HyBruce

okay I'm an airhead and I hadn't noticed the PDF someone was kind enough to link to before, but I do now and will be taking it to the dealer this week!

Thanks to everyone for their input! So I tried to do the ISC reset on my own, never seemed to work. So I took my Lexus back to the dealer. They said the ISC reset can't be done on my hybrid, it doesn't apply to hybrids or something. So basically they checked the car out and said it might be my tire pressure was low and the fact that I'm not using the highest grade fuel. This is pretty much nonsense since I've been driving and fueling my car the exact same way since I owned it, and the fuel economy didn't change until after they replaced my IPM. I agreed to try a few more tanks of premium gas and keep track of my mileage for them. And when I get the same results? THEN what? Very irritating.

Finally took my 2006 400h to the dealership for the recall of the Intelligent Power Module (IPM). Since then, I've noticed my gas mileage seems to have gone from about 22-23 miles per gallon to 18-19 miles per gallon. When I dropped it off at Lexus I had joked with the service person "since this controls the hybrid system, maybe my fuel economy will improve." Little did I know it might affect it the other way!! Has this happened to anyone else? Does anyone know anything about this?

I got my beloved Lexus 400h soon after they came out in 2005, and I remember complaining about how the only way people could tell it was a hybrid was the "H" after the 400, which seemed too low-key to me. So in my owners survey I remember complaining about how I thought they needed a "hybrid" emblem or logo somewhere on the car. Well I suppose Lexus heard me, but the hybrid logos I see on the new ones are TERRIBLE!! The ones on the side of the car are okay, but the italic script font HYBRID underneath the 400h look so bad to me! The font doesn't go with the "Lexus" font, and it looks like it's not even put on straight. Personally I think they should have used those little "hybrid synergy drive" emblems that Toyota puts on the Prius. Anybody else agree or disagree?

Yes!! My car was recovered!! Sorry I forgot to post this before, but three weeks after my 400h was stolen it was found in a bad part of L.A. Dirty, with 300 miles on it, but no damage at all! Yea! Police suggest it was just used for a joyride or to commit a crime. Embarrassingly enough I think I had left a valet key in my glove box and that's how it was taken. It's possible that the door was unlocked too so I may be a complete dope. I recall going to get something out of my car earlier in the day, and perhaps didn't lock it afterwards. Usually it auto locks after thirty seconds, but when you open one of the back doors I found out that it doesn't auto lock again. I was also surprised to learn that the 400h doesn't really have an alarm! It has that auto lock feature, and a blinking red light on the dash, but all this time I thought it had an alarm when in fact it really doesn't. I guess there are other theft protection measures, like the rf chip in the key, but no alarm. Needless to say I won't be leaving the valet key in the car anymore, and will keep Lexie locked in my garage. Thanks for all of the responses to my posting. Although I beat myself up for my carelessness, the bottom line is someone still came onto my property and took what's mine. I hope this doesn't happen to any of you!!

Not used a valet anytime recently....

Just an update.... my neighbor down the street has a security camera which caught a suspect walking up the street towards my house, then driving away in my car 20 minutes later. Since the cameras just caught this on the periphery you couldn't see any face or good details, but it was interesting to note that my car was thieved by one man and a backpack!

Wow those sound cool and very James Bond! So you really think they could jack up my 400h on a dolly and roll it down a very steep, narrow driveway on dollies to then hook it up to a tow truck without making much noise? I know it's hard to imagine without a picture, but trust me that would be quite a feat. I was thinking they had some way to clone the key and jam the alarm or something?

The catch with that is my driveway is VERY steep and curved, it would hard to get any kind of tow truck up it. And where it was parked it was tucked front end first into a corner so there's no way to get anything in front of it. Hmmmm....

So two nights ago my 2006 Lexus 400h was stolen out of my driveway. No broken glass. And I know I left it locked and alarmed. I'm heartbroken. I loved that car and it only had 25K miles on it and never gave me any problems. Replacing it won't be a pleasure. I've searched the forums for other people whose 400h's were stolen and I don't see any postings, just wondering if this has happened to anyone else? And does anyone have any ideas on how "high tech thieves" (as the police called them) would go about overcoming the security features and get the car without causing much commotion? The police said they "had no idea", which is troubling, you'd at least think they'd know HOW it's done even if they can't stop people from doing it! My driveway is very secluded and on a steep hill, so there's no way a flatbed was used. Any thoughts? And I hope this doesn't happen to anyone else on this board! HyBruce no more....

Well, I see still that after a year and 11000 miles, I STILL have the lowest MPG on the board!! (around 18MPGs here in the SoCal summer)! I got over it a long time ago, stopped obsessively keeping track of every dang statistic for every tank, and as a result I just drive how I drive and enjoy the hell out of my 400h! I still think it's really fun to drive, and love the whole bluetooth phone integration and the navigation. I do reset the car's MPG with each tank and see what I'm getting. I was up to maybe 22mpgs in the mild winter here. A minor complaint, my brake pedal pad won't stay on. I keep putting it back on but it won't stay, the dealer put it on again at my last oil change but it came right off the next day. Harumph. Still very happy after one year!

I've got a 400h and a Razr, and have the same call waiting and "lag when dialing from handset" problems... plus one more!! If I terminate a call with my cell phone instead of the Lexus buttons, then every call I make from that point on in my drive gets dropped after a few seconds and the Lexus says the call was dropped by the network. The only remedy? I have to turn off my car at a stoplight and restart it, then the phone works fine. Glitchy, Glitchy!!

I wonder if any RX 400h owners were stuck in that horrible traffic jam fleeing Hurricane Rita. I wonder how the car would do in a 100 mile traffic jam, driving at a stop and start crawl. Any thoughts?

------------------------------ Hey Guys, I have a Cingular phone (Razr) but have not been able to download my phone book to the car. Is there a trick to this?? Jon ------------------------------ Hey Jon, I have the exact same phone and it was tricky at first, and the annoying part is you gotta do each number one by one unfortunately, but here's how... Assuming you've already figured out how to get your phone working with your car, on your Lexus navigation screen go to: Telephone, Settings, Transfer phone... Hit ADD, and it should say Send Contact from Phone or something, and the Lexus will automatically disconnect your phone from itself. Then, go to the desired number in your Razr phonebook, and hit the Phonebook Menu button. (in between EDIT and VIEW) Scroll up one to SEND, and select. Your phone should now ask you to select which handsfree device to send it to. Hit select, and Ta-da! it should transfer. Make sure you hit OK to make sure the Lexus saves the number. Now just repeat these steps 400 times until you store all your numbers! Now hopefully you won't have my problem, which was after I had input most of my phone book, every time I would try and send a new listing, the phone would keep sending this one contact number over and over again. For whatever reason I had to edit each contact and change it slightly before I sent it, and then it would send the right number. Annoying!! hope this helped! Bruce

Okay, I'm on my 3rd tank of gas... 600 miles on the car.... and on this tank I'm averaging 17.8 mpg! Now it's been in the 80's/90's here in SoCal, so I've been using the A/C most of the time... And my commute isn't that long, so my average trips are like 15-20 minutes... but less than 20 MPG?? My first few tanks i was getting like 21 mpg. Do you think that the TSIB issue could really be my problem? Do I need to take it to the dealer for that? Or is it just that my car is still getting used to itself? Anyone else getting that poor mileage? Other than that, I LOVE my 400h!