Herbie

Usually it's simply physical dimensions and/or terminal orientation that prevents the use of an aftermarket battery. If you can get one that fits in the tray, can be clamped securely and with correct terminal positions then great, fill your boots, because it makes absolutely no difference electrically. EDIT: One other aspect is if the battery has a vent tube connected because if it has, then the new one will need to have vents so that you can change the tube over. EDIT 2: I keep a jump start battery pack in the glove box 'just in case'. Any of these would be perfect for the job and I highly recommend that you get one.

As Paul says above, you most likely need a new 12V battery, not least because it's dropped as low as 5V. They don't like being so deeply discharged and each time it happens it causes some slight damage resulting in a small loss of capacity. When you get your new one make sure to use the car more or, at least once a week, run the car in READY mode for about 60 minutes. The engine will cycle on/off and charge up the 12V battery. The other (and probably best) option is to keep a trickle charger connected to it, because these batteries are small and have a much lower capacity than other 12V batteries.

Welcome to the club Nic, looking forward to seeing the photos when you get them.

Hello Paul and welcome to the club. We're a generally likeable bunch in here so never be frightened of asking questions. As a wise man once said, "The only stupid question is the one not asked". Hope you get better soon mate, sounds like you're having a rough time of it.

There's a 'master switch' in the driver's switch panel - have you accidentally switched/unswitched this maybe?

With the greatest of respect Ronnie, I think your post may be filling Zuby with apprehension when there really is no reason to worry and you also seem to be a bit confused about how jump starting works. First of all, you may be correct in that the car may have stood for more than 3 months, but it doesn't matter because the 12V battery would be flat well before then anyway, thus necessitating the 500 mile recalibration for the hybrid health check no matter what. Secondly, you talk about jump starting a Lexus and how it may cause problems and that's why you have a Noco GB40 that connects to the dedicated jump start terminal in the engine bay fuse box. Well, (a) jump starting a Lexus is perfectly fine, doesn't cause any problems, and is just like jump starting any other car; and (b) a Noco GB40 is a jump start battery pack. Whether you use that or a traditional set of jump leads with another car as the donor power source, the process is still jump starting; and (c) whether you use the dedicated terminal in the engine bay fuse box or connect directly to the battery it doesn't matter; 12V is 12V no matter where it's coming from. When jump starting all you're doing is piggy-backing one good 12V source onto a bad 12V source. No offence meant Ronnie, just felt I should post this for clarification.

Yes, that's right. You'll find that the 12V battery will quickly lose its charge if the car isn't used regularly because they're small and only have a low capacity, but the high voltage traction battery is very robust with many of them going to 250 or 300,000 miles and beyond.

It's nothing to worry about Zuby, and it's nothing to do with jump starting it either. It's simply how the hybrid system works. Having been stood for so long the traction battery wouldn't be flat but all the measurable parameters will have lost their settings and such like. The 500 miles is needed to reset and recalibrate the system and to let the battery cells balance and normalize as they should. If the dealer was to carry out the health check now, the readings would be meaningless.

As Linas says, check that the DC/DC converter is outputting about 14.5V for a start, because this is what runs the 12V systems and also charges the battery. Next you need to check the battery itself. Charge it overnight at least so that it is as fully charged as it can be. You then need to have it load tested. A multimeter will only give an indication of the state of charge as it is and it could show, say, 12.5V. However, once a load is applied that voltage may drop like a stone if there's a bad cell, which is why you need to have it load tested. Next step, now that we know we're working with things that are good, we can start looking for a parasitic draw. Items such as the clock, the radio presets, the seat memory and so on need to be alive and working, even if it's 3am and both you and the car are fast asleep. This current draw is generally accepted to be 'normal' at around 50mA or 0.05A to 60mA or 0.06A. If it's much more than that then you have a parasitic draw and the video below shows you the best way to go about finding it.

The way hybrids work is that the 12V battery boots the computers, pressurises the brakes and gets the car into READY mode. At that point the hybrid system is fully functional (charging the 12V battery and running 12V systems) and you could drive away in EV mode alone, but you'd only get a mile or so, if that, before the hybrid system needs the petrol engine to run. Like a conventional car, the 12V battery is only for starting and once the car has started, the alternator (or for hybrids, the DC/DC converter) takes over control of the 12V systems. When the petrol engine is needed the hybrid system energises MG1 (Motor/Generator 1) and uses it to spin it up the engine to 1,000 rpm before applying petrol and a spark to fire it. Given that, I would think it's just an unusual set of circumstances that caused the behaviour you witnessed but nothing to worry about.

That won't be it. The hybrids don't have an alternator and the 12V battery is charged by the traction battery via a DC/DC converter, which also feeds the 12V systems such as lights, radio, wipers etc., etc., and it's very rare to have a faulty converter. Read the OBD codes to see if ther's any clue there.

It may be a problem with extraction. I've used 7-zip for many, many years and it's brilliant, so I'd be inclined to download that from https://7-zip.org/ and try extracting the package with that as a first move.

