mikesands

Yes this seems so obvious, that there must be a good reason why Lexus didn't do it Mike

which is tricky because even if you decide to carry bikes on a tailgate rack you are supposed to use a tailboard strapped to the bikes and for that you need an electrical socket on the car. (My bike is electric and too heavy to go on a roof rack - and too awkward to try and slide into the boot area horizontally even if I took both wheels off. Mike

Does anyone know of any independents making a towbar for the gen 4 yet? Mike

I think it's the salt. Don't they use it on the roads in Japan? because you'd think A company like Lexus could build these sensor arms to resist typical UK weather conditions. My LS430 went through about 6 of them I think, and it was about £300 a time Mike

All cars have a rear blindspot which my 430 solved brilliantly with a two part mirror which unfortunately they didn;t put on the 400H. But I cannot remember a single occasion with any of my 6 or 7 previous cars (all saloons) where a car coming at right angles was hidden by the drivers' door pillar. My bet is that the 400H door pillar is unusually thick. Mike

Just thought I would post this warning. I have had my Rx400h for about 5 years now and in that time have probably been caught out 5 or 6 times by something that people should be aware of even though it's an unusual set of circumstances. I'm approaching a roundabout and a car is approaching the same roundabout from the right. If he happens to be obscured by my right side driver's door pillar AND happens to be travelling at a speed that keeps him there while we are both decelerating, he doesn't come into view until about 30 or 40 yards crossing in front of me. The driver's door pillar is quite thick and can obscure even large cars. It's even more worrying when it has obscured a cyclist, as to remain obscured at his speed he has to be much closer to my car. Mike

I had a noise from the rear end that was in some ways like those described above. Lexus dealer traced it to a sort of planished very lightweight heat shield whose mounting holes had half worn away. They said it was common, and would cost about £400 to replace but they said they have simply removed plenty of them and had no problems. That was about 40k miles ago and I certainly haven't had any. Mike

Thanks Dave - that's useful, and I will try both of those Mike

Still can't find an indpenedent maker doing one but this (in the USA) looks interesting. https://www.etrailer.com/Trailer-Hitch/Lexus/RX+450h/2018/C13282.html Mike

Yes - I too think it's torque steer, and when you first experience it, it's VERY disconcerting bordering on dangerous. When it happens during a critical overtake your first reaction is to back off - not only is this at exactly the wrong point in the overtake, but the reduction of power/torque to the front end makes it sway alarmingly in the opposite direction. I am surprised no-one has rolled their cars doing this. Mike

yeah my LS430 cost a fortune to keep it going and I wondered about where this supposed Lexus reliability was. It made me nervous about buying an RX400H but that has hardly missed a beat and is now at 140k miles and 9 years old. The air suspension on my 430 was a nightmare - at least 4 failures out on the road - which was dangerous. Mike

Have I missed something? - I thought there was no independent tow bars yet for the latest series RX (and the OP has a 2017 model). Mike

Yes - I've done the same as Dave. I think it cost me £12 and provides 2 charging sockets as well as bluetooth audio connection. I previously had the cassette tape thing with trailing jackplug but then I still needed another cable to keep the phone charged. Once set up the FM thing works very well, allowing me to skip forwards and backwards through tracks by pushing a button on the unit. The only downside is quite a lot of background white noise on the channel I have chosen (88.2) so if anyone has found a more silent frequency please shout up. I can tune the white noise right down by judicious fiddling with the 3 volume controls I now have (the car stereo, the phone side buttons and the volume dial on the FM thing). By the way - I wondered whether it would complicate things that the FM bluetooth unit had call answering built in, but everything seems OK and I THINK the car system is still handling that. Mike

I'm glad I found this thread. Looks like I wont be trading my 400H in any time soon as the tow bar is essential for me to transport my electric bike. BTW - I got an independent to fit the bar to my 400h -about £500 if I recall correctly. My car was on Lexus extended warranty and they have honoured a couple of claims without quibbling about who fitted the towbar. Mike

On my LS saloon the mirrors had two sections different sections and this completely eliminated the blind spot. I really missed this on my RX. However, I have set up my driver side mirror now so that it is at it's maximum outward setting - in other words I cannot see the side or back of the car in it. This has helped a great deal and has picked up quite a few cars that I would have missed if I was trying to use it as a normal rear view mirror (I have the internal one for that). Mike

