Ptarmigan

Thanks. I have indeed bought one, a 2012 with a sad hybrid battery among other faults. I'm planning to rebuild the battery when I've got hold of another one to rob for cells. I'll post a thread about that when I've started making some progress...

This is the screen on the display. You can see the rear motor on the right side - when it's in operation the arrows show power flow from or to the battery. Obviously no help if you have replaced the head unit! If there is a problem with the rear motor then I would expect a 'check engine' light as the car will be down on power as only one motor is operational.

How tall is it including the loop at the top? https://size.name/en/catalog/brake_pads?length=96 finds some of the right shape, but they're 62mm tall. That appears to include the loop. Searching on the Blueprint part number ADT342125 brings up a series of matches: https://www.simplycarparts.co.uk/products/adt342125 and on the Toyota part number 04466-50100 leads to the Brembo part P 83 059: https://www.bremboparts.com/africa/en/catalogue/pad/P_83_059 which has a drawing. If I overlay that on your picture it looks a touch smaller but would maybe fit? Anyhow, someone is selling the Blueprint part on ebay for £9, so perhaps worth a punt?

Digging around suggests that Sumitomo is a supplier to Toyota, so it's possible those are OEM pads, or they could be aftermarket. It seems that Advics is a consortium of Toyota, Denso, Sumitomo and Aisin, and they make both OEM and aftermarket parts. They have a Japanese website: 株式会社アドヴィックスセールス ADVICS SALES CO.,LTD.株式会社アドヴィックスセールス ADVICS SALES CO.,LTD.ブレーキパッド、ディスクローター、ホイールシリンダーなどのブレーキ部品を販売する「株式会社アドヴィックスセールス」。自動車用ブレーキシステム・パーツの開発・製造を手掛けるアドヴィックスグループのアフターマーケット事業を担う会社として、世界のお客様により良い商品とサービスを提供します。and it could be worth poking around there looking for clues. At the very least measurements off the existing pad may give you something to go on.

Amayama says the part number is 04466-58010 which is what's shown in your listing. Has yours perhaps had any upgraded calipers, maybe in Japan? If you hold that pad next to the outside of your wheel, does it look the same size as your current pad?

For the record, a condenser replacement isn't a big job. I don't know anything about the 10 series condenser specifically but it'll be attached to the front of the radiator pack behind the bumper. Basically you take off the bumper, get access to the rad pack, install the new condenser, connect up the hoses and gas up the system. I've done this as a DIY job on a Prius. One thing, if the system has been open for any length of time, I'd recommend is blowing through aircon flush solvent through whatever pipework you can access to flush out any dirt that has collected. Then connect everything up and run a vacuum pump for a while - this will pull out any solvent or water that may be lurking. Disconnect the vacuum and check it will hold vacuum for half an hour. If it does it's ready for gassing up. I gassed mine with a can of R134a from Halfords, but it's better to use a proper machine. This is all standard aircon repair stuff. Any garage that does aircon repairs (not just Kwik Fit style gassing up) should be able to handle it. If it was the hybrid you'd need a garage with a dedicated machine for hybrids as they use a different oil and oil contamination can kill the compressor (for those I can recommend Bee Cool Aircon of Kettering, a bit out of your area...) When buying the condenser, you either want one which comes with a new receiver/dryer or to buy one. It looks like it's included with the Toyota condenser which is part number 88461-58050 (but you should check based on your frame number) at about £500-600 on Amayama including tax and delivery from Japan. Google is not finding an aftermarket one on that part number but I've not looked very hard. You may need to hold the garage's hand and/or get the parts for them as 'it's not on the computer' - if you can find an old school garage who are prepared to think a little out of the box then they likely have the skills to do it. I'd not buy a used condenser: they're lots of thin aluminum fins exposed to the full force of the weather and debris at the front of the car. They get bent and sooner or later the aluminum corrodes and develops leaks. If you aren't able to get the original or replica part it is possibly worth seeing if there's a part from another vehicle that will fit: they are just a long bit of metal piping at the end of the day, so improvisation might be possible.

