skyfish400h

so your saying its impossible to adjust this ourselves? I have not seen any documentation on how to make this adjustement at the user level. It may require special equipment. The only CBEST settings we can change are the behavior of the door locks with the ignition and shifter. These are documented in the owners manual, altho difficult to follow.

A new behavior has cropped up at ~30k on my 400h. While sitting in the car with the ignition in ACC postion (or so I thought, more on this later) the radio would cut out the dash would ficker, the NAV screen would flash the "Lexus" logo with sounds of relays switching somewhere behind the front seats. When I turn the ignition to OFF and try to start the car it will not go to READY and displays the error that I"m not in Park "Shift to Park (P) to start the car", but the shifter is in Park. I even tried wiggling it. It seems if I hold key over inthe START position for long enough the system will boot to READY, but I fear the day when this trick doesn't work. The other thing I've noticed is that the detent in the ignition switch to indicate the ACC position is notched and there are actually (2) detents right next to each other that both seem to function as the ACC postion. But I suspect that the right most detent, which is the first one it drops into when switching from ON to ACC (CCW rotation), is a false ACC postion and that some king of short is occuring that drains the 12V battey to the point where the system cannot remain booted. Does any of this make sense to anyone? Do I just need a new ignition swich of does everyone have the "false ACC" detent and is something else wrong?

There is a CBEST setting that the dealer can change which controls the delay for the headlights after you remove the key from the ignition and open the drivers side door. I have mine set to zero so that my headlights go off immediately. Since I park in well lit carport, I have no need for light when I get out of the car. If I had a garage, I might want 30s or a minute to get over to the garage light switch before the lights went out (but then most door openers have a built in light too...) Now whether this setting controls the DRL or not, I'm not sure. Since mine go off when I open the door, I'm not sure if that is always the case or if its tied to the headlight timer.

The power required to operate the brakes may be too heavy a drain on the 400h electical system. Does the trailer have it's onw power supply for the brakes or does it drain the from trailer connection? My guess is that connectors are different for just this reason. The "round" connector probably has a dedicated 12V hot lead that is used to power the trailer brakes. Where the "rectangular" connector is only designed to power another set of turn signals and brake lights (4 leads: right, left, brake, ground). The "5th" lead would be just a 12V constant power lead. That is the lead that may be too much for the 400h. To run a dedicated power lead from the main 12V bus to the hitch area should be something a trailer shop could do, but I would avoid UHaul at all cost. Maybe their install business is OK but their rental business has been run into the ground by greedy corporate executives. Sad to see yet another American icon go the way of Sears&Robuck.

They do not know what they are talking about. It's OK to mix the two (same grade and wt, of course). And there is no compatabily issues between them. Perhaps they were confusing this with to fuel blends, or the move to CFC free refigerants. There were plenty seal issues with those in the past, but even those have been resolved for some time now.

You ABSOULUTLY should not be smelling gas with the hybrid. They are designed to release as few unburned hydrocarbons as possible. It even pump out the fumes from empty tank before it will let you access to remove the gas cap. If you smell ANY gas fumes comeing from you hybrid, that's an IMEDIATE dealer vist. Are you sure it was coming from your car?

Monday morning Post Script: I just now read something about aftermarket lug nuts. Does it take the equivalent of rocket science to put and keep good tires on these cars? <_< Its difficult to tell from your description what is going on. You are aware that the 400h does not have any sensors in the wheels, right? So, what exactly was the warning message on the dash? Was there any vibration or odd handling that you notice? What size are the tires? There is a specific feature on the OEM rims that you may have trouble finding on aftermarket rims. You need to be sure the lug bolts will not be carring the weight of the car. They should only be holding the rim onto the hub, there should be a large diameter boss on the hub that fits into the center hole in the rim with a snug fit, not a loose fit. If you see a gap, that's bad.

