arthurj

There’s a plate in the door frame of the passenger-side door. It’s quite easy to see with the door open. The number will probably begin ANH20- or ATH20-

That’s interesting. I get nowhere near that with mine (see the MPG Megathread), more like 9km/l local and 13km/l motorway, but I do suspect I have some battery cells that need replacing. The Gen2 Hybrid has an EV mode but it’s only designed to get you out of the drive and part way along the road without waking the neighbours. The engine always kicks in above 20mph and even then the battery only lasts for 100m or so down the road (again, possible battery issues).

Can't edit the original post, here's a follow-up: They took the car in for a service no problem, did a full mechanical check. Very polite and friendly. Interested in the car! Couldn't connect to the hybrid system so were unable to give it a health check. Won't be able to service it either. Couldn't work out how to use the OEM radio Gave the car a thorough clean inside and out as part of the service and it's immaculate. Came back with a detailed service report and did identify several things that definitely needed fixing, which my guy at the port doing the MOT missed (thought as much - that's why I put it in for a service in the first place). However: they are quite expensive and reported minor faults as urgent. Have 4mm of tread on the rear tyres, was reported as urgent replacement (minimum is 1.6mm). Brake disks were reported as worn, actually just needed a clean. Was told that the rear arms were corroded and needed replacing urgently... there's a tiny bit of rust at the ends where stones have hit it, it's not even flaking. To their credit, the engineer actually did even less work than what I approved because he said it wasn't needed.

Local Toyota garage have told me that they can’t do a hybrid health check or work on the hybrid system due to it being an import and their computer not connecting. They’re fine with the mechanical aspects. Does anyone know anyone in the North-East who will work on the hybrid system on an import? Also, in the spirit of DIY, is a battery health check something I could do with a ODB2 reader or Techstream, and how would I go about it?

This is brilliant, thanks Chris.

From chatting to some other people I’ve found out that Toyota improved their galvanising process sometime before 2010, so it’s not as bad as it was, however they still don’t protect from corrosion in the same way that, say, Volkswagen do. Anyone have any thoughts on Lanoguard? That looks like the level I can handle doing myself, even if I have to do it once or twice a year. I’ve heard everything from “I’m a farmer and it’s the only thing I trust” right down to “snake oil, absolute con”.

Does this help?

Possibly, although it won’t use the car’s sound system. The screen itself will just take a standard analogue video in They both have tablets and headphones anyway, but they do love having a movie theatre in the back. I also have one of those mini SNES games consoles. It fits inside the centre console, has HDMI out (which goes to aux/VTR on the head unit) and runs off USB power.

From what I can tell, it’s quite easy to find a replacement head unit that *mirrors* to the rear screen. That is, what’s shown on the head unit also gets displayed on the rear monitor. That’s not what I’m looking for - I want maps shown on the front screen and movies for the kids in the back. I believe the CarPlay retrofit option that gets mentioned here a lot can’t support maps in the front and different video in the back. If I find anything I’ll post it here.

It looked like exactly the same options as CarScanner in the configuration section, but haven’t had time to dive in properly. I was using the cheapest cable I could find on eBay and the virtual machine image from the link above, which is version 12 or something. I don’t know if that makes a difference or not.

Found this on a corner of the internet. It’s an automatic translation but might help someone. NHZN-X62G_Part1.pdf NHZN-X62G_Part2.pdf NHZN-X62G_Part3.pdf NHZN-X62G_Part4.pdf

I've dug into every option on my head unit (NHZN-X62G) with Google Translate and haven't found those options, even in the maintenance mode. It can read and display a lot of data about the car that CarScanner shows, it looks like it could even order parts and book a service at the touch of a button if the G-Book stuff still worked, but you can only change settings for the head unit itself, not any of the configuration options you get in CarScanner. Or at least I haven't found a way. I bought a cheapo J2534 cable for Techstream off eBay, hoping it would give me more options including disabling the reverse beep. Unfortunately it only shows the same configurable options that CarScanner does, in a more inconvenient way.

Thanks all, that’s what I thought. Now I need to find someone in the North East who will do it. Not sure I’m up to doing it myself, that kind of messy job is guaranteed to drive me up the wall.

When I imported my car I asked to have it undersealed by the guy doing the IVA, fog and speedo conversion. He didn’t do it, claiming that cars younger than 10 years don’t need it. I wasn’t convinced by this at the time, but I’ve just asked someone else if they would do it and they said that Japan imports are usually in good condition when they get here so they don’t need it. I thought undersealing was a standard practice for imports. Has something changed in the last 10 years that makes it not worth it? it’s not the condition of the car now I’m worried about, it’s the condition it’ll be in after a few months of living near the coast and a winter’s worth of salty roads.

Interesting. I guess mine doesn’t then.

Stoneacre Toyota at the Silverlink near North Shields will service the 20-series. Was quoted just over £400 for a full service.

It has an alarm according to the manual, but it only sounds if the doors are forced.

I realise this is starting to get a bit weird and stalkerish, but this is the man himself selling a CarPlay unit on eBay. https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/284258580156

Another data point, this time urban driving in the series 20 hybrid. 1. Year 2012 2. Model Vellfire Hybrid 3. Driving 152km, town driving, shopping trips, ECO mode 4. MPG 25.3mpg This and the last post were using E10. Next time I do a full tank I’ll try E5 instead. I also have a suspicion my hybrid battery isn’t working well as it loses a lot of charge overnight.

Hello. This thread might help.

I got a Viofo A129 Plus Duo front and rear. I mounted the front behind the mirror. Pushed the cable under the trim above the windscreen, then ran it along the driver’s side (being careful not to block the airbag) and along to the back. The Viofo cable is pretty thick but it just fits. My cam came with a trim tool which was definitely needed, since some of the trim is fitted flush and needs prying apart so you can push the cable in. I had trouble finding a good position for the rear camera. In the end I mounted it near the bottom of the glass close to the driver’s side. Due to the curve of the glass there’s a small blind spot towards the passenger side, but not bad. My camera came with sticky cable clips and I used them to run the cable vertically down the boot next to the window to the camera. There’s a service panel on the driver’s rear pillar with enough space inside to stow excess cable so that you have just the right amount leading to the boot. Harder is finding a power supply. I used a hardwire kit to permanently connect the front cam to a fuse box. Mine doesn’t have a 12V socket in the boot.

Nice, thanks for the info. Really just trying to work out what that system does, but I think I might prefer a new head unit. If I lived closer to Birmingham I’d probably get Ben to fit that anyway, given his reputation!

According to a spec sheet I found, that model of chip can read the CAN directly. Seems that to disassemble it you need Softune Workbench, which is a proprietory Fujitsu/Infineon debugging environment. I can't find it for download anywhere.

Do you know exactly what the model number is? There's a Fujitsu MB90 series of microcontrollers. If that particular chip is based on a common standard, you could disassemble the code and find out what might cause the english text to be used instead of the japanese.

Could you send me a link to the box you used? £180 + some swearing sounds like a good deal. According to the manual, my current head unit's resolution is 800x480 so it's chunky, but OK. I'm fairly savvy with electronics and wiring in general but not much experience with car electrics apart from wiring my dashcam to the fuse box. Interestingly, if I'm watching a video using the VTR function, my head unit doesn't automatically switch it off above 5mph, so maybe there isn't a handbrake wire to disable? Otherwise I think I might prefer a whole new head unit, but picking one seems like a minefield. Mine's an 8" unit, so 7" seems like a downgrade and the 9" ones won't fit without a new bezel. Plus I have a HDMI-in located in the centre console that can send a signal to the front or back screens or both, and it's not clear if any 3rd party head units support that.