jpower

Time flew by yesterday - but today took off the negative left for at least 30 mins, then placed back on.  Went out for a 30 min drive and no messages or errors and all the other electronics are all working (was scared it might cause some other issue) -- not going to celebrate just yet but so far so good. 🤞

1 hour ago, Herbie said:

Under the boot floor on the left side. Got to be worth a try as a first step that costs nothing.

I sincerely hope it's not the aircon debacle come back to bite you on the bum.

Oh gosh not worth thinking about, and I had moved on with my life too 😀  Thanks will try the Battery when I get a minute today.

1 hour ago, NemesisUK said:

Hybrid system must be ready, or the car wouldn't start, it's the hybrid electric motor that spins the engine to start it.

How long are you driving before saying the hybrid system doesn't engage (by which I understand you to mean the car won't go into EV mode)?

Correct it won't go into EV mode.  It actually showed up while I was still parked so came on before I even started driving.

Hiya - so after not using the car for a couple of weeks, last night turned it on and got check hybrid system warning message. 
 This is on rx450h 2011 with 115,000 miles if that makes any difference. 
 

The car drives but engine only mode, hybrid system does not engage. I’ve read as a first course of action worth a shot is to disconnect the negative terminal for 10 minutes or read the code with tech stream which I do not have. I’m tempted to try the Battery terminal disconnect would anyone say that’s a bad idea? If not where is the Battery in the 450?

So is it true to say whether you get universal or the dedicated you are still splicing and even the dedicated is not just plugging into some hidden socket in the boot?

2 hours ago, Gliderpilot said:

You'll find the instructions for the dedicated kit here.

https://www.pfjones.co.uk/pfjoneswiringkits/19670502PF_Lexus_RX450h_RX350_RX270_12-16_7PIN_PF_Jones_Towbar_Electrics.pdf

it may not be of much help.

Your write that is not going to help, its also not for my year of car.  If that's the dedicated it still looks crazy.  I done this install on my X5 and I am sure it was plug and play into one socket.

13 hours ago, Gliderpilot said:

Hi

I've just had one fitted to my 450 and I was advised to get the dedicated kit and when it was fitted I can see why. Yes it cost a bit more but in all it was far easier to fit. the only wire to cut was the one to both rear fog lights as the bypass electronics cuts out the car fog lights when the trailer is fitted. I had the 13 pin unit and the lighting all went through one connector which had a jumper connector to fit between the plug and socket in the car loom. In my opinion the 13 pin connectors a far superior to the old 12N and 12S plugs. I have a paper copy of the instructions for the fitting of the bypass unit which is an all-in-one box which does the lighting bypass, split charging and sound for indicators. Worth the investment I think.

Any chance you can post of a pic of the instructions?

I don't use a trailer, its strictly for carrying bikes so the 12N 7 pin I think is more then adequate for my needs, after spending so much on the towbar already I would love to avoid spending more on the dedicated kit which I have already purchased if I can help it.

Greetings - Today along with the help of my more technical buddy we installed a Westfalia detachable swan neck towbar (pfjones eBay) on my 2011 rx450h and that all seemed to have gone rather well.

Problem I am left with is getting the electrics wired up, I have the the universal bypass relay, but it seems to want me to splice into the wiring for brakes, indicators etc and I really don't want to do that.  I cannot find any instructions on the web so far either.

I wanted to know or assume that there is a plug somewhere in the rx which is used when Lexus install the towbar and if anyone had any clue about the wiring diagram so I know which is which, to be honest any help would be great.  If someone had the install done maybe they know where the electrics were plugged into.

I assume if I am carrying bikes I would need to have a light board and plates plugged in?

Found the option to stop the screen changing, its in General called something like Screen Change on/off.

So this week I was doing a long trip and tried to use the Sat Nav but it forever was placing me in the wrong place, so I have a bad feeling the Sat Nav is suffering the same issues mentioned, sadly I am not on an extended warranty.  I am going to look for this recalibration because it is working but the receiver is putting me in the wrong starting position, fingers and legs crossed.

10 hours ago, Herbie said:

Excellent - so what work was actually done in the end?

