Late 2008 RX400h SE-L

Some ungodly hour the other morning was the first time for me driving this car when it's properly dark and there seemed to be some areas of the interior unlit so I wanted to check what should be lit and what shouldn't. I'd appreciate any current/past owners confirming for me.

• The buttons for the mirror adjustment and folding mirrors. Surprised to see these unlit. I found a reference to this on here but not on a late 400h, it was an earlier 300
• Fuel flap release button. The power tailgate button is illuminated but not the fuel flap release
• Overhead lighting controls. The two orange ambient lights are there and lit but none of the buttons for map lights, sunroof switch etc
• The small panel where the heated seat controls are. The orange light on the dial comes on when they're activated but there's no other illumination so you can find them in the dark
• Ambient lighting in the interior door pulls. Handbook says this is model specific but I'd expect to have this as it's an SE-L and it does have the illuminated scuff plates which work perfectly

Note that the rheostat is turned fully on past the click.

Very much appreciated Matt.

I'll pull the heated seat panel. And pretty sure none of the door pull lights were working. I'll have another look later.

Thanks again.

I found a kit on eBay from some Philipino guy that had all the interior light bulbs (back area lights, lights that come on when you open your door, vanity lights, etc) for a very reaonable price so upgraded those to small LED getting rid of the old looking yellow bulbs. I also upgraded most of the exterior lights (marker lights, fog lights to LED also). For instrumentation lights I had to replace the shifter bulb, heated seat switch bulbs, etc one by one most take the very same small bulb.

WHAT?!?! That whole panel is dark? I was going to pry that thing out too, though I notice the pull cover does not allow for much prying. I ordered 90011-01017 for some reason, but it has been a few months now, I thought it was for the mirror controls? How could they not light those? Perhaps since the controls are lower, they did not want to encourage any looking down?....could be.

Here is Bell's description, pretty generic it seems:

Part Number: 9001101017
Supersession(s): 90011-01017

CLEARANCE SONAR SWITCH; FOG LAMP SWITCH; FOR REAR WINDOW DEFOGGER SWITCH; HEADLAMP CLEANER SWITCH; RETRACTABLE OUTER MIRROR SWITCH.

Fits LS 430, RX 330, RX 350


Curse you LED upgraders! HAHA, kidding, but I hate the look of LED, no ambience and you don't see any more, so you will all find it hilarious that when I bought my 07 a year ago, someone had "upgraded" all the interior lights to LED, so I then went into the parts diagram and ordered all the OEM incandescent bulbs and took it back, except for the stupid rear license plate lights because they are unnecessarily laborious to get to.

Thank you for this thread, All! I love all lights and buttons working. Seriously, thank you, @MattRX , I would have potentially broke that panel prying it out only to find no bulbs, and then I would have flipped.

It does seem an odd decision not to light that panel. I can sort of understand on the LHD cars as it gets a cover anyway but on RHD like mine there is no cover and it's just an open bank of switches that disappear at night. The fuel flap release not being lit is also a bit of a pain.

I'll be honest, I'm not keen on the upgraded LED interior look either. I think the only interior LED upgrade I've ever done on any car has been to swap out a particularly dim boot/trunk light.

Back to my original post, it turned out the door pulls were in fact lit. Maybe it just wasn't dark enough for me to notice that faint orange glow. So the only one I need to replace was the heated seat panel backlight. All I could find was junk from China with so so reviews and of course come in a bag of 10. Cheap green LEDs. The panel is sat on my kitchen worktop ready to go in today. I'll see how it looks. And how long it lasts.

This exercise did make me miss those little electrical shops that you could wander in and say "Have you got one of these?". Sadly all but gone now since the advent of Amazon, eBay, AliExpress etc.

You are beyond me. I am actually not an electrical person, so if it isn't plug and play, I'm not interested.
The other confusion on that panel is that my power door button does light up and that is inside the little pull cover also, right next to the mirror controls. Strange. My door pulls are all lit. I agree they are faint. All our cities are getting bigger and brighter so I guess that does necessitate that safety and notification lights get brighter.
The only light I can see that is out now is the Lexus name on the door sill; all 3 others work. I will probably replace that, seems like it should be simple to get to.

Wow, great photos here:
https://www.ebay.com/itm/16773150511...3ABFBMhpL6vsNm

Sure enough, no backing on the mirror switch to house a light, and I now see I was never going to pry that thing out, haha, you can see someone tried on this one.