lebaron97

I have a 2012 European GS450-F that all of a sudden got a problem no-one at the Lexus dealer can explain. AFter starting the car, mu heater automatically turns on (lights go on) but after 30 seconds or so it automatically turns off again. Whilst on, none of the buttons work but all lites are lit and the default temp is set at 22 degrees celsius. After it shuts down, I can manually turn the heater back on and all of the buttons work, as does the heater/AC. Everything works as mnormal save the default temp which I didn't set at 22.
After ****ting down the car and starting again within a 1 - 2 hour time frame, everything including the heating/AC work as normal and the heater even is set at the last temp I have set it at. Starting after this 1 - 2 hour time frame brings back the issue: neater starts and automatically turns off needs manual start and works fine, save for the standard 22 degrees celsius.

The dealer couldn't figure this out. They installed a new computer but issue remains, Now the want me to pay a $ 1200 fee for "opening up the dash" and start checking whether one of the eledged 8 servo's is broken or determine of the wiringharnass is faulty. They have no clue what it may be and want me to pay for theur learning curve. The keyfob settings were checked and battery renewed so they ruled that out. The computer was replaced, issue remains.

At one time (only once), after starting the car all lights on the dash buttons started flashing and the drivers side temp indicator showed "d44". Had to shut down the car and start again to get rid of the blinking dashlights. Again, the dealer has no clue.

Anyone had or heard of this issue? Also, after auto-shut down and manually starting the heater again, everything works fine, heating/cooling/blower etc. Both sides of the car. Thus, I don't see why the servo's or wiring harnass could be broken as nothing would work in that case, not even after manually starting. I dont want to be throwing money at a problem (clearly the dealer has no clue) and therefor am looking for a solution. None of the Fora report the same problem as I have and google was no help either. I hope opne of you can help me or direct me in the right direction.

chinee

Did you check the battery? If the battery is weak, all kinds of things can happen. Maybe it's the terminals, give them a good cleaning.

Zsikd

I agree with the above post that one of the battery terminals may have shortened, or needs a good cleaning. The vehicle is a 2012? Maybe posting in the 3GS forum would also be beneficial.

are there any codes coming up when you start the car on the odometer?

Cwang

4GS production started in 2011 so he's posting in exactly the right place...that said I've never heard of anything like this.

None of the buttons working is where I'd start looking. To me that could indicate an issue with the climate/radio unit itself. Perhaps give it a hard reset, disconnect the battery (and check it's condition) and try again.

Something is locking it out - maybe it's something broadcasting on the can bus when the car starts up? Maybe pull the radio out and if possible disconnect it(not familiar with plug layout) to see if it locks up without the CAN.

How handy are you? I could shoot you some drawings indicating how every interconnects. I'm assuming the radio has already been scanned by the dealer, it's able to report codes via techstream

lebaron97

Unfortunately I'm not handy at all. I doubt whether tyhe dealer checked anything because after changing the battery in the keyfob they assessed "no change so it must be the computer, we'll order one". It took about a month and a half to get that thing to the Netherlands and after replacing it, they noticed no change whatsoever. Thus they called me and said that based on their "waterfall diagram" they now needed to disassemble the dash in order to be able to START figuring out what was wrong. Disassembling though would costs about a day (i.e. $ 1200) and they wanted to know if I was willing to pay for that so they could start figuring out what might be wrong. I pointed them to all kinds of posts in various fora and haven't heard from them since yesterday.

because of the lack of knowledge on their side I was hoping that someone has had the same issue. The only error code I got, and only 1 time, is the d44 in the driver's temperature display. They didn't mention any error codes otherwise I assume that they would be able to pinpoint the issue more precisely than "pay us 1200 bucks to take out the dash so we can start to investigate what might be causing the issue" which is a kinda lame thing to say in my opinion.

More importantly is that everything works fine if i switch on the heater manually after it shuts down. So telling me that the cables are broken/faulty or one of the 8 (?) servo's are broken does seem very odd to me. If so, it wouldn't work at all (at least that's my reasoning)

Cal916

4th g started 2013. They skip 2012

Cwang

Perhaps in your corner of the globe, not across the rest of the world. Why the Americans called a car built in early 2012 a 2013 is beyond me. What did they call the cars built for 2013 - busy year in the factory was '2013'
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Cwang

Sounds like a software issue to me. You're right, nothing would be physically broken given it works after time. Like myself you're in a situation where 2nd hand parts simply don't exist so you probably can't swap radios over to eliminate that.

Again, I'd check your car battery (replace if original), hard reset the radio and then isolate the CAN bus from the radio. I'd also get techstream onto it. It seems like it's running in a sort of safe mode.

Edit: just occured to me that you're left hand drive so you shouldn't have too much trouble getting a radio....assuming the American '2013' radios suit your 2012 system.