You can run 255/55VR18, 245/55VR18, or 255/50VR18 tires on your OEM wheels without any safety issues. Be sure the load rating is at least 99 and do not drop down to lower speed ratings like H. Some minor rubbing in hard cornering may be found for the larger of those, but if you are doing that with your family in the car... then you really aren't that concerned about safety are you? Your safest bet if you don't want to take any risk is to just get the the OEM tire size. The Bridgestone Dueler H/L Alenza is your tire of choice for this size. CAUTION: I would avoid wheel spacers as they change the way loads are transfered from the wheel to the hub. These OEM wheels are desinged to fit over a feature on the hub so that the wheel bolts are only in tension (no shear loading). If you install spacers, this function is lost and the wheel bolts now have to carry tension AND shear loads. They were not designed for this. This is a REAL safety issue. To move to wider tires without any clearance issues or spacers you will need to get different rims that have a greater offset from the hub. Just be certain thay engage the shear feature on the hub in the same way the OEM wheels do, or you will be placing the botls in shear again. Good Hunting.

Hmm... can this be installed at the dealer? (or would that cost be prohibitive...). I can appreciate skyfish400h's comments above in particular with the RX since it is such a quiet vehicle. The quality might be very much noticed by someone finicky about sound. Are there other aftermarket systems that are equal or better than the ML system? Sometimes you can be surprised. I have a little fun car (Old Miata) in which I literally fried the radio (yes, with smoke and everything!). I replaced it with a mid-range Panasonic head unit and am amazed at how it sounds. Crisp, clear, and powerful (wether Jazz or Rock, etc) even with the top down at 70+MPH with the foot into the supercharger. (not with the factory speakers...) Also, I just looked at Edmands.com and saw the ML system at $980.00 /Steve Dealer or DIY install would be difficult if not impossible due to the addtional speakers and amps that come with the ML. Probably a different wire harness too. Better to get it from the factory. It's definitly not a plug and play thing. As for aftermarket, untill someone makes an adapter for the funky dashboard shape and knob position, a std DIN size or double DIN head unit is not going to look very good.

Ok I agree for the OEM size these are your best choice for the money. But, by the time they are installed on your car they will be considerably more than $600. I just don't want people to get the idea they can duplicate the deal you got on your set, because it simplyis not the case any longer. These tires have become too much in demand (because they still are the best choice for the money) and their prices has been steadily rising since you bought yours...

You really need to stop saying you can get these tires for cheap. It's great you got such a deal, but you cannot touch them for that price any more. This takes nothing away from the Bridgestones, but your bang/buck argument is toast.

I'm somewhat of an audiophile and there is a marked difference between the std package and the ML sound system. It's definitely worth the upgrade if you enjoy music. Even if you are not attune to the differences, you will at least have the occasional WOW experience where you are surprised at how REAL the music sounds. If you are attuned to it, it becomes a true pleasure to listen to accurately reproduced renditions of your favorite artists. The sound stage (your imaginary view of the performers on stage at a live event) is more defined, present and higher up on the dash so that it seems more realistic. The frequency response is flat and extends higher and much deeper with the ML over the std. And best of all there is much more power so that at real listening volumes you get clear undistorted sound. On a std unit you have the same listening level you will suffer fatiguing distortion. You can still recognize the music, but it literally hurts to listen to it. Once you've heard music accurately, you will not want to go back, so be warned. It's an expensive addiction.

This seems to be a common observation of the HSD behavior, at least for the higher power systems. Whenever the ICE starts or stops there is a shudder and in the case of my 400 a lurching motion forward. You never really get used to it because of the random nature. I've been holding on slight grade waiting for the light without using either the brake or the gas... perfectly balanced... and then the ICE will shut off and the car will lurch and I have to apply the brake now to hold position because the balance has changed. Or I'll be parked with the CTV in park, and forgot the ignition is in Ready state when the ICE will kick in and the car will lurch. Its not that bothersome, but it is different. I suppose using the parking brake would help prevent the lurching, but the shudder would still be felt. Now it may be that the 450 with the larger 350l ICE is even more pronounced than the 400 with its 330l ICE. I say accept its quirks and relish in your new driving paradigm.

So, for maximum performance the RX400h should have a (nearly) empty fuel tank and a full battery. Quite unique. Tom I doubt the state of the battery charge had much to do with the better time. More likely it was just learning curve on the part of the driver and/or variation in the timer start/stop sync. These batteries hold an amazingly flat voltage and current output until they are nearly exhausted (that's one reason why they use them). Also, even if the batteries were working for the entire 7s (do we know this?) that is far below their output capabilty, so only a fraction of the charge would have been used for the 0-60 run anyway. Clearly, the maximum performance for ANY car will be with the gas tank nearly empty simply because there is less mass. A smaller driver will count as well. This is not uniqe to hybrids.

