Jon Evans

If possible, remove them and see if they turn when you operate the switches.

Are you positive that both motors have seized? It could be the mechanism and the motors might be fine.

@Scribe maybe the problem lies somewhere else in the electrical system - one of the earth points, or corrosion in the fuse box(es)

Get yourself a cheap multimeter to definitively find out whether or not the Battery is dead in the future. They are less than a tenner and will show you the actual voltage you're getting at the Battery terminals. You could also look into getting a car Battery tester, I bought a JDiag BT300 for about £35 from amazon. This will give you an indication of Battery capacity.

2 hours ago, steve2006 said:

Arr the smell from the Feu Orange

Feu Orange! That's a brand name I'd completely forgotten.

On 11/9/2023 at 1:20 PM, Jon Evans said:

 

• £263 for an earth strap from the transmission to the car body

I fixed this yesterday and it only cost me £5.29 (but I also spent £53 on a pair of ramps and some wheel chocks).

I've just had the windscreen removed and refitted. It should hopefully fix a small water leak I had which was causing the A-pillar trim to get wet, and general dampness in the car. I asked the guys to let me know when the roof gutter rails were removed if there were any broken clips, and it turned out there were loads, and quite a few missing completely. When they finished they said they had spares so they replaced them all. Result!

The windscreen adhesive primer had deteriorated and they could see loads of places where water was getting in - but also said it's not done too bad as they are currently refitting loads of screens on cars that are less than 3 years old.

I had to agree to have the whole screen replaced if it got damaged during the work because they couldn't guarantee it (£624), however they managed to refit it without breaking it so it was only £216. So I still have a genuine Lexus screen. The only non-original part is the rubber seal at the top of the screen, but it looks like factory to me.

I used Express Windscreens and I'm very happy with the service.

@chrali all of your images are broken for me. If I right-click and "open image in new tab" it takes me to a Google login, and if I log in I just get a grey no entry sign.

I fixed it this weekend. The top of that piece of plastic has two small clips which fit into a metal piece in the door. It looks like someone has been into the door before and they just pushed the trim piece in, which bent one of the clips. I was able to straighten it and it seems to work fine now.

You do have to remove a lot of other door trim to get there though:

1. Unclip the plastic behind the inside door release lever to reveal a screw
2. prise out the window switch / ashtray to reveal another screw (unplug the switch)
3. remove those two screws and one under the inside door handle
4. pop out the door card - lots of plastic clips around the edge. Hope you have some spares!
5. unscrew the screw in the round bumper on the plastic section on the side of the door and then remove that plastic (more clips)
6. pop out two plastic clips and remove the plastic trim that goes all around the window frame
7. Pull out the plastic piece near the b pillar - two clips into the door, double sided tape, and the two tiny clips on the top edge
8. clean everything and remove the remains of the double sided tape from that part, and (for me) straighten the plastic clip on the top edge
9. replace the double sided tape
10. put the trim piece back, top edge first
11. put everything else back in reverse order 

Thanks @ambermarine - with the wind and drizzle I haven't had the opportunity to have a go yet, but I'm hopeful for the weekend.

can anybody tell me how to remove and refit the plastic trim piece on the front edge of the rear door? The one on the right rear door on mine doesn’t seem to be clipped in properly, and consequently it’s started to wear through the paint on the car body.

There doesn't seem to be any signs of it being caused by a leak, so either it's caused by condensation at some point over the last 15 years, or someone spilled something in that seat. In the photo one of the rubber drain plugs looks really rusty, it turned out to be an old 1p. The only other debris was a rusty paperclip.

This weekend I removed one of the rear seats so I could get the C pillar trim out to route the cable for my rear dashcam. I could do with suggestions on what to do with surface rust inside the car. Treat it with something, or just ignore it? I have some Dinitrol left so I might spray it with that before I put the seat base back again.

Thanks! I’ve been trying to crack the code for weeks.
I’ve been seriously considering buying the set of workshop manuals from eBay, but they are ridiculously expensive ☹️

It seems to be a very well made unit. It's a "Tracker VLU6 Locate". It has a (very dead) lithium Battery pack. When connected to my bench PSU it draws ~60mA when active and ~15-20mA in standby (when only the permanent supply cable is connected).

I have an LS600h/600hL wiring diagram PDF purchased on the web, which has three distinct sections with codes EM05B5E, EM2472E, and EM2751E. Does anyone know what the codes refer to? More to the point, how do I find out which model I have? The info plate on the B pillar of my car doesn't have anything resembling those numbers.

All three sections contain very similar information (e.g. they all have sections for LHD / RHD / Before Nov. 2009, From Nov. 2009, From Sep. 2012 etc.) so the sections aren't split by production date. Maybe something to do with the region the car was built for, like Japan / EU / USA? I have found some minor differences between the sections so it's not just duplicated 3 times.

Searching the numbers online just finds other sites selling the same PDF.

I’ve finished work for today now. Car Battery is still disconnected, front passenger seat is in our hallway.

i removed the tracker. To deal with the broken pin I’ve just soldered a new wire between the two halves of the plug. Access is virtually impossible so it’s a bit of a bodge. I think the whole dash would have to come out to fix it properly.

Anyway, the front dashcam is in, and the wiring is routed down the A pillar. I've routed the rear dashcam cable as far as the rear door, next job is (I think) removing the rear passenger seat (ottoman) so I can remove the door trim up to the C pillar. There’s a rattle coming from that area so I want to do that anyway.

@Newbie777 that looks like a GPS antenna to me.

Looks like they tapped into the power in the roof wiring, upstream from the wiring harness connector. It's drawn more current than the connector was designed for, so one of the pins broke off as soon as I moved it. What a pain. I'll have to get some new pins from Lexus.

