fabben

I don't do a lot of driving in these conditions but when I've been out and about (fresh show - night time black ice) The 400h has never given me a problem. The yellow warning light only flashes now and again to let me know that there's no traction - but that's only for a brief moment. When everyone is staying on the gritted main roads, with massive congestion, I just go through the "back doubles" on ungritted roads, up and down hills. The only problems I have had is getting stuck behind someone else on a hill. Even starting on a hill, going up it, has been fine. I've had no real issues driving in snow and ice. Obviously in these conditions I drive more cautiously but I don't use "B" anymore that I usually do. So I have nothing but praise for the 400h's handling.

My mission was to replace the head phones that came with the car with a cheaper alternative. I've got two young boys that have managed to pulverize the headphones in less than 3 years and I expect these replacements to go the same way. But the ICE system is great solution for those of us with kids and long journeys so my search for replacements began. My search went as far as ebay. There's loads of IR headphones and they all seem to work over the same IR frequency range. The pair I found cost £11.12 each and that included P&P (I made a mistake in my previous post - P&P was free). They were sent from Hong Kong by a company called SinoITproducts. It took around three weeks (over the Christmas period) before they arrived but they weren't boxed, just bubble wrapped in a jiffy bag. below are the details that were on the ebay listing

A little sad answering my own post but I managed to get a pair of these, £11.12 each plus P&P. I added the two AAA batteries to each headphone and they just worked flawlessly. I didn't realise how cheap they would be. :) But how long they last well that's a different matter.

I've got a 2007 RX400h, I've got ICE installed, I've got kids. Letting the kids watch dvd's on long journeys is perfect combination. However the Lexus branded headphones have become a bit tatty. The leatherette covering around the earpiece have completely worn (not the best quality in the world). So I'm after replacement headphones. Does anyone know if there are any alternatives to the Lexus supplied ones? Or do I have go with Lexus, which I know will be expensive and end up tatty in two or three years time.

I did subscribe to Lexus Online, but they were using my old email address. I went onto their web site but couldn't see how to change it, so I unsubscribed, with the idea of re-subscribing but using my new email address. After 15 minutes of getting nowhere, I thought I check here. And see if anyone has managed this quest.

I was in the car, in the garage, setting up my wife's new mobile phone. I switched the electrics on, because I was only going to be 5 minutes but I always find these bluetooth things a bit fiddly and I started messing with phone books and stuff. Then everything went off, except for the headlights. "Oh dear," I thought (or something along those lines), I forgot the headlights had been on the whole time. I started trying to fully start the car. The panel lights would blink then I'd get a red square with an exclamation mark in the middle. I tried a few times but nothing. I went inside the house to get the phone number for the RAC, my wife keeps the little credit card in her purse. Ten minutes later got back to the car, gave it one final try before I called the RAC - then it started. Immediately, I checked the trip info and the battery had lots of blue bars. I then set off for a quick drive around the block. Now I had all green bars and the car has been fine every since. I just thought I'd like to share this with everyone.

In the good times, an RX400 normally had around a 3 month delivery time, I know you could get them quicker than that if you weren't fussy about the colour or spec. But I'm curious, in this climate, whether the new model is flying of the shelf or if the dealers are having problems drumming up any interest in them?

I've always used the "B" position to to help with my braking. What I've found over the last six months is that this is having less and less a affect. So now it's almost of no use, there's just a slight sensation the the car is slowing. My question is how does the "B" position work in practice, can it loosen up over time and just require some adjustment. Or is it suggesting something more serious is happening in the automatic transmission. The RX400h is almost two years old and is due it's second service at the end of May.

Proud of you, keep it up. (As the actress said to the Bishop) That's really good. Is the driving mainly on the flat? What is the mileage on your car i.e. how nicely has everything bedded in now? I took my RX350 to Holland a couple of weeks ago and was getting 29 mpg - because the roads are flat! At home in hilly Yorkshire, economy was killed back down to 23 mpg. In contrast, I am currently getting 31-34 mpg on the same roads in the new RX400h. Type of roads makes a big difference, as does driving style. And that goes for any car. Oxford to London is fairly flat, just gentle hills (no mountains in sight). The car is almost 2 years old and it's done around 13,000 miles. My wife just drives to get from point A to point B - she normally gets in the mid to high twenties. Which is still a big improvement over the RX300, where she averaged around 18mpg.