Compresser was taken out along with the receiver and expansion vessel. They had a dryer ordered from Lexus. The system was then flushed and the compressor was then cleaned up of any oil, they mentioned the windings looked good and seemed not to have been contaminated as yet. Then was all put back together a new receiver unit was put in. Then dye test, no leaks, followed by gas and oil that should go in the system. That's as detailed as my knowledge goes. 

UPDATE: So the car is back with me, work was all done and I feel a whole lot better.

My latest email from Halfords said that our stores are aware not to recharge Hybrid vehicles.  If any is passing a Halfords and happens to have a spare couple of minutes, it would be quite interesting to see if this is really true at the store level.

2 - Where can Find this hidden menu?

Hey - So I am little bewildered by the screen display hoping folks could help.

1 - By default it seem to always display the map menu - however half the time it has be driving through fields in god only what place, occasionally it is correct.  If I set a navigation course it work perfectly. Why does the default go nuts?

2 - It will never remain on say the Audio screen, is there any way for it to remain on another screen?

3 - Are there any cool tweaks to make the display any better and how do you get the maps updated as mine seem pretty old.

1 minute ago, m4rkw said:

The bank transaction won't have a time recorded against it, just a date. So might be hard to defend when you can't easily prove that the money was sent before they sent that other email.

Got it, however the email trail is easy to follow and the offer I accepted did not have full and final. Going to go with that to be honest I just feel relieved to know my family not going to get a shock on the motorway this summer or the car going to shutdown like a windows 7 machine, because its been bugging the hell out of me.

5 minutes ago, m4rkw said:

@jpower Congrats! I would also push to a written apology for them setting out the facts of what occurred. Beware of agreeing to anything containing the words "full and final settlement" or similar. I know it's unlikely that the compressor may fail as a result, but you want to make sure you've not given your rights away if it happens.

So this part gets a little technical for me.  How it played out was that they made the offer to pay the bill for the repair and asked for bank details, there was no full and final... The proceeding email they sent did say full and final... however I have not responded to that eMail for the same reason as you mention above.  Now I'm thinking you can't say full and final after the fact and you have no correspondence from me agreeing.  Surely that makes it not full and final or am I wrong and my accepting the funds and paying for the repair it becomes implied?

Complicated 💩

So I got a bunch of money transferred into my bank account from so called retailer and have booked in for Monday to get this sorted out. 😀

I will be chasing up with them however if they are going to continue offering this service to Hybrid cars or if they are putting some action into place.

I feel a touch relieved today.

Thank you, very helpful info.  I think I have made some progress directly.

I now have an email from said company quoting what manufacturer told them it starts by saying

Quote

Yes we state our product is not suitable for Hybrid cars.

and includes 

Quote

If a different type of oil makes its way into one of these compressors, and if the insulation on the windings has somehow become damaged or compromised and electrical issues may occur.  The greatest risk is that the oil may conduct high voltage to the compressor case or connected components.

So in my mind that looks like sufficient evidence of admission to liability.

There solution on the other hand looks like a bunch of crap:

Quote

All that needs to be done to this vehicle's AC is for the refrigerant to be recovered, the system vacuumed and fully recharged with R-134a refrigerant and Dielectric compatible oil.

Halfords Autocentres should be able to carry out this for your customer. The cost for should be no more than £100."

I have seeked out technical advise from two very good specialist in the area, one of them being a trade AC specialist.  And they said exactly what I thought doing a vacuum will not get all the oil out, they also think its highly unlikely that the AC compressor is damaged as yet.  The actual proposed cleanup and change of some parts is £750.

Firstly they charge £60 for a regas, I do not see how they could even do the job for £100, nor do I believe they have the right equipment or gas/oil to regas and quite frankly I don't trust them to sort it out.

So hopefully we are now just in an argument about the correct cleanup. Fingers crossed.

Lastly I just want to mention a top top man/business - Steve @ http://www.fullcircleonline.co.uk who I have never done business with, ever, has gone out of his way to advise, get information from other sources, has called me and walked me through all sorts of cases and yet I have not spent 1p with them.  Really restores your faith in humanity.  I will def be using them for my future business, so damn impressed.

21 minutes ago, m4rkw said:

@jpower Since the dealer had the work done on your behalf you may have better luck just making it their problem, tell them you want it sorted properly with paperwork to prove it was done or you'll reject the car.

