williz
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Posts posted by williz
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I have created one of the Hybrid 7.1 DVD's but I can't get the NAV system depowered to accept the new ( old ) bios file. Does anyone know what fuses to pull? I have tried several combinations without success and hate to disconect the baterry and loose all the personnel settings.
Ron
I have an 06 RX400h and the fuse to pull is the Radio1 fuse. It is in the square fuse box under the hood on the driver side.
european version of nav DVD (oktober 2008) allows all inputs to the nav system while the car is moving. so with this DVD's override is not longer needed. hope this is the same with US version DVD's.
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I noticed that the statement includes "if necessary". That may indicate that only certain conditions will merit the replacement of the steering rack. Of the many tens of thousands of RX400hs on the road here in the US, I haven't heard of more than one that has had power steering issues, and I've been on this forum for more than 4 years now.remember our discussions about the first thred here!?
if your car was manufactured between 04/03/2005 and 06/10/2006 expect a recall to replace the power steering of your car.
here is the customer satisfaction campaign for europe power steering replacement
in europe we had three, china had some. the recalls started in china and please note that this problem is affecting IS and GS as well, but see yourself here Toyota to highway administration
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remember our discussions about the first thred here!?
if your car was manufactured between 04/03/2005 and 06/10/2006 expect a recall to replace the power steering of your car.
here is the customer satisfaction campaign for europe power steering replacement
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Hello,
I have a Rx 400h... and recently ive found the front hood batery drained ...with lots of acid underneath...now i have bought a new battery but car wont start...
I wonder if the bad battery ive changed was bad and i have jump started the car few times (WHAT WOULD BE THE FUSE THAT WILL BURN" IF FRONT HOOD BATTERY HAS A SHORT?)
I dont know if thats the cause of that but the battery ive replaced is new...its a 45Ah Varta...meaby doesnt have enough power?...
I live in the eastern Europe...herre not too many Lexus dealers at all....
Any help appreciated
first, can you check the voltage at battery? how much do you read there?
when you turn the ignition key what happens exactly? is the radio coming up? is the interior light coming up?
if your car has the standard wiring, a battery shortage will not burn any fuse because there is none at the battery. but of course other electrical malfunctions or shortages will burn the fuse responsible for the malfunctioning electrical equipment.
ps.: if you like you can place your questions also at the european lexus owners club forum (german or UK)
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look at this! now we come closer New RX
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I think having a power meter is somewhat akin to having a boost gauge in a supercharged vehicle - very entertaining! Also, to me, having a tachometer is essential if the vehicle has either a manual transmission or has paddle shifters with an auto tranny. Having a tach in a CVT-equipped vehicle isn't going to help you drive more efficiently; that's accomplished by watching the power distribution animated graphics on the center display, along with the instantaneous MPG numbers.
OK, Now that starts to make a little sense. I have a (highly) modified 94 Mazda Miata with a supercharger that I
installed and am quite aware of the value of the boost gauge. Come to think about it if I stomp on the RX400h
the power meter does seem to respond in much the same way as the boost gauge I installed on the Miata does.
This tells me that the electric motors may be contributing quite a bit of power/torque under heavy acceleration. It certianly
feels that way. Unfortunately the owners manual doesn't help you to understand that.
/Steve
if you like to see some more information like engine revs. engine temp, charging voltage (for the 12V System), exact speed of car.... and some more
you can use the SCANGAGE II. it works great in the RX400h. have a look here Scangage II
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An LS400...but....
we did something very similar with the RX400h and used a 35W halogen lamp. result was a melted lamp socked, a blown fuse and a malfunctioning head unit.
It seems improbable, impossible really, that a 35W halogen, even two, would be left on long enough (backup lights...??) to melt the socket, blow the fuse, or cause a malfunctioning "head" unit. My '01 RX300 has the same arrangement and has NEVER blown the fuse. What "head" unit do you speak of?
Fact is the following:
On our first try to improve the reversing lights on the RX400h we used stronger bulbs/lamps, in my case 35W halogens, fitting into the standard lamp sockets.
After 2 weeks the back up camera and the navigation system went out of function.
Lexus dealer/service found a blown fuse controlling some equipment in the trunk including the reversing lights. When the technician took out the reversing lights/sockets, the sockets had been crumbled and black and caused a shortage.
So what I am saying is, if you upgrade the lamps “be careful and make sure that the lamp sockets not getting to hot”.
And we found a much easier way of improving the reversing lights by taking out this funny lamp cover forcing the light going up instead of illuminating the street behind the car.
So......, I'm guessing here.........
