fully charged and fully discharged. Don't forget though, that for the purposes of starting the car, it will become useless and not be able to provide enough power long before becoming fully discharged. In reality we may be looking at getting 4 to 4.5 weeks maybe? I don't know, it may be even less. And that's for a brand new, fully charged battery. Look at one a couple of years old and the figures may be even lower. So, you either have to use it more or keep a trickle charger on it.

Ours did the same and it was replaced under warranty. I posted about it at the time so you should be able to find it through the search function, although I will say that the search facilities of this board are quite abysmal.

That should not have happened unless you had a service - Relax is triggered by having a service done. In March we bought our 2018 RX, which came with 12-months Lexus Warranty that covers us to March 2022. On the same day we picked up our car I also completed the paperwork and started monthly payments on a 2-year 'traditional' Lexus Extended Warranty that we've all been used to for a few years now, and that comes into effect when the dealer warranty expires in March 2022. So, between the dealer warranty and our 'traditional' Extended Warranty, we're covered until March 2024. I have not asked for a refund and I have no intention of giving up our 'proper' warranty in favour of Relax, which is a vastly inferior product. The screenshot below is from the Lexus UK official Facebook page:

Gear selector in Park and foot on brake?

Absolutely brilliant news Piers, welcome back my friend.

Just apply gentle brakes and the regen system will charge the traction battery to full quite quickly. Once the battery can accept no more charge the hybrid system will then use MG1 to spin the engine but without fuel or spark, so that it just becomes a big load for the motor to turn to use up the excess electricity. I suppose you can think of it as 'engine braking on steroids'.

Lay down with your head looking up behind the glove box in the passenger footwell. I'm almost certain it's there.

That's true, but if I needed to I would fight that tooth and nail under the 'Reasonable Expectation' clause that I believe gives us up to 6 years.

They do, for now. The government wanted a total changeover to DAB long before now and, if I remember correctly, they were going to turn off FM when something like 51% of the population had changed. I'm not sure what the figures stand at now but it's a typical government project that is questionable at best and very poorly implemented. As it stands, DAB is a very, very poor substitute for FM. It could be equal and even better than FM if the bitrate was sufficiently high but as usual, our penny-pinching government want to squeeze us until we squeak and they've divided the spectrum up into such small channels (so that they have more to sell) that sufficiently high bitrates can't be achieved. I hope FM will be around for quite some time, but who knows?

Yes, it's the Lexus Paradox. People are attracted to the brand in no small part due to their reputation for reliability, and then they buy a warranty because they worry if it'll be unreliable. I'm personally guilty of this, not so much because I'm worried about the reliability per se, but just because spare parts are so expensive if they're ever needed. For instance, if a LED or two fail in the headlamp unit they can't be individually replaced. The whole unit is sealed and has to be replaced as a whole unit, for around £1,000. A Multimedia head unit is about £3,000. Both of those items were covered under the previous 'Extended Warranty' but not under Relax, hence why folks are miffed, to say the least. Does anyone know if individual parts of a car qualify for the 'Reasonable Expectation' clause or whatever it may be, of the Sale of Goods Act (or again, whatever it might be)? What I mean is, taking LED headlamps as an example, LED life-span is measured in thousands of hours of continuous use, with 10,000 or 15,000 hours being documented as about 'the norm'. If we say they may be illuminated for 4-hours per day, that's a lifespan of 3,750 days or 10.27 years (using 15k hours as the ref). Hmm, that may not be a brilliant example after all but consider the multimedia head unit at £3,000. If I spent £3,000 on a TV I could have a reasonable expectation of it lasting for more than 6 years, irrespective of any warranty/extended warranty on it. Or maybe I'm just blabbering about something of which I have very little knowledge

Then prepare to be amazed at how much they charge for it!

Just sent you a PM that may help you Graham.