I suspect if you go down this path what will end up happening is they'll take the hit of you rejecting the car and then simply sell it on to someone else without telling them the AC system has been contaminated. Not great for whoever ends up buying it but at least you'll get your money back.

I don't feel right doing that to be honest, plus the dealer will probably argue as I mentioned above as his machine was broken they left me the option to get it done and reimbursed.  There is no paper trail other then the reimbursement for the regas.

I'm thinking Citizens Advice Bureau and Watchdog as it looks like they will continue to regas hybrids.

Here we go, looks like it's time to get legal involved.  Seems like they want to play stupid saying after investigating the fact the aircon is still working there is no need to correct for potential issues, and if something does happen then to get back in contact with them and they will have an engineer inspect the vechicle. 😡

19 hours ago, Gliderpilot said:

by "self levelling" they mean air suspension, if you've got it you will know, there are no springs visible and there is an adjustment switch low down next to the front door. If you have air suspension then good luck getting a towbar as only the Westfalia detachable bar will fit your model,(this is what Lexus fit) and there are none in the country at the moment. I'm trying to get one for mine from PF Jones but due to a merger or something between Witter and Westfalia there are none available.

You may want to order right now, the detachable has just come back in stock, its more expensive then I thought, with electrics I wanted was coming out at £436 so I am going to wait till the non-detachable swan neck is available think that's about £270

Back to the towbar - me and my friend fitted the towbar on my X5, he kindly offered to do it again, he's more the know how, I'm just the second pair of hands.

How do I know is my rx450h has self levelling suspension? If there something obvious to tell me? As the tower option is different.

Just now, Britprius said:

Jeegnesh the main reasons that I recommend going to the Lexus dealer are twofold.

One while the work is carried out you will get a free loan car, and the work will be guaranteed, by Lexus. 

Two if you go the local £750 AC company, and in a few months the compressor fails Halfords are going to say we have paid once to have the car repaired we are not going to pay again.
The AC company are going to say well we cannot guarantee the compressor because the wrong oil was put in, and the damage was already done we did what we could.

John.

I understand, I have continued to ring Lexus every 30 mins and busy tone every time.  I've also upgraded my ask the specialist has provided me a quote which replaces the compressor as well as the flush and clean.  I will pursue Lexus some more.

Question - I'm afraid I am not in a position where I can not use the car, so keeping fan off/ ac off I assume restricts the catastrophic failure? Can the fan be on and AC off, is that still ok?

I know its not ideal, I just want to know what's the safest approach apart from not driving it.

So here's the complex part.  It was booked in for the dealer to get done, he called up saying his usual place the machine is broken, so I can wait or go to a local place and they would reimburse.  That sounded decent to me as it also saved me a long drive back to them and waiting around.  I asked them can you recommend me any places and he said yes before we used the place we use now, we have always used Halfords.  So you know the rest I went to Halfords asking them is it fine for a Hybrid etc etc.  Then I forwarded the bill to the dealer and they reimbursed by bank account with the funds.  So I believe the issue would then be between me and Halfords.

8 minutes ago, Britprius said:

Jeegnesh I am not trying to alarm you, but this is a serious problem, and even if the nearest dealer is some distance away a phone call to them should be enough for them to give you a price for clearing the system to how it should be. Even if it means replacing every component.

The problem with trying to remove all traces of PAG oil from the system is that there is a large condenser "looks like a radiator" at the front of the car with many small tubes between two tanks from which all traces of the oil must be removed. Similarly hidden deep in the dashboard is another unit "the evaporator" on much the same lines. The oil will have been pumped round the complete system as soon as it was run for the first time.

The only certain way to clean these items is to remove them first, and as far as the compressor goes as has already been said the damage has already started. Having checked the price for this alone I can confirm to you it is £2800 The compressor motor runs at 500 volts double that of your house electrical supply any leakage to ground "the body of the car" is monitored, and will shut down the car completely for safety reasons if or should I say when it occurs.

John.

Thanks not sure I can be alarmed anymore, pretty much expecting the car to explode.

8 minutes ago, m4rkw said:

Is it possible to know with certainty whether it's been damaged or not? If not I would argue with Halfords that they should replace it.

Interesting, this is why forums are good.  I will get a new quote which includes replacement compressor and see where we go.

I hope we are not going to have a heatwave anytime soon.