You had a relatively poor, high resistance, connection for the 35W halogen where it was plugged into the socket....
In the process of the dealer troubleshooting the backup camera problem the backup lights were left on for an extremely L...o......n...........g time.
I'm surprised the service technian didn't smell something burning and go to the source sooner...
sorry, wrong guessing!
there was high contact pressure, but we used the original sockets. you are using (at least it looks like so on the pictures) special halogen high temp sockets mounted somehow on the original sockets.
during the lexus technician troubleshooting process, the reversing light had not been on, because the fuse for the reversing lights was already blown from the melted sockets and the blown fuse caused the malfunctions on the head unit.
but please don't get me wrong here! i am not saying what you are doing is wrong, no. but it should be done with special care and it is not as simple as it looks!
as you named it, resistance between lamp and socked, lamp heat, burning time...... and remember resistance between lamp and socked may change over time, contact pressure becomes weaker and socked temp gets higher.....
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An LS400...but....
we did something very similar with the RX400h and used a 35W halogen lamp. result was a melted lamp socked, a blown fuse and a malfunctioning head unit.
It seems improbable, impossible really, that a 35W halogen, even two, would be left on long enough (backup lights...??) to melt the socket, blow the fuse, or cause a malfunctioning "head" unit. My '01 RX300 has the same arrangement and has NEVER blown the fuse. What "head" unit do you speak of?
Fact is the following:
On our first try to improve the reversing lights on the RX400h we used stronger bulbs/lamps, in my case 35W halogens, fitting into the standard lamp sockets.
After 2 weeks the back up camera and the navigation system went out of function.
Lexus dealer/service found a blown fuse controlling some equipment in the trunk including the reversing lights. When the technician took out the reversing lights/sockets, the sockets had been crumbled and black and caused a shortage.
So what I am saying is, if you upgrade the lamps “be careful and make sure that the lamp sockets not getting to hot”.
And we found a much easier way of improving the reversing lights by taking out this funny lamp cover forcing the light going up instead of illuminating the street behind the car.
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An LS400...but....
we did something very similar with the RX400h and used a 35W halogen lamp. result was a melted lamp socked, a blown fuse and a malfunctioning head unit.
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Nice!
yes nice but....
lexus UK came up with this:
I heard back from Lexus today. The Lexus quality engineers tested the Black and Decker mentioned before, and their verdict is that it is NOT APPROPRIATE as its output is too high. They haev no further suggestions at the moment, but the case is still open and they "are working on it".
I am off on a three week trip tomorrow - maybe it'll start on my return - fingers crossed. Ruth.
QUOTE(williz @ Jan 24 2008, 10:42 PM) *
QUOTE(rufels @ Jan 5 2008, 04:42 PM) *
Just reporting back:
Lexus thought the Black & Decker was a good idea, but have not reported on their tests. If they DO finally advise it, I think we should all get a free one. As mentioned previously, they eventually replaced my 12V battery a couple of months ago. I returned yesterday after 21 days abroad, and the car which had been standing outside, started with no problem. Perhaps I had had a dud battery all the time. I am still worried about leaving the car for a longer period - will have another chance to test it on my next longer vacation. When I hear from Lexus about the Black & Decker I will share this information. Ruth
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I am interested to know how to access the backup lights. I can see a 10mm nut on the edge of the liftgate, but the light housing seems to be held in by more than just this. Is it necessary to remove the fascia panel inside the liftgate to get at the liftgate-mounted lights? I can see the silver reflector Willi referred to, and it does seem to aim the light up. This is apparently not an LED, according to the bulb list in the owners' manual.
Thanks.
Eric
this should help!
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Thanks SW03ES for making the effort to reduce the trash talk. If we go back to the topic of this thread, I hope most people would find it difficult to believe that a mechanical linkage, all of a sudden works in reverse. That defies logic. I think what the German engineer is really meaning to say is he had to overcome the steering wanting to assist in the opposite direction of where he wanted to turn. So now it would be interesting to see what controls the electronic power steering, and can it get a reverse signal that would force the rack in the opposite direction.
Hi all!
Let me suggest that we all stop guessing around here. Fact is that the incident happened and it is verified by a lexus dealer. The german lexus user forum is waiting for a statement from lexus.
rgray is right, the mechanical steering was not turning in the opposite direction but the car was moving not in the direction his driver wanted.
Again let’s wait for some official response and more facts.
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Back Again/
We have about 8,000 on the 400h. Very nice machine. Drove it from Seattle to Phoenix for Thanksgiving - we hit every kind of weather. Even had to detour around a nasty wind storm in southeastern Utah. Truly a joy to drive. My only gripe was that, because it runs so quietly, I found myself driving sorta fast in some situations I probably should not have been. The good news is that the car didn't seem to care - so I guess I don't. Have an issue with the backup lights I'd like to share.
