Why did Lexus allow school kids to design the battery charging contacts/layout on 2012 Lexus RX450H? In fact, come to think of it, given the complete mess they made of the old RX450 12v battery set up, you would think that they would have done a far far better job with the 450H. Have you ever looked at the positive and negative terminals for charging a flat 12v battery under the hood? You could not fit a child’s hand into the terminal location in fuse box and certainly no crocodile clips of any use would fit. An absolutely useless design and a disgrace. Your only real option is to go direct to the battery by lifting the boot floor. Naturally if you do get a flat 12v battery (and you will) the boot door will not open, especially in the case of automatic door, but I suspect all of them too. Boot door Can’t be opened because erm, the battery is flat!. You have to put down the seats and get inside and muck about with a screwdriver to manually flip a lever to get the boot door to open.
When you look at the overall sophistication of today’s Lexus’s with their HUD’s and everything else, you really do wonder why Lexus can’t get the basics right. In fact (in my humble opinion) all well made cars today, should have a 12v battery diagnosis system built in, output right on your dash, so you know when one of the most vital components of your machine requires attention. Give me something useful like that and you can take away 10 of the other electronics heavy features that are unnecessary or typically totally useless.
This is my first Lexus from new. Only 76k done and it’s been reliable, except the radar sensor system died at 68k and since I don’t need it, I couldn’t be bothered wasting the money on what I’m sure would be an expensive fix. I expect 100k minimum from any system a manufacturer sells me as part of their driving experience.
I, like most of you, quietly chalk everything up from the ownership experience overall and it carries great weight on my next buying decision. This is not our main vehicle, but I have to say that Lexus hasn’t been quite the luxury experience I had hoped for.
vent over, but experience deeply ingrained in the old grey matter.
🙂