Looks like a tracker! Under the carpet beneath the front passenger seat. Also I think I have found a water leak. 

I mentioned this in one of my other posts, but I finally got round to dismantling some of the interior today to hard wire my dash cam. I took some photos showing the mysterious wiring. I haven't identified where it goes yet.

Heading down the left A pillar are thick red and blue wires, and a thin black/white wire.

Near the passenger distribution block there's a new black wire bolted to a chassis earth point, and the blue wire becomes orange via a bullet connector. There's also a thicker black wire coming from under the passenger carpet and heading up to the dashboard but it seems to disappear somewhere under the left dash speaker and doesn't continue up the A pillar.

Under the front left door threshold plate there are a set of 5 wires disappearing under the carpet towards the front passenger seat with a very tight bend radius, looking very non-Lexus.

I've run out of light now but I'm unsure how to proceed. I'll need to disconnect the Battery for the next steps due to the airbags, but I think I'm going to remove the passenger knee airbag and glovebox and see if I can see anything aftermarket installed there. I also suspect I might have to remove the passenger seat to see where the wiring from the door threshold goes, and the centre console to see if any of the other wires go there.

Best guess: an old tracking system.

In other news, I sold my Mini Clubman this morning so the LS is now my only car!

No whiny noises in my LS600h either...

I did over 700 miles in the LS this weekend with no coolant loss. What a mystery. I assume there must have been an air lock previously? I'll keep an eye on it but it's a big weight off my mind.

On 11/12/2023 at 1:10 PM, Newbie777 said:

What year and mileage has your car done?

It's a 2008 model and it's done about 190k miles. The usage pattern isn't what you'd think though. More on this below.

When I was trying to work out what to buy, I made the deliberate choice to buy at the cheaper end of the market and not worry too much about the mileage as long as it wasn't galactic. My thinking was, why buy an old car for £15k with low miles, when due to its age I'll probably end up replacing most of the suspension anyway - I might as well spend less on the car if I'm going to do that anyway.

It's kind of a project car for me. As long as it looked like it was in good condition I thought it would be OK. I believe at the moment that is the case. The underneath of the car looks good and the interior is spotless. The sunroof was a bit of a surprise though, wish I'd tested that before I bought it.

Anyway, it was registered in May 2008. At its first MOT in 2011 it had done 140k miles. 2012: 156k.

After that it does less than 10k miles per year until 2018 when suddenly it does less than 300 miles between 2018 and 2021. The two MOTs after that show it doing about 1800 miles a year.

So, it's done loads of miles but it was back to the dealer for a service about every 2 or 3 months for the first 4 years.

My budgeting for the car involved selling my existing car, which so far I haven't done - so the big spending will have to stop for a while till I recoup some money from that!

I work from home so really it's a weekend car for travelling and sightseeing. During lockdown my wife and I came up with a project to have a weekend away in every city in the UK, and so far we've done about 25. None since getting the Lexus though.

I got the car back yesterday, so in total they had it for just about a whole week. Wednesday morning to Tuesday lunchtime.

I booked it in for the full service and sunroof replacement, but when they sent the booking-in email (a link to a form on their website) I added the following items:

• please return the original sunroof back to me
• air conditioning regas (I wasn't convinced it was done right by my local garage)
• please investigate a slow loss of coolant

I'll put the full timeline here, there are a few anomalies:

17:10 on Wednesday I thought I would call so I could pay for it before they brought it back. They told me that they'd done the full service and replaced the sunroof, but their safety inspection had thrown up a few issues that needed urgent attention. This was the stuff related to the exhaust brackets, loose heat shield, and missing earth strap

It was too late to deal with them by the time I digested the info so I asked them to call me in the morning

First thing Thursday they phoned and we discussed the report - I approved the replacement of the missing and rusty brackets, and an "engine block test" for the coolant leak because they hadn't been able to spot anywhere where the coolant might be going. They said they'd have to order parts, so I wouldn't get the car back until Friday.

Friday afternoon they phoned to say that some of the parts hadn't arrived, so I wouldn't get the car back until Monday.

On Monday at about 4pm I called them for an update and was told that everything was done and they were just preparing the invoice, and they were about to call me once that was done. They said they'd email it to me and then call me back ASAP.

Monday 16:30 they called me to say they'd had a last minute disaster, they needed to order some replacement bolts that they were having a problem with, but not for the exhaust, for the sunroof. I was told that this was done on the previous Wednesday. Maybe the service manager inspected it and deemed it unacceptable. From the invoice it was the 4 bolts that attach the sunroof to the mechanism. Anyway, they said I would get the car back the next day.

Tuesday (yesterday) they called me in the morning to say it was all done, and I got the car delivered back to me around lunchtime.

They were unable to do a Hybrid Health Check because they said it had a stored code for a low 12v Battery, and they can't do a health check until it's been driven at least 500 miles since the codes are cleared. So I've got to go back at some point for that. They also didn't return the old sunroof but they assure me it's been kept in a secure place for me to pick up when I'm in for the health check. They did actually offer to get someone to drop it off at my house.

My plans with the sunroof are just to take detailed measurements to see if there would have been any possibility of fitting the rubber seal from one of the other Lexus models. Other than that, maybe I can get a few quid for it on eBay.

I took it for a ~40 mile drive yesterday evening and it's running well, and there didn't seem to be any drop in the coolant level. Obviously I'll keep an eye on it because 40 miles isn't all that far.

This weekend I'm driving to Glasgow and back so that will be a good test! I have a 5 litre bottle of coolant in the boot just in case. I'll probably do the best part of 750 miles from Friday to Sunday.

3 hours ago, GMB said:

Could have had a tracker fitted at some point?

Possibly. I have the car back, as of yesterday - I'll put an update in my other post tonight. The Lexus dealer had it for a whole week!