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I am a bit puzzled. The car uses up and drains the battery when it is not on, within few minutes with its new battery. This happens to many people.
If it were a one off I would say might be bad battery. It is rather a common issue.
I am not sure how changing the battery with another brand will fix this. Even if you find a battery with double the capacity, you just extend the time before it is dead again by few minutes. Not sure this is a fix.
The car should be able to cut the power to all its computers and parasitic loads if the voltage gets low. It has that feature, but obviously it is not working the way it should.
That said, I'll be listening to my phone when cleaning the Lexus...
Yeah, I wish there was a true ACC mode where one could push the button and only have the minimum stuff for the display to function, whether the door was opened or not. Of course, people would kill their batteries with that too, but we're talking hours rather than minutes.
The basic takeaway is never use the Not Ready mode... I don't expect any change here, becuse the RAV4 and NX owners have been complaining aboit this for years now.
The basic takeaway is never use the Not Ready mode... I don't expect any change here, because the RAV4 and NX owners have been complaining about this for years now.
I fully concur with above.
Despite the RX450h+ should maintain the 12V battery from HV battery no matter what, I do stick to "ready mode' only.
The 450h+ can stay on without ICE for numerous hours depending on HV battery SoC, but I assume even the standard RX hybrid will have couple of hours of behaving the same. In case of non-hybrid RXs without HV battery it might be an issue if one wants to avoid running ICE. Carrying he jump cables is always good idea though no matter what kind of car one does have (at some point I managed to 'brick' every car I owned - EV and plug-in hybrid included)
Yes happened to me 2 weeks ago, I was detailing the RX for about 40 minutes and had the doors open, really did not think that the interior lights would draw that much power. To my surprise the battery was dead and I had to call Lexus service (that worked well)
Happened again last night, I parked at work (inside a heater bay) and at closing the battery was dead. Yup nothing was on or being used just a simple case of a parked car. Called Lexus road side who came in 40 minutes. Jumped the battery and I was good to go. I had used the car quite a bit that day. New to hybrids so the wondering if you are using EV a lot I would suppose there is no charging of the ICE battery? Perhaps that is a contributing factor or the primary issue? Cheers
In the hybrids, the 12v battery is always charged from the traction battery when the vehicle is in "Ready" mode. There is no alternator, so the ICE running or not running doesn't matter. Keep in mind that it takes about an hour of Ready mode to bring a dead battery up to a good, though not fully charged, state of charge after a jump start. The ideal method to recharge the battery after being deeply discharged is to use an automatic charger.
Thanks for the reply, I had no idea that there was no alternator and that the 12v is charged from the hybrid battery. My normal driving day to work is only 10 minutes either way so based upon your information I need to drive more and/or more likely put my car on a trickle charger nightly.
New question-is there a way to know (in car menu or on lexus app what the status of the 12v battery is so that you are aware it is getting dangerously ( not enough power to start), Many thanks Wells B.
I don't believe there is a way to tell from the vehicle display or Lexus App. The way I would do it is to run battery charger leads from the battery to outside the vehicle, and close all doors, then wait a half-hour or so and check the voltage at the leads. 12.45v resting is about 75% SoC and is a good place to be, above the SoC where sulfation starts, and about 12.65v is fully charged. Most vehicles never fully charge their battery though. Below 12.4v resting is where sulfation starts. A bit of complication is that lead-acid batteries vary voltage with temperature.
What I have been doing is to use an app called Dr Prius with an OBD2 dongle. If I see it staying around 12.5v most of the time while in Ready mode, I feel that the battery is near fully charged. If it were to stay higher than that a lot, indicating a lot of charging, I would feel that the battery may be at a lower state of charge than healthy and would probably just put it on the charger for a while. The app is not able to check resting voltage because the OBD2 signal goes away when the vehicle is fully powered down. Another way to do this would be to use a voltmeter at the 12v power outlet inside the console.
I fully charge all of my 12v batteries about once a month as a sort of preventative maintenance. My batteries seem to last much longer than average, and I attribute their long life to the maintenance charging.
The OEM battery would be "Standard" in the chart below.
Thanks for the reply, I had no idea that there was no alternator and that the 12v is charged from the hybrid battery. My normal driving day to work is only 10 minutes either way so based upon your information I need to drive more and/or more likely put my car on a trickle charger nightly.
New question-is there a way to know (in car menu or on lexus app what the status of the 12v battery is so that you are aware it is getting dangerously ( not enough power to start), Many thanks Wells B.
The 10 mins drive, is it just city driving? When I do drive the car occasionally, I also only do short city trips to the malls and grocery stores.
Oddly enough its half highway and city, I go 3 blocks and then hit the highway, next exit, then go 3 blocks to my work site, crazy close to work! I just ordered a trickle charger to maintain the battery. Have a good one Ed.
It really doesn't matter if it's city or highway. Unlike an alternator, the onboard charger supplies the same current regardless of engine rpm or engine off.
01-23-24, 06:57 AM