I attacked the rubbing problem armed with the tools you see there. You can see the extent of the rubbing and the tie-wrap installed on the drivers side. I also show the screw heads that rub when the car is on a lift. It was fairly strait-forward to find a good place to drill a small hole for the tie-wrap that would pull the plastic liner in the direction that produced the most clearance at the rubbing spot. I tried to do before/after pics, but I did not get the same angle each time so it was difficult to tell how much it moved. But it moved a lot, and should be enough so I wont hear the rubbing anymore.

Indeed. The Oct 07 Consumer Reports has an evaluation of these devices. They like the Garmin 660 and TomTom 910 for the larger screen sizes, but even these are only 4.4 and 4.0 repectivly. These will also get you real time traffic and bluetooth funtions. What I wish we could see is a 3rd (or 4th) party NAV option that directly competes with the Denso. After all the Operating system is just software. Anyone should be able to write a NAV system to use the touchscreen, microphone, bluetooth, gps, and other sensors to give us a better package. I would be willing to pay muliple times more than the $300 Denso upgrade cost if such a competitor were to offer say, real time traffic thru my bluetooth phone. I think there is a real market here.

Use the onscreen help to play the commands for you to hear. If you mimic the tone and cadence of what you hear, it will respond better. POI Off was the hardest one for me. Also if you look in the onscreen help you find other alternative ways of working some of the commands that may be more natural for you.

Goodyear Eagle ResponsEdge 255/55 VR18 are installed on my 400h. Great tires. Highly recommend them. They are all-season and received scores nearly as good a the Bridgestone Dueler H/L Alenza for snow and ice traction, and recieved even better scores for handling and comfort. As for fitment, they fit fine. But there are a few things you should know before moving to the larger size. First is when the car is on the lift the suspension will hang down far enough so that the tire will rub on one of the screw heads just forward of the rear wheels. This is relieved as soon as any weight is put onto the wheels and the suspension travels in its arc. Normally this is not a problem, but if you unload the suspension for any reason while driving (i.e. going airbone), then you will hear the tire rubbing. I do not recommend this. Second, during hard cornering the plastic fender well liners in the rear may rub on the inside of the tire depending on how your particular car is put together (not all cars seem to rub). But I believe if you carry enough weight in the back, you may experience this rubbing even in moderate cornering (or entering driveways at an angle). This plastic is very easily moved out of the way by the tire and does not cause any damage other than the obvious burn mark on the plastic where contact was made. You will also likely see a 1 or 2 MPG drop in your FE due to the heavier tire and wider contact patch. These tires are NOT low rolling resistance tires like the Michlens. You can run them at higher pressure to compensate somewhat. I've been running them at 36psi, but I just upped it to 38psi to see how that runs. As I said, the plasic fenderwell is easily moved out of the way and just looking at it today, it would appear very easy to use a tie-wrap behind the fenderwell to pull it back toward some nearby structure. This would tend to hold the plastic out of the way so that you would not hear the rubbing in the corners. Another option would be to take a heat gun to soften the material enough to mold it out of the way. But with this approach you run the risk of causing uninteneded shrinkage or warpage that could make things worse. I will try the tie-wrap thing and post pics if I can this weekend.

Thank you for the information. I was using "Call by Name" as the command. I don't know where I got that command from, but thought for sure I got it from saying "Help". It shows "Dial by Name" now when I do that. The "Dial by Name" command got me to the phone book and prompted for a name. I said, "Holly", but apparently need to setup some voice recordings as nothing was found. I will have to dig into the manual some more to find how to do that. I went back through the navigation manual and could only find a page or two on the entire voice command system. I think Lexus can do a better job documenting their features, as noted in previous posts. I don't believe the NAV is sophisticated enough to do real voice recognition (learning your voice). Certainly not sophisticated enough to recognize TEXT to SPEACH translations such as connecting a new piece of text the the user has entered, such as "Holly", with the spoken version that text. I belive the way it works is that you can voice dial by the speed dial number associated with your entery "Holly". That way the system only needs to be able to recognize the canned words "one" thru "eighteen". Hope this helps. I agree the 400h NAV system leaves a lot be desired.

