SeaDuck79

For an RX 330? What would be the point? It's not a performance car, and wasn't intended to be.

We have the Black Forest Pearl with the tan leather - looks very nice, especially in the sun!

We got ours in the Black Forest Pearl, and it looks awesome in the sun!

I concur - as much inventory is still around at end of model year, there should be no problem getting one from SOMEwhere, even the west coast, in a week or so.

Since they have a great reputation for top service as well as top quality, and seeing the major nature of this issue, my guess is that they aren't unwilling to respond with a solution, but are at this time unable to respond with a solution. Never attribute to malice that which can be explained by simple incompetence.

To answer the original question, there have been at least two threads I've seen regarding the transmission in the month or so I've been on this board - they've just aged off. Thanks to those more knowledgeable members for enlightening us on some of the technical details. It's a shame that a car that is practically perfect could have this one potentially major flaw. Like dating a supermodel who it turns out used to be a guy or something. Not that I would know about that personally... :P

I asked my dealer about that, and they handed me a list of about 3 pages. There are some changes that my wife and I will make. My dealer (this may or may not be a Lexus corporate policy) said that within 90 days of the sale, code changes were complimentary.

It has AWD (all 330s shipped to the NW are AWD), roof rack, heated seats, leather, 6 CD changer, 18" wheels, adaptive wipers/headlights, headlight washers & upgraded bulbs, roof rack, etc. The only things of substance that I know it doesn't have are the NAV/Camera, DVD, laser cruise, top of the line stereo system, and the enhanced tow package. Probably some minor stuff, too, but that's the basics. And that included tax, license, etc. Even including the treatments for leather and paint, and the longest extended warranty, we were out the door for about $42K. I'm not saying that everyone could get that deal, or that I could get it every day, but I got it that day. It could be that having brought brochures with us for the Pacifica and a couple others, and having them unobtrusively but obviously on the sales guy's desk, may have helped. I do wish you well.

Sorry, you're right - I do need to slightly correct. Mine doesn't have the Nav/camera. It does have everything else, though. I got it in Bellevue, WA.

Good luck indeed, getting $43K for a used one. I just bought a new one 3 weeks ago, equipped exactly like yours (in the Black Forest Pearl - a really cool metallic green), for $38K. And I looked at the Toureg, but issues of quality and gas mileage soured me on it. Why does a smaller V6 than the RX get 20% worse gas mileage? Could it be the 1000 lbs more weight than the RX? Why does it weigh that much, when it's the same size? Plus, it costs more. I think I'd go for the BMW for the same money. But that's up to you, of course. I wish you well.

Thanks - sounds very reasonable. I'll give that a try.

I just bought an RX 330, and we love it, but I would like to know whether there are some customizations that can be done to some of the features on it. Specifically, the one that has the side view mirrors drop to ground level. That's great when parallel parking, but we do very little of that, and it's kind of a pain the rest of the time. Also, can the Cruise control and/or the transmission be tuned to have less sensitivity in the kickdown points when the cruise is on?