There's a few circuits involved here so you need to get a wiring diagram and see if/where these circuits have common points. It'll probably be a loose/dirty connection on the earth (ground) side somewhere, but you'll need the wiring diagrams to find the locations of the joints. If you look here https://www.lexus-tech.eu/Menu/Repair you can legitimately buy a block of time (something like €5/day, €10/week) to access the wiring diagrams and you can also print as many pages as you want/need while you have access.

Take that TALOS unit off and see if there's any label behind it.

The infotainment systems have long-been the Achilles' Heel for Lexus so one of the first things I did when I bought my 2018 RX was to buy a Grom Vline2 for it. It's not perfect by any means but it's close and I can now keep what bit of hair I have left instead of losing it in frustration. Example 1 Lexus system Me: Call Caz Home Lexus: Calling Dentist Me: NO, dial Caz Home Lexus: Dialling 0612 This repeats three or four times until I give up! Example 2 Lexus system Me: Navigate to M33 4FP Lexus: Twiddles thumbs and says, "I don't understand that" Me: Oh I give up! Example 2 Grom with Android Auto or just native Grom Me: Call Caz Home Google Assistant: Calling Caz Home Caz answers Example 2 Grom with Android Auto or just native Grom Me: Open Waze Google Assistant: Opening Waze Me (when Waze is open): Navigate to M33 4FP Waze: M33 4FP, OK lets go. And that's it, no problems at all.

My nextdoor neighbour is 92 and the cheapest we could find for his little runaround was £1,500 because of his age. No accidents, full NCB etc., etc., still got all his marbles, plays two rounds of golf every week and bowling too. Nothing against him except his age.

The stupid thing is, there's really no need for all this data mining and probing to give us "a smoother quote journey" at all. Although we don't buy based on cost all the time, most of us, if offered a decent and reasonable quote, would stay loyal to x, y, or z company. It's when we feel we're being ripped off that we feel the need to go elsewhere and start another "quote journey" with some other company.

Being as you've already had it done, if you get past the next 6 months without problems then you'll know they used the correct oil. If you start seeing the 'Check Hybrid System' message on the instrument panel and you get P0AA6 when you read the OBD codes, you'll know the likely culprit and where to start looking. Glad you've got it sorted though and fingers crossed for you my friend.

Ultimately, it doesn't matter. As long as it has the correct terminal positions, will physically fit (including clamping arrangements) in the tray, and is powerful enough in both Ah rating* and Cold Cranking Amps, then any battery from any manufacturer will do (although there are still bad, good and better, so you still need to do your homework, but you get my drift). *Ah rating is the capacity of the battery so although you can go lower, why would you want to; and if a higher capacity will fit, go for it. If you have a specialist battery shop in your area then I'd recommend going there. Here in Preston we have Longton Battery Services and the guys who work there are very knowledgeable and helpful, so if you have a similar shop in your area give thema try.

Yes you can and someone on here did a write-up when they did theirs but I can't remember who did it. Try using the (awful) search facility on the forum and good luck.

From what I've read in here, as soon as you say it's a hybrid they'll run a mile and say that they don't deal with hybrids. However, if they do and if they say it needs regassing, make absolutely sure that they know to use ND11 oil instead of the PAG oil that conventional cars use. The refrigerant gas is the same but the lubricating oil has to be ND11 or equivalent, which is a high dielectric oil that doesn't conduct electricity. As I said above, the compressor is driven by an electric motor and the windings of that motor sit in the oil for cooling purposes. PAG oil will damage the windings and result in insulation resistance breakdown, allowing the 500V to track to earth, which in the case of hybrid cars is the car body. There are inbuilt safety measures to avoid the body becoming live but if something were to go wrong.....

This is why RX premiums have jumped up! This is the first time a Lexus car has been on the 'stolen/recovered' list but to enter at No.6 is very worrying!

I don't think I've needed to do this since my apprenticeship but, if I'm right, I (current) = P (Watts) / V (Voltage) P (4.8W) divided by V (12V) = 400mA If everything is alright with the car we can say that the quiescent current draw is nominally 50mA. So in theory, you're pushing more into the battery than is coming out, so yes, it should do. Given that I completed my apprenticeship in 1978 and only worked as an electrician for two years after that (rest of my career was as a telephone engineer with BT) I've probably got something wildly wrong but there you go.

Seconded. Pass in a manual and you automatically get to drive autos too, but not the other way round.

Not really a strange world - all you have to do is to accept that all insurance companies, utility companies and so on are out to bleed us until we squeak! When I first started driving in 1975 a "fully comprehensive" policy was just that; everything you needed in one easy-to-arrange package. Now, if you want X you have to pay for it; "You want Y sir? That will be an extra [sticks finger in mouth then holds it up to see wind direction] £85 sir" I don't want to meet the Grim Reaper for a while yet, but let's just say that I'm glad I'm on the last bus to his place because this world is going to Hades in a handbasket on all fronts.