John, You might not realise it but you have just bought the most sophisticated camping/caravanning generator in the world. I discovered that I could connect my caravan battery to the RX400H via the cig lighter socket, lock the car doors WITH the car in READY mode and leave it all day while I went walking. Obviously I needed to use my second key to lock the car (found it really surprising that I could lock the car with one key still inside it). The caravan would draw any power it needed from the RX's 12 volt battery but when that became depleted, the hybrid batteries would charge the 12v RX battery and when the car got a bit twitchy with this it would fire up the engine. Even with us sitting in the caravan and using lots of power for lights, TV computers etc, the car would sit there silently for about 30 minutes then the engine would fire up for about 3 minutes. - a damn sight quieter generator than a typical dedicated 4 stroke generator. ..... so in answer to your question - there is no problem whatsoever with sitting in READY mode listening to music. Now to the question of Hillstart. Sorry but I don't understand - why would any automatic need hillstart. I thought it was a way of preventing a manual car from stalling if the driver let out the clutch without enough revs. Even on the steepest of hills I cannot remember any of my automatic cars running backwards when in drive mode, and certainly none of them have ever stalled. Mike

In my experience last week, the air suspension does make the ride noticeably more pleasant - but only brings it back to just under where my RX400H is. I'm surprised that no-one is saying there are (some) problems with the air suspension as I found a few with just some simple searches. My LS430 was a nightmare for air suspension components and although for the first 2 years these were covered by the used car warranty, the inconvenience of having it collapse on a trip was alarming. It's interesting that Lexus have not included air suspension on any of the 4RX model range (have they?). My RX400H has done 132k miles and it's been a dream car in terms of reliability - I put it in last week because I thought a shock absorber was on the way out but it checked out fine - it was a fault on the parking brake apparently, and is being fixed under the extended warranty which will run to April 2019 and about 150k miles. I am delighted with this warranty - and it applied to my LS for a while. Nothing seems to be excluded - particularly the hybrid batteries which is why I took it out at first. OK nothing has gone wrong on the 400H but back to my opening point - it's not so much the cost of a potential repair as the peace of mind and the knowledge that my Lexus dealer will recover me, and provide me with a free loan car. Mike

62k miles I think in 2013 My business partner got a 400H at the same time and got similar mpg - he has a 3RX now and gets 28mpg round town and 31mpg on a run. Nowhere near the claims Mike

Interesting review David. My 400H is now 9 years old and has done 132k miles. I have bought the Lexus used car warranty every couple of years for £900 and what a waste of money that has been . It seems to be worth £5400 trade-in so yes I guess a low mileage 400H at retail prices may be pushing £10k Mine has got the reversing camera but I would much prefer beeping sensors. There''s about 20 pages in the user manual about the camera and it's all double dutch to me. I'm getting about 25 or 26mpg in the cold weather. In summer on a run I can get 29mpg I've been testing 450H's lately and each time I get back in the 400H I am surprised at how much smaller it is. And yet seeing it parked next to other cars it is obviously a big car. I have come to the conclusion that I like the size of mine but I will have to come to terms with the latest 450H bus-like size next year if I want to stick with Lexus. One tip - I was getting annoyed at the primitive bluetooth that is in the 400h - in particular since I use my iphone 7 for all my music and satnav (Copilot), it was annoying to have a dummy tape and wires everywhere if I wanted to play it through the car audio system. I bought one of these for £12 and it's transformed the experience https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B06XHNHLR2/ref=pe_3187911_189395841_TE_dp_1 Incidentally - like heated seats, I couldn't see the point of Mark Levinson audio - until I got a car with them. Now I'm going to find it difficult to own a car without them. Mike

But if it's a 2017 (as per your info on the left), surely it's the latest shape one which is very quiet indeed. Mike

Yes perhaps I was exagerrating my issues with the ivory - it certainly looks nice and airy on yours. I have now borrowed the latest 450H for a couple of 3 hour sessions and I think the suspension is much better (even than my 400H - so my plan is to hang on to mine for a year until the new shape ones are coming on to the used market in greater numbers) Mike

Thanks Rayaan, that's saved me some searching and I can get 4 for £450 from Mytyres. Mike

The solution is definitely polarising sunglasses. When windscreens were made differently they were poor because their was an internal pattern that became visible but modern windscreens are perfect with polarising lenses. You just need to find a pair of lightly tinted ones then you can use them all year round when the sun is out and causing that reflective glare off the fascia. I tried draping black velvet over the front and it worked but just looked a mess. Mike

Ironically the HUD is absolutely no use to me. I use polarizing sunglasses to cut down the glare from the top of the fascia. The HUD of course disappeared as soon as I put them on. And all the RX's I have driven recently have given me exactly that tomb like feeling compared to my light and airy RX400H. Apart from the 400 having light grey interior, the window lines seem to be lower and it has the glass sunroof (why do they call it a moon roof by the way?). I concede that the most popular colour for an interior must be black as most used RX's seem to be so equipped. But I drove a Premier yesterday that supposedly had the brown leather option. What a joke - it had brown leather seats plonked in a black interior - they really should get some British design guys involved. (and their ivory 450H looked more beige with a sickly greenish tinge) Mike