You just need to use a bit more force. It's a job that literally takes just a minute to do and batteries can be bought in strips of five for a fiver or less from places like http://cpc.co.uk

Hmm.... What if you lose the spare key and all you've then got is the key with the flat battery that's been waiting in the drawer until the car's ready to be serviced?

Are you sure the battery was charged? Usually the fast clicking is solenoid chatter. There's enough power in the battery to energise the solenoid coil but when the contacts pull in to pass power to the starter motor the battery voltage drops like a stone and the contacts drop out. As soon as the starter motor is disconnected the battery voltage climbs again and the whole process is repeated, hence the rapid clicking.

You are indeed sir, just like us. We never wanted kids at all, so we're doing our bit too

Not harsh at all my friend, and just my own personal opinion. However, it has been the societal norm for many, many years for the sequence to be - born > school > work > get married > have kids When I was born in 1958 world population was 2,925,686,705. Now in 2020 (latest figures) it's 7,794,798,739. Source We just cannot carry on like that because the planet has finite space and finite resources. I wouldn't worry about it. From what I've read it seems to me that it's not an immediate effect but a long-term thing that attacks the rubber hoses/seals rather than any direct effect on the engine. If you use half that tank and fill up again with proper stuff to dilute it, it should be fine - I think 🤞

What's ruining the planet most is overpopulation; too many people for too few resources. A friend of mine is proud that she has 16 grandchildren and 6 great-grandchildren. I don't think that it's anything to be proud of at all. We can't just keep squirting sprogs out at the current rate of knots.

They should be stored as historic codes if you're curious.

Have a look at my thread here. At this point, I was very hopeful but I have to say that I'm disappointed with it. I'll try to find the post where I detail why I'm disappointed so keep watching this thread of yours BUT, having said that I made a discovery just yesterday that MAY make things better - I'll elaborate on that when I have more time and done some more experimentation.

That's because that type of car and the engine in it are made to handle that type of fuel. It would make no difference in something like a Nissan Micra or a 1.1-litre Fiesta.

If you want to keep the manufacturer warranty I would imagine that you'll have to stick to the manufacturer service schedule.

If the car isn't used regularly for decent runs the 12V battery will soon go flat and if it goes too low for too long then it goes to battery heaven. Hybrids don't have starter motors* (or alternators) so instead of the battery needing to supply 300A or more to crank the engine, all it has to do is to boot the computers to get the hybrid system into READY mode and a couple of other things, which is a process that takes about 20A instead of about 300A. This was probably one of the factors that led Toyota/Lexus to only specify small capacity 12V batteries of maybe 45Ah instead of the 75Ah and above that you'd normally see. *When the hybrid system wants to run the petrol engine it energises MG1 to spin the engine up to 1,000rpm before applying fuel and a spark to ignite it.

Well done Piers, glad you're all sorted. Fingers crossed for a good result 🤞

Colin summed up Android Auto/Apple CarPlay quite well above but just to add to that: Although my AA device isn't working well, one aspect of it that does is voice commands using the Google Assistant. All I need to do is to say "Hey Google" and it's in listening mode. "Open Waze" and it does. "Navigate to number 4 Dunstal Field Cottenham" and it just simply sets up the route and then I have the choice of using or avoiding motorways and all the usual stuff. No dramas, no stress, it just does it and I can be off driving before I would have finished inputting the address into the Lexus system. Unfortunately for me, the problem is that Waze then freezes within a couple of miles but I know that's down to the particular unit I have, along with other problems. If I can ever get it working properly it'll be excellent. Google Assistant is worlds apart from the Lexus voice commands. Last time I tried Lexus I said, "Call Pete Fairclough" and it replied, "Dialling 493. If this is correct blah blah." What??? With GA, "Call Pete Fairclough" > "Calling Pete Fairclough" and again, no stress or drama. AA/CP can also do Spotify, Amazon Music and so on, but also Internet Radio with thousands and thousands of stations. As we've toured around Poland, Czechia and other places we've discovered various excellent stations and it's great to get them in the car here, although this does use mobile data of course.