I have a 2013 RX450h with Nav and ML. Over the last 4 months, I've now had 4 occurrences of 3 seemingly related scenarios where my head unit computer, display, camera, and controls are acting up:

1. Turned the RX on and immediately put it in reverse. No Logo, backup camera display, nothing but a blank Nav screen. I continued to back up, then proceed ahead. HUD indicated SiriusXM was playing, but no buttons on the wheel or head unit would effect sound levels, etc. The RX remained this way until I got home, turned the truck off and back on, when it was fine once again.
2. Same symptoms as above, but about 5-6 minutes later while driving home with Nav and Infotainment non-operational, the RX head unit seemed to reboot itself. The logo, etc appeared just as is normal when you turn the RX on, and everything began operating as normal.
3. Turned the RX on and immediately put it in reverse. The logo, followed by the backup camera display appeared. As I'm backing up, the screen corrupts (remember the Twilight Zone static, or playing with a real antennae on your TV?) then goes blank. I pulled back into my stall, turned off the truck, then back on, and everything was operational again.

It would appear I have a head unit problem of some sort. Symptoms are just like working on a PC years ago with intermittent memory, hard disk or OS problems. The NX Forum has some reports of folks having somewhat similar problems on their new 2015s. I've not yet taken my RX to the Dealer, as I can't recreate these issues on demand ...and since this involves Infotainment, I know with their new policy, my Service Advisor will force me to take it first through a Technology Specialist, who will want to see the problem happen himself before Service will pursue it. Has anyone else had similar problems, or even better yet, had their head unit repaired after issues like these, so I can talk to Service and my Technology Specialist with a bit more confidence? Thx.

 

*2011 RX350, 35000mi

Just yesterday for the first time ever, sort of the same thing happened to mine. Radio would turn off by itself and none of the buttons would respond. After about 5 mins, the unit reset by itself (I assume) and went back to normal. Then it turned off by itself one more time about 5 mins after but that time I was able to just turn it back on again. Thought there was a ghost in the car kept messing around.

 

Bert,

Our RX Nav unit was producing a continuous noise, very much the same as a failing fan in a notebook or a desktop PC. Even though I took a video of it happening, the dealer was of no help, as they could not reproduce the symptoms, even after keeping the RX overnight. This only happened when it was really cold last year and went away by itself. Maybe the fan just died.

However, since I have it on the record that it has occurred, it may give me some leverage if the problem surfaces again when the warranty expires.

I am really not happy with the car manufacturers installing these proprietary units in our vehicles that will cost and arm and a leg to replace down the line.

I would visit the dealer anyway to see if they have the latest firmware they can flash. They did this for me per my request last year. This may have helped with the bluetooth and Apps issues I was having. I never bothered to check, as I don't use Apps anymore.

 

Sorry to hear about the problem, Bert. I've had the screen go black when reversing maybe once or twice. Not the rest though. And of course it won't occur on cue. Like vlad said, talk to the dealer. Maybe someone there might be familiar with the problem. Good luck and keep us posted.

 

we had an amp go up on our 2011rx350. replaced under warranty and the dealer had never heard of such an issue.

 

Just wanted to say thanks for all the comments and suggestions.

I'll get my RX in the next few weeks when I have a morning to check-out the new rides while enjoying a cappuccino and danish -- then update here with whatever transpires.

 

It's been quite a while since I started this thread, but I just returned home from my annual service that gave me the opportunity to report these occasional Nav/Cam/Infotainment problems, so wanted to update the thread with status.

Over the past 9 months or so, I've had now 6 difference occurrences, composed of the 3 original scenarios reported in Post #1, along with this more recent 4th variation:The net is, my SA was aware of potential problems like these with 2013's. His personal 2013 IS apparently also had a similar issue. (2013-15 RX of course has the new head unit that came along with the mid-life refresh, and thus different firmware from what the 2010-12 RX have). He has had no further issues with his 2013 IS since a firmware update was applied. That sounded promising when I was checking-in.

