proudpilot

Hello Everyone, first post!

I did a search and couldn't find anyone else with the same issue. I've had a 2007 RX400H now for about 6 months. Just got a Compustar 901 remote start and alarm put in. When I got it back, my power gauge is simply not working. It's reading as if I'm at full brake (basically off) at any speed or diving condition.

Any ideas as to if it could be a crossed wire or a bad fuse? I have an extended warranty on it if it's something not related to the install, and they have a guarantee that I can fall back on but I would lose the car for a day or two and don't think I could do that until after the holidays.

Thanks for any tips!

thomas1

Personally never heard of this problem, but they obviously messed something up. I would let them go back thru their wiring and find out what happened.

maseace

Maybe you could install a tachometer in its place, since the power gauge is pretty useless anyway.

proudpilot

Sorry it took so long to get back to you guys. Figured out the problem. Got a compustar 901 system installed and they tapped the power gauge. Basically it made the gauge think that the regenerative brakes were one, which also screwed up some of the ways the rx works in the snow. They've got it tapped to an ignition coil, and that brings up some more problems.

Seems like the autostart turns the car on, but because of how it's wired, it shuts off after 3 attempts even though it's going. Not a problem when it's cold as the engine turns on, so kinda sorta works. Anyone know possibly of how you have to tap an autostart into a hybrid system to stop cranking when the system kicks on?

maseace

That doesn't sound good. Maybe they should just remove it. You wouldn't want to have an accident because the VSC, skid control, or ABS didn't engage, or do some damage to the hybrid system if it thinks the regenerative braking is engaged always.

proudpilot

Alright I will do what so few have done before. I shall post the solution (in general, not necessarily this forum)!

So, the problem resided in the tachometer sensing wire. I was using a compustar 901 with a FT-6200S-CONT Remote Starter. So it's a hybrid, and they were trying to sense when the car was on to stop cranking. See the bottom, this isn't needed in a hybrid. Here's what the steps were:

Attached the sensing wire to the power gauge. It created an excessive voltage, which tricked the gauge into thinking the regenerative brakes were on. I thought the gauge was off, but no, it made a circuit. Hence there were a few times on ice that the first time you hit the brakes the RX got confused and no abs. Hit it again and it tried again and abs worked. So, not the best setup.

They tried doing a voltage sensing on it, and the gauge worked, but it didn't sense anything and after 3 cranks the system would turn off the RX.

The last option that their tech support offered was to do a voltage sensing option off of an ignition coil on the engine. Well, this worked, but not ideal. It only worked if the engine actually turned on during the 3 crank attempts, which was a maybe. Even if it's painfully cold, sometimes my RX would take up to 20 seconds or so to start the engine to start providing heat. Same could happen in the summer if we're trying to cool it. So while it kinda worked, it didn't.

That was their 'last option' before removing it. So I posted around and I finally got determined with tech support. I went through a few representatives and a few voice mails before I finally made it to the guy who knew what he was talking about.

Seems that most tech supports aren't used to hybrids. As such, they work solutions for gas engines only. This tech knew what to do. For all of the hybrids he does, he ignores the tach signal. The thinking is like this; if you crank the starter, the car will turn on so long as it has battery. What it does next is up to the hybrid. You cannot force the engine to start on a hybrid. If you crank and it doesn't start, well then you have some other problem such as a drained battery or a fault and you don't want to force it on. During normal operations, holding the 'start' for approximately a second on any hybrid will power it up to operating mode. Hence, this is the solution:

http://www.compustar.com/remotestart/StartItDetails.pdf
Option 2-10. Option 4: No Connection – 1.5 Second Crank
(Not for Manual Transmissions)

This completely ignores the tach signal. It will crank once for 1.5 seconds after you select to start it. On my unit, it first powers to on for about 4-5 seconds then tries to crank. With the hybrid system, cranking for longer than that time won't hurt it as the system ignores the key, in a way, once it's started. Now, if for some reason it doesn't 'start', the system will stay on for 25 minutes before shutting everything off. This could drain the battery. There is no way to know that it didn't start. However, it is very unlikely that it didn't start from this sequence, unless something is really wrong with the RX.

This does not work with gas only autostarts. If this were to be tried in a non-hybrid it could burn out the starter on the vehicle or excessively drain the battery. Hence most installers would never use this option and be told to avoid it like the plague. According to the top tech I spoke with, he uses this with all the hybrids as the tach signal could take a few minutes to come up, if at all. So it works great, but you need to tell your installer about this.

As for us, it works great and haven't been able to fault it since we changed over this setting. We love how it works and the gremlins are gone. I hope this helps someone else!

thomas1

Thanks for posting, by the way there is a hybrid forum online, cant remember there name, but they do these kind of mods all of the time on all brands of hybrids....

jooksing82

I just ordered the Compustar CS4900S-KIT from best buy. Hopefully they can install with out problems. I will have your solution printed on hand for the tech. I will report back in a few weeks