For some reason the backup lights are next to useless. Initially, I thought that the LEDs were just not bright enough, but they are. After some checking it became apparent that the lights point up rather than down. So, the backup lights light the trees - not the ground. I'll bring it to the attention of the dealer the next time I'm in. Would like to know whether anyone else is experiencing the same problem.
regards,
Fenton House
yes this is a well known problem!
look into your reversing lights. if there is this silver bulb cover mounted inside than you can easily increase the brightness of your reversing lights by taking this cover out (can easily be done, it is only screwed in place, i can send you an instruction to remove it).
it is mounted on the wrong side of the bulb so the light beam is looking up and the street behind your car is not illuminated.
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you can also use a Black&Decker BDV040 booster sold in the US as model BB7B. this saves the isolator diodes and you can easily check the booster's charging condition.
Black&Decker Battery Booster BB7B
it fits perfectly in front of the middle console and is fixed by moving the middle console to the most forward position.
If necessary the unit can be charged while driving by pressing the charge button. The led's show the charging condition.
If the RX400h's 12V battery is having less then 10V the power up sequence (starting) is not longer possible.
In this case you bring the ignition key to the radio position (in this position all 12V plugs are connected to the 12V system), make sure that all 12V devices are switched off, B&D BDV040 (BB7B) is connected to the 12V plug, switch the B&D on and press the vehicle boost button.
The voltage comes up to about 11,9V. Wait for 2-4 minutes and then turn the ignition key to the starting position and READY comes up.
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Has anyone found horsepower and torque curves for the RX400h? (Actually two sets for FWD and AWD.)
Tom
the RX400h is having a maximum combined torque of 750Nm and 200kw (272PS)
max torque ICE = 288Nm
front e-motor = 333Nm
rear e-motor = 130Nm
(all lexus figures and diagrams)
rear e- motor
front e-motor
ICE
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As my experience with the cleaning system for the reversing camera has been excellent so far during autumn I was eagerly waiting to see how it will work in real winter conditions.
Making a long story short, it works perfect!
This is how the car looks after a 30 minutes drive on a snowy road:
The camera lens is completely covered with snow:
Clear camera lens (and clear picture on TV screen) after using the cleaning system:
so why is lexus not installing a similar system, making this car even more perfect?
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I just purchased a RX400h last week, when I tried using the voice commands for the Climate controls nothing worked,
I went to the service dept. yesterday and had them check it out. They could not find a menu for Climate controls on any screen, the service manager then told me that the RX did not have voice commands for the Climate A/C.
Does anyone have an RX with voice commands for the Climate controls - I ordered the car loaded with everything except the rear DVD player, and I can't find anyplace stating that this should be an option. My brother's Prius has climate voice controls, why didn't Toyota add this to the RX line.
Bill K.
i have an RX400 model 2006 and i can switch air con on/off and set temp by voice commands.
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The high voltage system WILL put power back to the 12v battery ... however it only recharges at a few amps per hour. It won't crank back 20 or 30 like a regular ICE alternator would do. Thus, the 400h makes a poor source as a 12v generator. You'd eventually run your high voltage batteries down into the 'pink' zone, bringing the ICE on line, to replenish the high voltage pack, which in turn, trickle charges the auxiliary 12v power. That's simply a waste of gas, to trickle back 3 or 4 amps.
the 12V battery (empty with 9V) gets fully charged (12,8V) from the high voltage system in about 1 hour. so the recharging current must be more than 30 amps. 3 to 4 amps would mean a charging time of more than 10 hours for a 45 amps/h battery like the one in the RX400h.
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when the car is in the ready mode, I assume the batteries are connected? So if I hook to the starting battery, won't it drain the main drive motor battery until it kicks on the engine?
I don't think that is correct. I believe it would only drain the starter battery. Again, call a dealer or Lexus USA and ask a tech rep.
if the car is in "ready" mode, the 12V battery gets loaded from the cars high voltage system. if the high voltage battery's getting low the engine kicks in and the generator fills up the high voltage battery's.
so as long as the car stays in ready mode your 12V batt will be fine.
but you should see if the 25 amps are not too much for the cigarette lighter. i think all 12V connectors have 15 amp fuses!
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Thanks.
My Rx is about 6 months.
I througt about the winter tires, but I´m afraid that were i live in winter time, the temperature is about 15-20 grades centigrades, and to go to my other house, take 200Km on the motorway and 125 on road, only the last 20 or 30 Km are realy probably on ice or snow, for this i think that perhaps the winter tires will get to used in a few kilometres, for this I think that it was better to disconect de Vdim and use the high performance tires.
