Dave Mac

Some time ago I was driving (2018 ES350) and the navigation screen/radio etc. all went blank, I can’t recall if that included the speedometer cluster as well. I pulled into a parking lot and kind of hesitantly turned the car off. I gave it a minute and restarted the car – everything came up as hoped for and I was on my way.

A few (maybe several) months later the same thing happened and I again pulled into a parking lot and restarted the car and again everything was fine. When I was later having my car serviced at 20K miles I told my service adviser about these two events and asked if they would replace the battery because in the past I have found that strange occurrences such as this often are remedied by a new battery even though there are no other indications of a bad battery. He warrantied the battery and I kind of forgot about it.

Now, last week it happened again but this time as I was sitting in the parking lot I realized that it was the same parking lot I had pulled into on the two previous occasions. So what is happening?

The street that I am on when this happens does go by a mega church that has a couple of cell towers in their parking lot; otherwise it is pretty much residential on both sides. Or is my two month old battery failing? I’m not so sure I could get a second battery replaced with such an intermittent problem. I do go down this same street not regularly but at least once a month with no problem.

Any ideas? Thanks

Mike728

Your issue does not sound battery related. I would document every instance of the issue with your dealer. If you can't take it to them when it occurs, you should make a video of it with your phone to show them. Something seems to be loose and you don't want to be responsible for getting it fixed when you're out of warranty.

Dave Mac

i agree with not having to deal with this without warranty and that is why I lease my cars - about 6 mos. left.

My last Lexus ES350 started resetting to most defaults fairly often and after consulting with Lexus they were advised to basically remove the whole dash and replace a lot of electronics. My favorite master mechanic knew I wouldn't like that and he was right - I declined. They did replace the battery though and the problem never returned - I totaled the car about 6 mos. later. I've never been sure whether the fix was the new battery or just having the battery disconnected for about 10 minutes.

Dave Mac

Dave Mac

And BTW these two instances of mystery electronic issues are the ONLY problems I have ever had with my Lexus in 25 years.

Dave Mac

Tootsall

It might be worth checking out the possibility of radio interference: a few years ago there were some stories about people not being able to start their vehicles due to interference from neighbouring buildings using various electronic devices. One such here: https://www.wardsauto.com/technology...ey-fob-mystery

Maybe, maybe not. But as the old line goes, when you have eliminated all the possible options the answer must lie in the impossible. Just google "key fobs" and "radio interference".

jamestpc

I had a couple instances where my screen froze, and rebooted - lexus splash screen comes up and things are back to normal. One time it did two reboots in row. Very random issue and has happened 3-4 times in total over 3 years.

Never went to lexus for it.

Fillykonk

As I have not driven my car much since the COVID issue, the last couple of times I have started it just to charge the battery have seen a reboot of the nav screen each time. Whether this is related to a low-charged battery or not I don't know but it is the only time I have had this issue surface. I will be taking it on a longer run this evening so I will see if it continues to be a problem moving forward. My car is approaching the 3rd year of ownership so the batteries life expectancy is certainly on the downward trend. I am not sure if this is a similar issue as the OP's but It may not hurt to have the battery checked next time he gets a chance.