Cicoria

Update: Of course since I started monitoring the engine, the sound never happened again, even today that the temperature were very cold, so I asked the mechanic chief when he was servicing my car and he told me that it could be something related to the injection in the heating phase because I told him that it's a temporary sound and not always present especially when the engine is under load, however there are no errors per ECU scan and he told me to monitor the car regardless even though everything should be ok.

Yes, I will too because next week I'm going there to swap the wheels with the summer tires but I have zero hopes because every time I ask something technical to the mechanics, all they say is "if there are no errors after the ECU scan, then the car is fine". Things like these make me happy that I lease every modern car since years. If issues should arise after the warranty is expired, that won't be a problem of mine.

Thank you for the reply and, yes, all the engines from the dynamic force family have D4S. I tried recording the engine today but the noise didn’t appear, so I wasn’t lucky. I didn’t clock it too, however today I turned the car on and listened for 2-3 minutes to no avail, all was normal, then I drove for a very little distance before stopping (1.6 km) and according to Lexus Link I drove for 50% of the distance in EV and the remaining distance on petrol for a whopping consumption of 16,1 L/100 km. 🫣 Since this small travel lasted in total 10 minutes, I estimate that the heating cycle before the petrol engine could be able to shut off was circa 5 minutes or so. I had other hybrid Lexus cars but this NX fires the engine on a lot of time even if I drive it for 20-30 km and park it for less than an hour, when I get back to drive home the engine turns on even if the heat outside is hot like today while other hybrids always stayed in EV. It could be interesting to see indeed if this behaviour is something related to the plug-in system or if it has something to do with this engine. The battery was 98% today, so it could assist at any time.

Sorry, my bad I meant S1 or stage 1 (of the heating cycle). S1 is when the engine is cold and it’s what happens when you turn on the hybrid system the first time in the day, the car starts in EV mode and as soon as you push the selector to switch to HV mode the gasoline engine awakes. In this stage the power to move the wheels is drawn from the battery at low speed while the engine heats and goes through all the remaining cycles —> S2 —> S3 until it reaches the fully operational hybrid level of S4, that means the system reached the desired operational temperature, which is also dependent on the Euro X compliance level of the engine. If I recall correctly for our cars it should be 65ºC and probably the bigger the engine, the slower the stages because there’s more to heat.

@stepppy it definitely last longer than 1 second, for instance it happened at least after 2 minutes after turning the engine on and having driven up the garage ramp. Maybe has this something to do with the imho excessive S4 heating cycle of the engine? I recently tried a Corolla 1.8 a friend of mine bought and his cold start heating cycle lasted maybe 1-2 minutes in total then the engine turned off, just like my previous UX did with its 2.0 engine, but unlike my current NX which has a way lot longer cycle, it lasts several minutes and never understood why it took so long. Well, as soon as I have an audio record I will update.

I tried blipping the accelerator to start the engine but the noise doesn’t appear, the engine runs smooth, probably it has to do with the rising engine rpm during the heating cycle. Is it even possible to accelerate the engine from P position like you would in a standard car in order to increase the rpm?

Yes, of course it is, however since the dealership is 45 minutes away from where I live (all highway beyond the EV range) I asked here first because since it’s a cold start related phenomenon I wouldn’t be able to replicate it when I get there with warmed up engine. I can try calling them and sending the audio when I record it when they’re opened during the week as soon as I can, but maybe it’s something normal and somebody here experienced it.

It happened two times already but I don't know when it started because I've been using my car in EV mode exclusively for the last month, however when I cold start the car in hybrid mode, during the heating cycle of the engine I hear a rattling/ticking noise which is "mechanical", it reminds me either of a belt or valve train, however it comes from the side of the engine right about where the right wheel is. I'm not 100% sure of the location because both times I didn't have time to open the bonnet and check, but I will do when I can and hopefully record the sound. No errors from the dashboard or weir behavior from the car, it's just that noise and apparently it goes away when I drive. What could it be? The car is 9 months old.

And then again, what's the point of stating in the user manual that a full battery charge (0-100%) will take 2 hours and a half at a constant peak charging power of 6.6 KW when it's clear that the car doesn't allow the battery to be completely drained in the first place? The actual battery capacity we're allowed to use is 12.67 kW/h, therefore it would take less time to perform a full charge (30-100%). With that said, yesterday I took the car and driving in the parking lot at very low speed decreased the range of 2 km, even driving in city only I've never been able to achieve the "89-98 km" of official EV range Lexus quote for city driving scenario, so at this point I don't care anymore and will just top the fuel/battery whenever I can. Thank God I have a plug-in car and not a fully electric car, really, because I'd have sold it after 2 weeks because of the range anxiety. It's always amazing to me how Toyota and Lexus seems to genuinely hate their customer base, between s*** like this and the app Lexus Link which has been horrible since the day they released it (literally open the app store on your phone and check the reviews under the app because 98% of them are insults and rants), I wonder how the entire world's journalists can still call Lexus a luxury brand, and I say this as a long time customer...