On a family day out to Oxford, I managed to get 40mpg on the trip home to London. This was 60 miles, avoiding motorways. This is two year old, "07", RX400h and I'm very pleased. Admittedly you have to be light on the pedal. But I imagine there's a benefit here as well - your not straining the engine, which should reduce ware and tare. 40mpg is rare but I'm normally get around 35mpg and above.

Here's some pics or the Westfalia detachable towbar (model 335305) and my bike rack an Atera Strada 3 Below is the back of the RX400 with no towbar attached - note: no holes in the bumper Next, remove the plastic cover and insert towbar until it clicks. The red circular thing on the end is the key used remove it. nice focus on the tyre but I was trying to show the electrical connector which pivots downwards when required On goes the bike rack And on go the bikes This is quite neat, the bike rack slides away on an arc. So instead of dropping down, and taking the whole weight of the bikes it's a fairly painless exercise. also there's plently of room to get to the boot. The last one shows my two kids bikes in place. I managed to get them in the boot (once) but it was almost impossible. That's why I decided the time was right to get a bike rack. This prompted me to get a bike as well, which is what the third slot is for. Hope you find the pictures useful

I recently got mine installed on my RX400h by a company in Potters Bar, Hertfordshire. It's a Westfalia detachable type, it took two hours to fit and cost £585. Which is £400 cheaper than the best Lexus quote I received.

Went to my local bike shop and asked if they could recommend any independent tow-bar fitters. They came up with two. One of them will fit a tow-bar for £509 but a small hole has to be made in the bumper. But the spare wheel will still fit (I checked that) The other will fit a tow-bar for £585 but this one requires no hole in the bumper. So both these independents will fit for almost half of what a Lexus garage will charge (no surprise there). But what did surprise me is that one of the independents actually does the work for one of the Lexus garages. That's £400 for booking the car in and giving it a quick valet service on its return.

I've been contacting a few Lexus dealers and fitting a removable tow bar is around the £1000 mark. Seems very expensive to me but is that what I should expect to pay? I also found a web site called "Just Tow" They will give a quote for the tow bar/car model combination. But they're asking what type of electrics I want (I haven't a clue). Does it make any difference for bike racks? The choices are; 1. 12n Single Electrics 2. 12n/12s Twin Electrics 3.13 Pin Electrics Also has anyone every tried the "strap-on" bike racks. I know the plastic spoiler on the tail gate would get in the way. But maybe there's a version were any straps would come away horizontally from the top of the tail gate (just a thought) Fabben

Thanks for spotting my error Vadre, it saved me making a costly mistake. Reading through the posts I got the impression that only fixed tow bars were fitted by Lexus. But I'm pleased that that's not the case.

Hi It's been a while since I last posted, I've been looking around the forum for bike rack options for my RX400h. I don't want a rack on the roof, which seems to point me in the direction of a tow bar solution. Ideally I would like a detachable tow bar fitted by Lexus but it seems that they only fit fixed tow bars. I wouldn't be happy with a non Lexus solution in case a third party messed up the electronics. And I don't like the thought of having a tow bar sticking permanently out the back. Then I came across link Thurle Vehicle Guide It mentions that the RX300 can use a clip-on rack, models 9104 or 9106. Now I know it mentions the RX300 and not the RX400h but I'm sure that the back of both models is the same. So have I found a really cheap solution? or is it to good to be true?

Is it my imagination or are there more RX400h/RS300’s around. I live in north London, and on our shopping trips and days out we see a lot of RX’s everywhere. Now I know being an RX driver makes me acutely aware of other RX’s but there does seem to be a lot of them around. The most common seem to be RX400h’s in black. I just wondered if anyone one else noticed this trend?

Hi Jon, So it's about a 5k a year drop on an RX spec car. That is until the new version RX is launched in about 18 months time, I imagine that event will easily knock another few thousand off. Fabben ps Nasser at Lexus Twickenham is a great guy to deal with (this should help him when he negotiates his next pay rise) :)