You can search the fourm for topics like this... here is my thread on cargo boxes http://us.lexusownersclub.com/forums/index...92&hl=cargo Thanks - The material is a little dated with new models out. Anyone have experience with an Thule Atlantis 1600? Judging from this info... Thule 686 Atlantis 1600 Silver - Thule Cargo Boxes Thule continues to set the standard in box design, with the Thule 686 Atlantis 1600. The Thule Atlantis is offered in four NEW sizes and two colors. The Atlantis is designed to fit today's most popular vehicles with more choices than ever. Carry 16 cu ft of gear and still manage to fit your car into the garage Dimensions: 74 in. x 36 in. x 16.3 in. Eye-catching styling compliments the aerodynamic lines of today’s new car designs New QuickGrip mounting system comes pre-installed, you’ll be on the road in seconds Improved locking system features a user-friendly, padded key and readable decal As always, our built-in safety feature means the key can only be removed when box is fully closed Access gear from either side using the patented dual-side opening feature Requires a minimum bar spacing of 23.5 inches and allows a maximum of 34 inches for mounting My experience would lead me to select this box. It has a quick latch system for easy install It has the shorter grip at 23.5 in which should work with the 400h rack without modification It comes in silver to reduce heat buildup It opens from either side It short and wide like the SpaceCadet so you can open the rear hatch while it's on top I'd say get it.

You can search the fourm for topics like this... here is my thread on cargo boxes http://us.lexusownersclub.com/forums/index...92&hl=cargo

Thanks for the files. Very helpful. The one thing I would add is that, even with this list, you need to spend time with the help screen in the car. Why? Because it has the feature of playing the audio of the voice command.... That way you can hear how the systems expects it to sound. What I've found is that *I* had to adapt my way of speaking the commands to get them recognized reliability. I used the voice command help playback feature as a guide. "POI off" was a real difficult one for me, I just don't normally say it the right way, not enough "lilt" I guess. Also, in the car you can see some additional shortcuts to some of these commands that are not listed here. Have fun.

My $805 (out the door) price is based on $152 ea, so if you can take advantage of the gift card, then you could get them for just under $800. But then there is the "hassle factor" of dealing with the on line purchase. YMMV

I bet I could get your Alenzas to screech Besides, you cannot get them for $600 any more. They have become very popular and their prices have been raising rapidly. When I last checked, $805 if you buy em on line to $996 at Big O Tires.

That, alone is evidence that the RX400hs were not designed to have larger diameter tires. Or, that the flexible plastic liner was installed slightly out of place... I can move it with my finger. I may take it out and put it back in again just to see if I can "mislocate" it. What you say is true, of course. I have no way to tell for sure how much of the improvement is from the Responsedge and how much I could have achived from the only stock size choice, Bridgestones. But this much I can be sure of... There is no way the Bridgestones could provde the SAME level of improvement. Having experienced it first hand for several days now, I would not give up one bit of it. (rubbing or no rubbing). Today these tires paid for themselves in a flash. In heavy traffic going over 50mph, my lane was backing up (brakelights ahead). I signaled for a lane change, glanced at my blind spot and when I looked forward again the car directly in front of me was engaged in a panic stop with the tail of his car end jumping up. He must not have been paying attention to the traffic ahead. Having only seen the last split second of his panic, and having already started a lane change, my reaction was to avoid the car in front of me by yanking hard on the wheel.... maybe more than I should have. Now being new to these tires and used to the Goodyear RS, I was more than surprised by exacly how fast the car changed lanes. These tires grip! So I yanked hard the otherway to avoid going into the 3rd lane. Throught all of this there was not so much as a twitch of or hint of lack of control. The stability control didn't even kick in. What could have been a serious accent was avoided by the excellent response of these tires. What struck me most as the adrenelin washed out of my blood, was how stable the maneuver was. I am certain that I could not have made it thru on the OEM tires without fish tailing or possibly losing control altogether. Best $800 I ever spent. True story.