After a double cappuccino, lots of people asking if I needed anything, and my checking out the new Lexi on the showroom floor for a couple of hours, my RX was ready. My SA said there have been "a couple" of firmware updates for the RX since the original 2013s came out -- but mine was already at the most current level (I had that done trying to resolve iPod issues more than a year ago -- see other threads on all that). The Tech went ahead an "re-zapped" (my words) the latest firmware level back over what was already in my RX -- just in case it may help some way or other -- as I suspect it sometimes does with errant PC problems I've personally resolved in the past. Of course, there was nothing more specific that could be done since the problem is a random occurrence. At least my problem has now been officially reported and is logged with Lexus while I'm in warranty in case something more major crops up in the future.

So, unfortunately, there is no real resolution to report, and I don't have a lot of hope there will be one now that Lexus is focused on the 4th Gen and probably not caring a lot about odd-ball problems like this that only a few folks (or maybe just me) have reported on our "old" 3rd Gens. ...I'll just keep waiting for an 7th occurrence every time I turn my RX on and put it in reverse, so I can see what it does. How fun is that? It's almost as good as waiting for a jackpot on a slot machine.

 

My 2010 RX450 has done the same thing a few times. Of course a trip to the dealer resulted in them saying they could not reproduce it. I removed all DSs and it hasn't happened again.

 

Sorry for not yet being in gear this morning, but what is a "DS"? "Dual Screen"? I have no mods on my RX, so would love to try something if you've found a possible work-around.

I tried educating myself via the WWW on possible acronym or definitions, e.g. these and these, but the meaning just isn't clicking in this head of mine. Thx for the clarification!

 

Seems like your issue is with power up. Some ideas, either a short that is present when the circuits are cold, that goes away after the electronics warm up (I had a PC with this issue, failed every morning within 5 minutes of starting, but was good the rest of the day), or the voltage applied during initial power up is not perfectly within spec and causes some kind of state corruption. Sounds like the corruption is random and infrequent, so I'll lean more towards a startup power issue (minor shorts or faulty memory will usually cause issues more frequently). Sometimes the corruption causes a lockup, other times it seems to cause a reboot, and another time it seemed to have corrupted the video memory for the screen. This all over the place stuff doesn't suggest a particular memory bit that fails consistently (I've seen PCs with bad memory, they usually fail consistently at the same point either at startup or if the memory fault is higher up, when certain programs are loaded).

Another possibility, is that the system has trouble reading the state from an external connection. Not knowing how this is programmed, I'm assuming one of the first things the system is going to do is establish connections with external devices (steering wheel buttons, other ECUs (speed sensors for GPS), GPS antenna, etc.). Normally when a system does this kind of thing, it will have a time-out period. A few things could happen during this time, connections are made and the system runs normally, no connections are made and the system hangs for a while, attempts retries or resets and possibility comes back to life, or finally, receive corrupted data that causes any manor of odd behaviour.

Your latest example made me think of this, as the description it was clear to me during the initial startup, something it was waiting for simply didn't happen and it went into an extended waiting cycle. When it started to receive data, it started to update the screen, but only when that part of the screen needed updating (map, compass arrows to start) and the rest of the system became operational once those parts of the screen went through a normal update call.

Just a lot of guessing here. My usual process for fixing these type of problems on computers anyway:

Step 1: Clean (I had a PC that had a dust bunny inside that the fan caused it to swirl over the keyboard connector, the keyboard always crashed every 15 minutes, removing the dust bunny removed the problem)
Step 2: reseat all connectors (had a server that worked fine for years, needed to move it one day, even gently, and it started to have disk failures on startup. Reseated the disk controller card, and it was fine again)
Step 3: start replacing stuff.

 

Thanks Andy. Appreciate the thoughts.

Since I'm under warranty, and purposely have a stock vehicle with not even a changed light bulb, I'm not going to be playing under the covers myself, but as another X-computer hardware/software guy all of my professional career, I agree about it feeling like a connection problem. Unfortunately, the RX computer didn't log any failures, so that did not help the Lexus Tech with any PDPSI. My SA was taken-back when I gave him a printed explanation of each scenario. I guess, my years doing software maintenance, running systems, call centers and doing PDPSI never go away. Ah ha ha.

BTW, I've only had the problem occur once after the RX was truly cold and sitting off for hours -- all others, it happens after I drive it for 15-20 mins, go into the store for something, and when I come back out -- whammo -- the bug.

 

I have a 2010 Lexus SC350 and when I tried to update my GPS i was told my head would not take an update. The cost in Canadian dollars of a new head (if they can get one) is $12,000. Whats going on here and what is the easy fix? other than an iPad

Jim