Having enjoyed owning a lexus rx300, I made a huge "investment" and purchased the 2006 rx400h. In april of 2014, the vehicle would not start due to a failure of the hybrid system. I attempted to jump start the vehicle as suggested by the lexus dealer. Upon further investigation I discovered the carpet inside the cabin area was soaking wet! The car had been outside in the rain with the windows, sunroof and doors closed. Also, I take the car to an automatic car wash on a regular basis. While loading the car on to the jerr-dan tow truck, a large amount of water poured out of the rear trunk area. The tow truck operator was amazed at the amount of water that was pouring onto the driveway. The vehicle was taken to the lexus dealer. After several days, a leak in the rear hatch area was found to be the source of the water. There apparently is a metal seam where the welds do not hold up or were not welded properly. Water collected in the hybrid battery area causing over $7000 damage. Of course, luckily for lexus, the vehicle warranty had expired. The only recourse I had was to make a claim to my insurance, which only covered the damages but not the cause. My out of pocket expenses are approximately $3000. Water leaking from the outside into the cabin of a vehicle, especially one of this price, is unacceptable. And to have water collect into the "heart" of the vehicle and render the vehicle inoperable is frightening. I could have been on an isolated road or a busy highway and the vehicle could have suddenly quit. Lexus knew about this potential problem but did not advise their customers to watch for any signs of moisture. The repair to the popped seam could have been done by any body shop or, I'm told, the use of a good quality silicone. There is a technical service bulletin from 3/10/2009 that specifically addresses this problem: tsb-l-sb0019-09 rev 1.
2006 Lexus RX Hybrid fuel system complaints
Page 2 of 2: complaints 11 to 23 of 23, newest first, as owners wrote them.
This is the second time that this incident has happened. While driving home from work near the intersection of fresh pond road and myrtle avenue, my lexus shut off completely. The message on the dashboard was "check hybrid system". Same incident happened dec 2012. According to lexus the problem the first time was the hybrid system. I haven't been to the lexus dealer yet but this is the second time that I got lucky without seriously injuring myself and other drivers.
Leakage of coolant from the radiator discovered and in less than 50 miles an engine warning light lit, indicating failure of the hybrid synergy drive system , namely the hybrid inverter. Vehicle was brought into a lexus dealership and the radiator and inverter were replaced.
Tl* the contact owns a 2006 lexus rx400h. The contact stated that she received notification of the federal safety agency campaign number: 13v396000 (hybrid propulsion system) and stated that the parts were not available. The manufacturer was notified. The contact had not experienced a failure.
Tl* the contact owns a 2006 lexus rx400h. The contact was driving approximately 50 MPH when the vehicle stalled without warning. The entire electrical system failed. The contact was unable to restart the vehicle and it was towed to the dealer. The dealer diagnosed the failure as being the hybrid inverter battery which caused the vehicle to stall and shuts off the electrical system. The vehicle was repaired. The manufacturer was not notified of the failure. The failure mileage was approximately 75,000 and the current mileage was 84,000.
Traveling down the interstate between 75-80 MPH, the car completely shut-off. Lost all power and "check hybrid system" lights came on. Was not able to restart the vehicle. It turns out that the inverter on this car was recalled in june 2011 and I was not notified. I took my car in for service in november of 2011 at the dealership where it was purchased, and they did nothing to resolve the problem. Saline kirkland at lexus of mobile (service manager) said she found out about the problem one week ago.
1a. After putting the key in to key hole, if your start the car right away, it will give you a failure "check vsc system" or"shift to "park" before starting" even it was already parked. 1b. Power drained if radio was on for 10-20 min and car will not start 2. It usually happens when the car is cooled. I had to wait for a few seconds after putting the key in the ignition before turning start to get it start. 2 years after having the car, the starter battery was replaced with the similar situation described above. Dealer now claims that battery needs replacement again. 3. Replacing starter batter was done the first time. I really doubt that battery died out so quickly, so I've done a bit research (provided link below) and found quite a few talked about inverter failure causing similar issues, and it not only result in high cost to replace the inverter, possibly life because vehicle brought to stop when in motion. Http://townhall-talk.edmunds.com/direct/view/.f136279/0 please kindly investigate. Thank you.
This potential safety problem involves hybrid inverters in lexus hybrid vehicles. This particular case involves a 2006 lexus rx400h vehicle with about 109,000 miles on it that had received all recommended, scheduled, routine maintenance. In the course of normal driving, all power to propel the vehicle completely and abruptly vanished. In addition, the vehicle concomitantly lost power steering and skid control as evidenced by notices on the dash. Fortunately in this case, momentum allowed the vehicle to coast to the side of the road without incident. The car was put in neutral and manually pushed off the road. Later it was towed a great distance to the dealer, at considerable expense, the dealer being the only place capable of this type of repair. The dealer found the hybrid inverter faulty. No reason for the failure could be provided. The warranty no longer applied therefore the cost of repair was quoted as an astonishing $9,000.00 ! Toyota eventually agreed to pay the dealer for the part, but not its installation. The faulty part was not returned. Should this type of incident not prove isolated, such abrupt and uncontrolled power loss renders all these vehicles untrustworthy at minimum, and raises potentially catastrophic safety concerns dependent on conditions that include where and when hybrid inverter failure and complete power loss suddenly occurs.
The car failed without warning while I was traveling 70+MPH on the highway. I was left only with brakes. My passenger noted a couple of minutes before the failure that the engine sounded strange, but there were no indicators on the dash. Car was towed to lexus dealership which stated that the inverter was completely gone and quoted $9,000 for part and $500 for labor. Car had been fully serviced for routine maintenance at same dealership just a few weeks earlier. I was told new inverters come from japan and used are difficult to find.
Driving off a stop light and the car just died. Check awd - CVT - hybrid system warning lights went on . Towed to dealer next morning and they called to say lucky it is under warranty ( I have 64000 miles , warranty is 70 k ) and it needs a new inverter. I have not seen bill but here it is $ 7 to $ 9000 yikes ! This is a problem as it shakes my faith in lexus bought from USA to bring to canada and relied on toyota - lexus brand --- this should not be happening and from what I can see the toyota lexus hybrid system needs a longer warranty !!!! I believe it is a faulty current inverter made of plastic, they replace with newer metal one.
Component: electrical system:alternator/generator/regulator summary: at a steady rate of speed on the hwy, the car surges and pulls and is impossible to maintain a smooth ride. When braking experience short bursts of acceleration. I am concerned as this seems to be leading to an inverter failure.
Vehicle unexpectedly stops running while driving - ended up being a failed inverter.
My 2006 lexus rx 400h has experienced a vibration during acceleration. It seems to stall the engine. Bring the vehicle to dealer for checking. The dealer said my vehicle uses incorrect grade of gasoline or not good quality gasoline and recommend that I shall always use better quality gasoline, I.e. Gasoline from shell. The vibration is caused by the misfire. Subsequently using the gasoline from shell and the vibration seems to be reduced or go away. Later on, try to use a different brand of gasoline (same grade, premium) and the vibration comes back. It seems the vibration has something to do with the timing of ignition which is controlled by the computer. It does not make sense that the design of computer software modeling is based on certain brand of gasoline or the design margin is so tight that the ignition timing does not work with the gasoline that is slight deviated from the gasoline that lexus uses to make the design. If I drive the car long distance or out of town and can not find the gas station that sell the gasoline which produce no vibration, then, I could run into a serious situation that my vehicle could be stalled or broken down due to severe vibration.
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