john2k

So generally pushing it back and forth a few meters is safe?

Question: A IS250 Automatic, is it safe to put it in Neutral by using the shift lock button and push and roll it if the car is turned off? I remember reading something about towing a rear wheel drive and that the rear wheels apparently shouldn't be free spinning when towing and hence apparently when you tow a rear wheel drive, the car has to be towed with the rear elevated and only the front wheels free-spinning. Can anyone explain why exactly that is? Because of this towing rule, it got me thinking does that mean you can't roll and push the car when its off and in Neutral too?

I'm also thinking MPX or gateway ecu. Where is the MPX system? does it have an ECU? The sort stuff that's malfunctioning is mirror adusters, lock/unlock, indicators and hazard, lights, dome light not working at all (only reading LED's work), start button backlight, boot not opening. And usually when wipers are turned on if i turn car off the wipers have always just stoppped where they are when i turn off the car. Now they dont stop.

Thank you all for all the suggestions. I've been busy past few days with this trying to figure out what is happening. I've checked the main ground point from the battery to the chassis and it's solid with no corrosion. The ground point under the airbox was a bit rusty so i cleaned that but it made no difference. @Linas.Pthanks for that illustration. I checked all 4 of those interior ground points (2 by the centre console and 1 on passenger side and one on driver side) I also unplugged every connector in the junction boxes and inspected the pins for any corrosion. Everything is solid with no corrosion whatsoever. Now I am back to the drawing board as to what is going on. The engine runs good and I able to drive. It seems anything to do with body control electronics is all playing up. Sometimes the lights, sometimes the telescopic tilt steering, sometimes the hazards, some times the windows and locks. If I open and close the door sometimes I can hear as if the car is trying to unlock the lock even though it's already unlocked. When I turned the lights on, this does not show on the cluster. But when I open the door it shows. But some times it will show the door is open even though i've closed it. I've got access to the repair manual witht he diagrams but now hit a brick wall as to what else to try.

Thanks for your reply. I did disconnect the battery and wait and that did not help. The techstream does connect to the combination meter on my friends IS250. So definately communucation issue with those ECU's. There are no warnings on the dash and as mentioned when i turn lights on, it doesnt even show on the cluster. Battery is brand new and the alternator is good. Not to mention the problem happens even with car being turned off so the alternator is not in play. So car turned off, I unlock it and sometimes it doesnt and eventually it does, then i toggle the stalk and the lights sometimes turn on and sometimes dont. I have to keep toggling it. When it does turn on, it doesn't show on the dash. Sometimes it shows on the dash for a split second and disappears.

My 2008 IS250 with 70K miles has developed a really odd electrical fault. It was perfectly fine one minute then next everything started acting up. When I toggle the headlight stalk on and off, the relay doesn't always kick in and i have to repeateadly toggle the stalk then eventuall it turns on. When it turns on, the cluster doesn't register it as on. The door locks dont always work. I have to keep locking and unlocking. The telescopic steering tilt is also intermittent. The high beams are intermittent too. The dome light doesnt come on either. Sometimes when I fiddle with the door pressure switch by pressing it back and forth then it triggers something to work. I checked all the fuses LH and RH in the interior. I also checked the ones in the engine bay. I checked the ground points that are visually visible at the top of the engine bay and all are good. I purchased techstream to try and see any error codes. I can connect to the body ECU and there are no faults stored there. However, I cannot seem to connect to the combination meter or the gateway. I'm hoping it's just a ground connection issue somewhere. But i've checked the ones on the top on the engine bay. Is there any particualr ones I should be checking? Has anyone had this sort of problem? would really appreciate some help. I thought these Japanese cars are supposed to be bulletproof when it comes to electrics. Right now this is behaving like a french car with electrics from the nineties