I picked up my new RX400h SE-L from Lexus Twickenham on Thursday 31May07. Transaction went nice and smooth, because I owned an RX300 previously most of the controls were already familiar. I love the way it drives, it’s much more responsive than the RX300 and quieter. It’s quieter in the back too, the DVD at the back for my six year and three old, sees to that. The SatNav, reversing camera and screen graphics up-the-anti over the RX300. Not quite sure about the “consumption” screen though, those 5 minute blocks, do they represent discrete 5 minute blocks or are the cumulative? We’re getting around 28/32 mpg at the moment, which 10mpg over the RX300. But I’m missing the “miles to go” estimator that I had with the 300, which gave a good indication of when I really needed to fill up. I tried to transfer some phone numbers from phone to car. My phone (an O2 XDA mini) only allows one number at a time which is a bit of a nuisance. But because it’s a PDA as well I managed to get some software that allows you to select phone numbers by category and send these as a block, via Bluetooth. Perfect! Not quite I enter my numbers into my XDA with embedded blanks. When I transfer these I just got the first number block transferred. (so 020 1234 5678 will transfer just the 020 part). Reading through some of the posts here, I thought there might be a remote garage door opener but there isn’t, or least I haven’t found it yet. There was some big threads last year regarding setting Satnav and dialing while on the move and that this might be available sometime in 2007. Again I haven’t found it. Also the instruction manual mentions an overhead sunglasses holder, it was the same in the RX300 manual. But neither cars have this. I tried the hidden options, the ODO and seat belt trick didn’t work. But I did manage to get into the secret menu with the “menu/info” and sidelight on/off combo. But this menu looked quite dangerous to me, I had visions of disabling the car, best left alone I think. So overall I’m delighted with my RX400h, I got it almost within two weeks for £42k, a £4k saving over the list price. They took my RX300 for £18,300, £35k from new, that’s quite frightening how much it depreciated over three years. But I suppose that’s something you have to accept when you want all the new toys? Fabben

As you might have gathered I'm selling my RX300 to get a new RX400h. In the past I would have gone via the "Trade-in" route, driven in with the old car and drive out with the new one. But I'm lead to believe that this is throwing money away. The mid point between what the dealer buys at and what he sells for, is about 2k. (he buys for 18k and sells for 22k) So I'm thinking I could get an extra 2k by cutting out the middle-man. I've tried this forum but there's been no interest, which is understandable as it's a "Lexus OWNERS club". I'm reluctant to use via ebay/auto-trader, as I've heard about the scams and one that happened to a friend of mine. And then there's the eternal time wasters, and those that try to find faults everywhere to reduce the price. So what I'm asking is, "is there an alternative to just trading it in"? Have other members found an alternative sales channel when selling? What experiences do you have. ps. I've got 8 days before I have to use my "trade-in" fall back option (that's when I pick up my new RX400h) Fabben

RX400h SE-L update emailed about 18 dealerships and asked for then to match "drivethedeal" on the road price if 41k. I found that you have to be careful as if you contact Lexus Edgware Road and Lexus Croydon, then you effectively contacting the same dealership, which in this case would be Jemca. So my emails went to seperate underlying dealerships. Of the 18, 11 replied 3 said yes, 2 said no,1 went over by 400 pounds. All quoted about 8-9 week delivery times. I decided to go for 42k price as they had my colour combo in stock and unregistered, I'll pick it up at the end on the month, 31MAY07. And I got the boot liner for nothing but not the 3 years service. So overall quite pleased with my 8.39% discount. The only downside is my "04" RX300 SE isn't generating any interest on here. I'm not confident about selling on ebay or auto-trader. So that leaves the dealers trade in price of 18k, which I think is quite low. But I suppose you can't have everything Fabben

Is the 3-4 weeks correct with "drivethedeal" Lexus are quoting 12-14 weeks. Can "drivethedeal" get them quicker?

Has anyone tried one of these? http://www.talex.co.uk/talexlite/ It's a device about the size of a pack of playing cards that sites on the dash. It retails for about £90 and it knows where all the speed cameras are and (I think) it knows what the speed limit is on a given road. You get a warning as you approach a spee camera. I was thinking of getting one and placing it on the right hand side of the dash and fixing it's power cord under the steering wheel and into the power socket (in between the driver and passenger seats). But now I'm a bit worried about fowling the airbags. Especially as the the RX300 manual mentions the words airbag and death in the same sentence, several times. Any thoughts? Fabben

If they have full order book for Hybrids (which I don't doubt) how can anyone get a discount, given the laws of supply and demand? I just check "driveTheDeal" and they're still offering a £4,711 saving on an 400h SE-L. If I try the same thing for an 2.0litre Audi TT (also with a 3 month waiting list) the saving is a mere £24.75. just curious

My wife's giving signs that she's beginning to see the light, it looks like the RX400h is now a favorite. But watching the pennies I just wanted to ask if anyone knows if the boot liner from my current RX300 be transferred to a RX400h? Fabben