I have a question. As I understood, the battery can't go < 30% so when it reaches that point the car switches to HV mode. I charged the battery to 100% and it showed 65 km (40 miles) of total range with an AVG consumption that in the meantime has reached 5.1 kW/h, I actually drove for that amount of predicted miles and now in car I see 3 notches of charge on the dashboard and from Lexus Link+ (which is a garbage app) I see 39% of residual charge with a predicted range of just 3.3 km (2 miles). Is this correct or the car is underestimating the figure? I usually drive 10 km (6 miles) with 10% charge. The way Lexus cars calculate the estimated range is still a mistery to me after years.

Update: I refueled and added 15L of petrol to completely fill it so the 74% tank figure before refueling was correct because there were 40L of petrol left. In the end, it's the predicted range that is not to be trusted.

Thank you for your reply. I almost never use pure EV mode, however I noticed that it doesn't matter if I achieve 5L/100 km or 8L/100 km fuel consumption, the range only goes down and more than the kilometers I have driven, that's why it's so irritating and misleading. I've never experienced something like this on any other manufacturer cars, it has to be said. I would definitely enjoy my car more if there wasn't this source of pointless stress. I'll soon refuel because I have a 340 km trip tomorrow and currenty my range is 480 km with 74% of the tank...let's see how many liters I'll have to pump in until the tank is full.

Hello everyone, I have my NX 450h+ since late october and as of today I've put on her 4500 km. My previous car was an UX 250h which I bought in 2019 and sold for the new NX because I needed more space, it was a very good car with low fuel consumption but the interior space was not acceptable sadly considered the size so eventually I had to buy a bigger model. So, since I'm used to the previous UX I can say that I'm familiar with Lexus cars and ecosystem (the new infotainment is WAY better that the old one) and while so far I'm rather happy with the NX, I'm bothered by two things: the random estimations for the electric and petrol range and the excessive time the car spend with the petrol engine running (compared to the UX). I need to hear from other owners if this behavior is normal for this car/model because the dealer and Lexus have been royally useless (I'm outside the UK). The range problem consists in the car horrifically underestimating the range I can get with the residual EV charge and petrol in the tank and this makes me nervous because I get low range figures when I have a lot of fuel in the tank, despite the average consumption of 16,5 km/L (38-39 mpg). Every time I take the car, say that I drive for 15-20 km and the range goes down 60 km which is 3x more than the distance I traveled, but the thing that makes me mad is when I start with a full tank or so after resetting the avg consumption from the screen. One day I took the car from the garage with the total range estimate at 690 km (included the EV range of 15 km) and I drove the car for a round trip of 340 km (211 miles) for a total consumption of 14 km/L (33 mpg) and when I parked the car in the evening the dashboard and the app said that the residual range was 180 km. The day after I drove the car again for another 40 km (25 miles) total with a way lower fuel consumption than the day before, because I didn't drove on the highway, and still I parked the car with a residual range of 120 km (74 miles). Now the fun part: the day after I went to the petrol station to refuel and to my surprise I added 35 liters (7.7 gallons) because I still had 20 liters in the tank (4.4 gallons)! The same happens with estimated EV range, because right now with 50% of battery left I have an estimated range of 15 km (9.3 miles) and I've never ever been able to drive for the official figure of at least 70 km (44 miles), although I have to admit that I rarely charge the car because I can't do it in my garage (long story short: ordered a 350h but it was delayed to late 2024 with all the other 350h Luxury models and had to swap it for a 450h+ Luxury because otherwise I would've been without car after 1 year of waiting). It's clear that there's something software wise that is acting up even though the dealer says that there are no errors and tried to reset "something" the last time I went there to collect the second key. Also, another thing that I noticed is that compared to the previous UX 250h, this NX keeps the petrol engine on a lot of time more even when the engine is at the right temperature after a highway trip, it's easy to turn it on even with bland accelerations. This translated is short trips, like 8-9 km to the supermarket, with a fuel consumption of 12 km/L (28 mpg) which goes down to 16,5 km/L (39 mpg) for the return trip on the same road, but then again if I take Lexus Link and watch both travels I see that the EV % usage is almost identical (35-39%). With the UX on the same trip I had better fuel consumption, like 20% lower, but then again that car weighs 500 kg less than the NX so it's expected, right? Overall I like this new NX but I dislike the massive presence of electronics, I feel like I'm driving a computer on wheels sometimes, but at least it's very comfortable and has a lot of power.