Sad New Owner

[jtkoo]

Well, I've been the owner of a brand new 06 RX330 AWD for two days and I am already fed up with it. To start, it seems to have a number of problems with its electronics...the programmable seats only intermittently seem willing to be programmed regardless of whether the car is on or not. The power windows initially did not work from the driver's seat...I had to "normalize" each one individually before they would work. The moonroof controls seem to be screwed up...you can tilt and slide regardless of whether you use the tilt or slide button. The problem with this is that you can never know for a fact that the moonroof is completely closed...once you slide or tilt the roof to a presumably closed position, it will continue on to tilt or slide open respectively. Furthermore, the voice recognition does not work worth a crap. It is a far cry from the Acura system I saw demo'd earlier. The dealer assured me that voice recognition would control the climate system (it does not) and could make calls (denied again). I should have done my homework, but even after I brought the car home it took me hours of reading through the reference materials to conclude that it could not perform those functions. I also found it hard to believe that there is no master list of voice commands that the system recognizes...the reference card is abridged. Sitting in the car to go through the help menu seems an inconvenient way to learn. While I can understand the safety concerns causing Lexus to disable most of the nav functions while the car is moving, it is incredibly frustrating when there is a copilot onboard who is unable to do anything. The phone book is almost useless...there is no way to edit the name of a contact once the car has downloaded the name wrong. Finally, my biggest disappointment is with the seats. I went from a 2001 BMW 540i 6-speed with the luxury seats (the most comfortable seats in the world...standard power seats with adjustable north-south lumbar PLUS power adjustable upper back and power headrests) to these. The lumbar support perfectly pushes out on my mid-upper back (where it is supposed to go in) and has NO support for my lower back. I haven't experienced such discomfort since my college days in my friend's Yugo. Unfortunately, this wasn't something I picked up in my brief test drive...it was only after spending some time behind the wheel and my subsequent need for traction that I discovered this. It is a far cry from my memory of my last Lexus, a second generation ES300 with great seats like butter. Sadly, this car does not live up to my memory of what owning a Lexus was supposed to be about.

[Canadian]

Sounds like the dealer missed setting the car up properly on delivery. You can fix the sunroof just like the windows by "normalizing" it, this should clear up the "confused" open & tilt buttons. I think that you use the Open-Close button to open the sunroof all of the way, but continue holding the botton for 3 seconds. If this doesn't re-set it then you'll have to check the manual as maybe I remembered it wrong.

[Rx330driver]

the lumbar thing can be fixed too via the controls, for the lower back. nobody on this forum has ever mentioned your above problems, well maybe the voice recognition thing, but go back to your dealer, and have them fix it.

Common fixes for your problems:

You can use the nav if you follow the "secret" code that you must enter in everytime you wanna use the nac while driving, search the forum for that procedure

Not to put any blame on you persay, but you really shoulda test drove the car :P before you bought something worth 40+K. but yeah seriously, go back to your dealer and tell them to fix it. its their job

[jtkoo]

the lumbar thing can be fixed too via the controls, for the lower back. nobody on this forum has ever mentioned your above problems, well maybe the voice recognition thing, but go back to your dealer, and have them fix it.

Common fixes for your problems:

You can use the nav if you follow the "secret" code that you must enter in everytime you wanna use the nac while driving, search the forum for that procedure

Not to put any blame on you persay, but you really shoulda test drove the car :P before you bought something worth 40+K. but yeah seriously, go back to your dealer and tell them to fix it. its their job

Thanks for the info. Yeah...I wish I had tested for longer than a few minutes...well, live and learn. Depended too much on my past experience with Lexus. So how would you suggest fixing the lumbar support? The only adjustment is forward and back...it is just placed too high.

[Rx330driver]

okay, you have your standard move seat forward, backwward, and the back up and back down. If you open the door and actually look at the buttons, there is something for back support, its closer to the seatbelt, but also in the area of the buttons mentioned above. if you cant find it, ill have to scan in my manual or something

[sirrah74]

the seating position can only be memorized in "park"

[jtkoo]

the seating position can only be memorized in "park"

OK, I'm not a total idiot. I know where the lumbar adjustment is. My complaint is that the lumbar bladder is placed too high on the back. My previous two cars (an Audi and a BMW) had lumbar supports that not only inflated and deflated but would travel up or down on the back. As far as the other problems, it turns out the dealer did not initialize the car when they got it from another dealer...therefore the user settings were all screwed up. Hopefully the problems are all cleared up (except for my back).