So last winter it started with my heater going out. It blows cold air always and I have no idea why then it went along with my radiator being cracked so my friend fixed it so I was able to at least drive it and after that I had issues with my battery starting to die all the time and pretty soon it got to the point where after it heats up to regular temperature it just keeps heating up and anytime I turn it off the battery dies I pulled over on the freeway the other day because I was starting overheat in this tow truck driver pulls over and tells me that my serpentine belt is missing well now I'm seeing online? That there's no serpentine belt for the rx400h? I'm seeing pulleys with no belt on it but I read somewhere that that was an unused part of the engine? I just need help extremely badly if anyone is in the Seattle area I really need you to come through lolHELP

 

Sounds like you need a new battery at least. Can't comment on the radiator and cooling system without knowing exactly what was replaced. There is no belt except the timing belt which is normally not visible.

 

My battery is only a year old. Is that really all this is?.....as odd as it sounds I feel as though the radiator isntt my issue itself. I could very well be wrong. SO they only come with a timing belt???

 

1. It shouldn't overheat on freeway unless something wrong with cooling system. Did you check the coolant level? It should be checked on radiator, not next to windshield close to driver.


2 I would visit electric and talk about dying battery. Or visit the shop that installed it year ago - warranty is usually more than a year, so they can find the issue.
3. Do you have any warning lights?
PS: There are no alternator and starter, hence there is no serpentine belt.

 

You do not have a serpentine belt.

It is common to replace the radiator once every 10 years or so as the plastic cracks.

You have 2 batteries. One small one that sits in the engine bay. One hybrid battery in the rear cargo area floor. Which one is going dead? It is common for the small battery to go bad after a few years. It is less common, and more expensive, to have a hybrid battery failure.

Did the car overheat on the initial radiator failure? Overheating is not common. Worst case would be a bad head gasket...

 

OKAY! Lemme break it all down to you guys, and I'm aware that YES I'VE LET THIS GO TOO LONG AND NOW ITS SPIRALING OUT OF CONTROL AND I HAVE MORE ISSUES THAN IF ID JUST TAKEN CARE OF IT SOONER, but at the time it was not in any way possible for me financially to take care of such things anyways. SO bought the car last summer, RAN GREAT! FIRST my climate control buttons went the silicone under the buttons is known to deteriorate easily I guess on these vehicles and so my geniusness starts using a bobby pin to change my heat because I was going from seattle to tri cities literally every weekend in the middle of winter so it never failed for me to be driving in full blown blizzards and that being said I needed to poke that damn button and get my heater working so one day I go to turn up my heater and it turns right back down again so I go and poke at it again and it goes right back down again all the way to Max cold so that's the beginning of the electrical issues that I've noticed but it seems that they've all corrected themself over time besides that one my heater stopped working in just never started blowing hot air after that the fan blows but no hot so that was my first red flag my second was my engine light came on and I was getting codes for air to fuel ratio to lean so bank one and Bank two were throwing up codes there was four codes that came up that time so there's that issue then I noticed that my battery was kind of not staying charged as long as I had known it to stay charged for I noticed sometimes it would die very easily if I had just you know a minimal amount of things plugged in or if I had it left on for like 5 minutes after I turned it off you know and had it in accessory mode it would it would just die on me so there was that then after this I noticed it overheating while the radiator was cracked in the front so my friend epoxy that for me to kind of bandage the problem which worked as long as I kept putting coolant in the radiator it was fine but then one day hell broke loose and my brother calls me freaking out because he says that it's not stopping overheating and I told him to make sure that if it overheats and he does not let it go even a little bit past normal so he know that it was an issue so he kept an eye on it so it's never gone into the red but now when that happened my car dies every time I turn it off so the overheating once getting to normal temperature and the car dying every time it turns off all happened at the same time after my snowball effect I have a hard time explaining hard stuff so I hope any of this makes sense......... That's where I'm at.....well kinda actually where I'm really at is my car has been sitting with my airbox and radiator hose removed and maybe a couple other parts that my friend took out to try to look down at this police then he sees that there should be belts on I don't know what the hell he's talking about anyways yeah my car is slightly taken apart and I have no idea how to put it back together and I just want to know if anybody can get an idea of what might be going wrong from the things I've just said. Does anybody know anyone in the Seattle area that could help me out as the dealership is pretty spendy for me right now

 

It's all going on for you!
The buttons now work? They came back to life?
The radiator is a relatively simple job – it happened to me. The only difficult part was removing rusted bolts (easy to buy the part – get quality radiator for about $120 and then a normal shop could install – it is after all a bog standard petrol engine)
The water pump IS run off a belt – belt and pump do need replacing at about 110-120K miles
The failure of the HVAC heating is almost always to do with water leaking from the matrix (radiator and pipes) via a crack in the radiator plastic works.
Replace the radiator – carefully rill the matrix with engine running and full heat on in cabin.

 

You could buy a used HVAC panel off eBay for about $150. That should fix the heater.

A new Lexus/Toyota radiator is about $320. That will fix the radiator, but maybe not the overheating if there is a head gasket problem.

A new battery is about $120 from CostCo. Note, this is not a hybrid battery.

But the fact it overheats might mean there are bigger problems.

 

Are the two electric radiator fans working? Mine went out and the car would overheat when stopped but as long as the car was moving it was not overheating. Amazon used to have the fans but I think they are out of stock now. Rockauto may have them. Don’t buy used ones as the carbon brushes fill the fan with carbon causing the fan to stop working.

 

For the Fan Motors the "updated fan" Toyota 16363-20390 also works in the RX400h. I got aftermarket on ebay 2 for $65. working so far.