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My wife and I will be trading our 2004 Acura TL tomorrow morning. Although we will miss the Acura, it's time to have a bit more room for my wife's gardening hobby and think the RX will help out when it comes time to transport her many plants from here to there. Needless to say, we are both anxious to pick up the new car - me more than her. We've had nothing but good luck with the Acura (99,000 miles) and hope the Lexus will be at least as good.

NO.... I hope... you know at 79 I must not be playing with a full deck..... but this sure is FUN!!! this is me...

Figured out the problem, was hilarious. I was looking over the repair records for the car and at around 30,000 miles in 2001 the woman brought it in to the dealer complaining it wasn't working. So I cross-referenced the repair records with the maintenance records on lexusdrivers.com. It showed notes of where the work was performed, and I got the dealer number. I called the dealer and gave them the work order number and the notes were hilarious. It said, "CD Player Diagnosed as NON Functional, Customer quoted installation charge, customer refused, customer left CD cartridge at dealership, not responding to calls. " So i'm like..well there's the mystery of the lost CD cartridge... So I attempt to figure out WTF the problem is myself since it's just mind boggling that A) the system died at 30,000 miles in 2001, and B) that it has power and not even attempting to load.. So i go in there with a mini flashlight and there's a hairpin jammed inside where the motor attempts to load the discs.. haha..as soon as i removed it the cd player was functional. This shows how much failures the lexus dealers are that they just recommend a new one without even putting a flash light into the changer. The CD player works like new now, and only has about 2 years of use on it since she hadn't used it since 30,000 miles in 2001 ..haha..just funny hope you guys had a laugh like i did..

Has anyone else experienced problems with fluid leaks in their RX330 differential? My car is now in the shop for the 2nd time in 8 months and I also have had 2 other repairs to for some kind of red fluid in the rear brake system ( sorry, a girl here). I'm worried that I may have a lemon, or a missed recall.

My LS is a 2004 and, unless things have changed in between these years, no Navigation means you have the most basic model. The car will be boring in every sense of the word - both in a good and bad way, as others have posted. No real maintenance issues, no little things you have to figure out (i.e., when you first sit inside, you probably can already work everything), but will never be mistaken for a sports car. Make sure that you have tires that "fit" the car - mine came with "performance" tires (purchased CPO last year) that transmit way more noise into the cabin that I'd like, but what can you do? My tires are Goodyear ResponseEdge with Kevlar - supposedly quiet, but I wouldn't pitch them as such. One major plus (to me) about the basic model is that it has parking sensors rather than a backup camera. This is definitely a personal preference, but I have found the sensors to be more useful than the camera, although I couldn't tell you why. All in all, I'm pretty agnostic about my ride, so I'll just highlight a few of my pro's and con's after a year of owning a LS430 - comments with the word "surprising" are relative as our expectations may differ: Pros: - Very good drive train - the engine is smooth, powerful, and well matched to the transmission. - Everything "just works" - Surprisingly small turning radius - Blocks out most outside noise very well - Interior is incredibly comfortable and well put together Cons: - A surprising amount of noise can travel through the bottom of the vehicle - especially through the tires. This might be alleviated some with different tires - maybe someone else can comment. - Suspension is not as great as some reviewers make it seem. The times I get that "driving on glass" feeling are few and far between; again, since I'm in the minority, this might be due to the tires - Suspension handles big bumps amazingly well, and small bumps surprisingly poorly. - The cooled seats don't really work all that well - if your backside is hot, the cooled seats will only make them slightly less hot. Huge Con (for me) - Lexus CPO warranty is non-transferrable. This was not pointed out to me before I bought the car (yes, it was in writing, but I didn't catch it until a couple days later). Since you plan on keeping your vehicle for a while and you haven't mentioned CPO at all, I'm guessing it's not an issue for you.