I´ll look for the Yokohama tires, but are not a very comercial tires here in Spain. About chains, i have a textil ones.
well, for this kind of usage i would stay on standard (sumer) tires and use "real" snow chains (not the textile ones).
i was driving for 3 month with the standard tires in winter time and we had a lot of snow that year and i had to use the snow chains only once.
some people here use the yokohama winter tires all year round, but for the high temps in spain i would not recommend doing so.
and don't be so concerned about the VDIM it is much better then comparable systems from the competition!
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The owners manual does not provide a good simple list of the voice commands, in fact it refers people to the help screens. Does anyone know a good location or have a list of the valid voice commands?
Thanks, i called them yesterday and they said they had one and would fax me one but it's a day later and i haven't received it. Hopefully one of us is just having fax issues. Like the second reply, i am frustrated by trying to learn from trial and error. And like many others, I am frustrated that the navigation system has minimal use while driving, so i am hoping that if i can master the verbal commands, I can do some things with the navigation system that can't be done via the manual user interface while driving. I just bought the 400H and am afraid to consider the device workarounds talked about on the forums as I don't want to do anything to limit my warranty. If anyone has figured out if the verbal commands are a workaround, i'd like to hear about that too.
sorry, my link is not working, here comes the .pdf version.
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Hi, i,m new in this forum.
I´been looking a forum in U.S, because in Spain there are not a lot of Rx400h owners.
I live near the sea, but in winter I use to go to a second house in the Pirinees for ski. Usualy, the road is clean of snow, but to arrive to my house, they don,t clean the street. I saw some videos of the car in snow, and it looks bad.
The question is: Is it possible to dissable the VDIM? How?
Thanks.
(sorry, but my english is very bad)
hello! nice to here from a RX400 owner in spain.
i live in austria and my house is in the mountains (altitude is about 850m). we have snow here usualy from november till march. so i know what it means to drive the RX400 on snowy and icy roads.
my RX400 is now about 20 month old and has been driven a bit more than 50.000km and i had no difficulty's driving it in wintertime.
there is no way to disable the VDIM.
about a year ago lexus europe promised that from model 2007 on there will be a so called "snow button" but this promise was not kept. but i can tell you there are a lot of RX400's driven in austria and swizerland and i think they all doing well with VDIM active.
actually the VDIM is the best safety electronic system i have seen (and experienced) so far, especially in wintertime.
what you should look for, are very good winter tires. i can recommend the YOKOHAMA AVS Winter dimension 235/55/18.
as this dimension is not very populare start searching for winter tires soon in order to get them before snow fall starts.
for icy roads (and i mean the real one, where you stop the car and it slowly drifts sideways to the pavement) and deep snow, you should get snow chains. there are snow chains available for the RX400 tire dimension which can be mounted/dismounted very easily (in about to minutes and done only from outside of the wheels). if you like i can give you company and type.
let me recommend to you the european LOC's for discussions about the eropean RX400 version (it differs in many ways from the US version) and have fun with your car!
English LOC europe http://www.lexusownersclub.co.uk/forum/index.php?act=idx
german LOC europe
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The owners manual does not provide a good simple list of the voice commands, in fact it refers people to the help screens. Does anyone know a good location or have a list of the valid voice commands?
may be this helps!
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When did they put the overlay option into the "back up camera view" My 06 does not have that feature to tell you where the car will end up depending on how much the steering wheel is turned to. Is this a 2008 RX?
pics have been taken from a 2006 mod. the overlay can be switched on and off by touching the symbol at the left lower corner.
400h 12v Battery Questions
in 04 - 09 Lexus RX330 / RX350 / RX400h
Posted
12V battery is charged if the car shows "READY". charging is done from inverter and the high voltage battery.
if the voltage from the 12V battery is below 10,5V it will not be powering up the computer systems and you will not see the "Ready".
if the ignition switch is in "radio" or "drive" position depending on what is switched on (lights, radio, air condition, ect.) there will be between 10 and 40 amps drawn from the 12V battery and depending on the charge condition battery voltage will fall under 10,5 volts in 10 to 45 minutes (battery has a capacity of 45Ah and is very small for this car).
and yes, in many cases it is helping to switch all and every thing off (lights, radio, air condition, seat heating.....) and take off the ignition key and wait for some minutes (5 to 20 minutes is normally enough) and try to start again. very often ready is then coming up because the starting up is not taking many current (there is no engine cranking like in other cars).