mikesands

.... and 'ASC' is? By the way Lexus Teesside is only about 45 minutes from you if you live on the north side of York. They give outstanding service to me. Mike

Yeah - I did wonder about checking that Daniel. But it would seem odd to make the in-car sockets different depths. In a fusebox under the bonnet I found one fuse socket labelled Powr outlet 2. It had no fuse in it at all so I put a 15amp in but it made no difference to the two non-functional sockets. Mike

just had a look at the user manual and must confess that I can't make much sense of it. Firstly I don't know where it's talking about for any fuseboxes that are located inside the car, and secondly I can't find anywher in the manual where the functions of the fuses are listed. Anyone got a complete list? The power outlet on the floor at the front seems to be off and also the one in the boot. But the one in the front dash is OK. Mike

I have a 09 400H and wondered if there have been any kind of firmware updates to the audo system - in particular on the bluetooth phone side Mike

Yeah mine is the limited edition (so until the above post I was a bit concerned that maybe they'd forgotten the rear seat DVDs :D ). But having come from the LS430 there's quite a lot of goodies missing from what I expected (refrigerated seats and wafting airflows being two that I didn't realise I liked so much). Mike

They claimed to me that the extended 2 year warranty was on special offer (half price) until the end of June. But when I checked on here they seem to have been doing this 'deal' for at least 18months. (£500 per year is a lot). I think suspension arms are covered but I doubt that callipers are. I also found the 450H less powerful - or a better description might be 'slower to wind itself up'. I test drove the air suspension 450 and found it better than the standard 450 but not as good as the sprung 400H (apparently it's the low profile tyres). In any case the air suspension on the LS430 cost me an absoulte fortune. Mike

It needs a new timing belt at 100k - it's expensive if it hasn't been done. My 09 has just done 100k and my faith in lexus has been restored. I bought it with 67k miles on and virtually nothing has gone wrong since. Previously I had a LS430 and had nothing but trouble. FWIW I have just paid £1000 for a two year extended Lexus warranty and will hang on to it because I don't really like the 450H (bigger and more jiggly and my pal's is doing worse mpg than his previous 400H) Mike

Do the seats on the 400H recline? It looks like they should on mine but I can't find a lever Mike

if you mean that one of the bars in your graph is showing 40mpg for a 5 minute slot, I can confirm that I very often see 60mpg in those 5 min windows, and have seen consective 60mpg bars .... but the true consumption is nowhere near and even the computer average seems to discount these 'rogue' bars on the graph. Mike

The first post quotes the Lexus website a year ago as showing the following prices for an RX400H £179 for the intermediate and £369 for the full service. They are now showing respectively as £275 and £445. Can this be correct? That's a 50% hike in the intermediate service cost and 20% in the full service. Mike

I think you must be driving my car Peter :D I can sometimes get 21mpg towing a 1.7T caravan but it can drop as low as 17mpg (depending on hilliness I guess) My car on its own will do a true 28mpg on motorway cruising even though the computer suggests it's doing 30mpg. Mike

I have put the carpets, roof rack and hub caps on that auction site ending next weekend Mike

I tow 1700kg with a RX400H and it's fine. Only does about 18mpg mind you Mike

Half the retail price Barry - Can't find out what that is but I think it was about £250. Might cost a bit to ship it to Worcester though - do you ever get up to County Durham? Mike

I have tried to post this in the for sale section but even though I have paid for Gold membership, the system thinks I am a member of the proletariat :-) I bought these mats new from a lexus dealer but never got round to fitting them in my 2001 LS430 which has now been sold, They are in the original packaging and are the light grey ones. If anyone wants them for £50 drop me a PM I have a genuine roof rack (used twice) and 3 new centre hub caps if anyone is interested in them too. The roof rack should fit all 430s but the hub caps were changed in 2006 I think. The ones I have are the bigger ones with 5 'points' about 4 inches across. Mike

OK - fair point Duncan. I guess what I was really asking is 'Has anyone else with an RX fitted XL tyres and if so have they noticed any problems with the ride?' Thanks Mike

The tyre company have sent me tyres with an XL marking which I didn't order. From what I can gather these are made with stiffer sidewalls, and I'm nervous about the ride being badly affected. Is this likely? Thanks Mike

.... and when they teach you to ride a bike :D I think I will put the Surform Rasp to work on the central door pillar as it currently has me bobbing and weaving to see whether there is a bike hidden by it. (never had that problem with the LS430) Mike

wow - how does it work - is ti by angling it downwards

I'm talking about the outside sriver's door mirror - surely that isn't auto dimming is it? Mike

It's a shame the LS mirror is smaller than the RX, or I could have bought one and got someone to cut it down. Mike

It had a faint red vertical line about one third of the way in, and somehow managed to eliminate the blind spot. I have been nearly caught out several times by the completely plain mirror that's fitted to the RX400H. I have tried fitting one of those stick on convex blind spot things, but it isn't working for me - somehow I don't seem to notice anything in it. Mike

Beejay - you have actually highlighted the cause of another 'nearly accident' I had in my microlight - last year I had the addtives attack a white nylon quick release connector in the fuel line. It completely blocked it - after the engine stopped in flight I couldn't even blow through this connector. For clarity's sake I will add that I didn't try to do this in flight :D The manufacturer of this particular engine insists that it uses mogas and not avgas. The earlier engine was used on both and it was in the days before many additives were put in mogas, but after the Eurpoean factories were forced to change their Vulcanising chemicals. Mike

How do you check if a car has had previous accident damage (as opposed to having been written off) Mike

You changed that while climbing at 500ft??!! :-) Yes I'm allowed to do that 'cos it's a Single Seat De Regulated aircraft Back on topic - I tried to get the car booked in next week and Lexus Teesside said they would try, but came back with the report that the bits aren't manufactured yet and they can't attempt to do them all at once. Mike