So it seems like it's one of those external CarPlay screens for cars without. It uses the stock head unit for Bluetooth audio but everything else is on its own screen. If it does radio when you only have Japanese FM then I could see that as an advantage, but otherwise it seems not much different from using your phone in a holder. Maybe the CarPlay/Android Auto interface has bigger buttons than the regular phone that make it easier to use? (I have been discovering that some of my regular apps don't do Android Auto, or want a subscription to enable it. So a phone has its advantages too)

That's my understanding too - it's more 'AWD' than '4WD', as in the power gets put down where it's needed. It's similar to EVs like 'dual motor' Teslas which have a motor on the front axle and another on the rear axle. I haven't looked into the rear motor setup but I don't think there is a lockable differential like you might get on an all-terrain vehicle. Like a Tesla, the second motor allows more electric power to be put down compared with only a single motor, as you have four tyres worth of grip instead of two (although the Alphard motors are nowhere near as powerful as Tesla's). From what I read somewhere (don't have it to hand, may have been ATH10 rather than ATH20) there is a 4WD light but it only comes on when there is a fault. So the absence of a light means things are working normally.

There seems to be an issue with the IGBTs overheating in the inverter of the 2003-8 hybrid - either the inverter coolant pump fails or the heatsink grease dries out and they don't make good thermal contact with the coolant block, resulting in them cooking and failing. Perhaps that was what was meant? (I don't know a whole lot about the Gen1 hybrid system but I've seen this fault mentioned a few times)

Can you expand on 'dislocation'? I've not heard that term before. Do you mean physically coming loose? Or failing in some way?

The service manual has this, mangled via translation from the Japanese: This seems like the kind of thing that's routine in gearbox servicing - they don't necessarily have handy drain plugs so you have to do things like sucking oil out of the filler hole, or overfilling in the hope of mixing up old oil with fresh. Amayama: https://www.amayama.com/en/genuine-catalogs/epc/toyota-japan/alphard/ATH10W/43189/chassis/3901 says there's a '90341-18023 Gasket (for rear differential filler plug)' but no corresponding drain plug gasket, implying there is no way to drain it without suction. When filling you'd pump in oil until it overflows, and once it's stopped overflowing then you know that it's full. There's no service schedule for it that I can see.

Rubber suspension bushes do wear, so this is maintenance that you should expect to do every so often. The ride will typically feel better afterwards too, and so replacement is something you might expect to do at midlife on a used car. I don't know any Alphard specifics about these particular ones/parts/etc, but they are just bits of rubber at the end of the day. What do you mean about 'dislocation of battery'? The high voltage hybrid battery or the 12V one?

Once you have the part number, call your local Toyota dealer and see if they can order them in. Toyotadirectparts.co.uk are sometimes cheaper than my local dealer, although often you have to put in a request with the part number for them to create a web page for that part that you can order from. Another option if you get no luck finding one locally is to put the part number into zenmarket.jp and search Mercari and Yahoo (called JDirectItems outside Japan for legal reasons) auctions. Those tend to have more used parts available if there's no UK stock. You pay a fee for then handling the purchase, shipping in Japan for the item to their warehouse, shipping from Japan, and VAT on top. They do make sure that taxes are paid so the parcel doesn't get stuck at UK customs awaiting fees.

That looks rather handy... I have some headlights to do soon so I'll give that a go. Thanks for the videos btw, they've been very useful on the beginnings of my Alphard journey.

It may help to get a clamp meter to measure DC current and measure the current flow at various points. Is there current flowing from the alternator, is it flowing into the battery? Is it going into the dash, the indicators, etc? Check both sides positive and negative. If you find current is not flowing, then measure the voltage along various bits of wiring. eg if there's a wire that goes from the battery to the ignition, put one multimeter probe on the battery terminal and another where the wire meets the ignition. A good wire should have a low voltage difference along it (substantially below 1V), but a bad (high resistance) wire will have a much greater voltage. The same would happen if something is interrupting the wire, for example a blown fuse. When a high current is flowing, there's more voltage drop along a wire and you should see that in your voltage measurement. That's why the lights dim when the starter is running. This is the sort of thing an auto electrician will do to try to narrow down the fault. My stab in the dark might be to suspect a grounding fault - it's easy to check a positive wire that's obviously there, but if the return current relies on the component having a good chassis connection then that could get corroded and be overlooked.