Les Lex 2018

Thanks for the investigation: Here is an update: Yes on Leather seats. IF you take a vacuum cleaner and place the water vac attachment on the center of the seat were I monitored zero cooling, it is sucking into a dead zone. There IS NO venting there. Not the same for the front part. So Lexus was right in saying that it IS WORKING. Just not like some (like myself) would expect it to work. So as promised, I placed the sensor under my leg yesterday. The zero cooling test case would have been 93 degrees. The front part under my leg actually got to 88. The cabin temp was 80. So YES, it is passing by 5 whole degrees. Ain’t exactly going to give anyone a frost bite. I traded the RAV4 for this RX. Can’t see a 4-banger in what is essentially a truck. There is something BAD wrong with a truck horn that goes beep beep instead of HONK HONK. Enter the RX. I will never own anything but an RX-350 after test driving it. The RAV4 is in the lower compact class. The RX is in the mid-size class. The RAV4 is not in a luxury class. The RX compares “closest” with a loaded up Highlander, size, power wise. I test drove the Highlander. Not quite the same. My favorite mountain car, believe it or not, was the Camry XLE with Michelin tires. I took it to the Rocky Mountain Nat Park above Bolder, Co to do the Warrantee test on it. IT passed. The Braking position B on the Hybrid was awesome coming down off of the 12,400 foot top. The only thing that hurt my feelings when I got the RX were warm seats and junkie Bridgestone tires. How low can you go.

I’ve always successfully contended with other manufacturers that if something does not work per the OM, then it is a warrantee problem, not some magic adjustment they can charge your for. Ask the dealer to call Lexus for a workaround for an OM that keeps you from a simple reset. If you are using genuine Lexus parts in all your tires, then tell them you want the corrections to the manual that should put you back in the loop and them out of the loop permanently.

Interesting abut the 4-Runner, a more expensive ground craft. The system in the latest RX is a different animal. They punted on that option. Lexus of Huntsville agrees with me that neither Toyota or Lexus wants to discuss with anyone in detail, the exact equipment and functional nature of their equipment. As a result, there is a lot of information and disinformation on sites like this because each model is different and you have to pry info out of their folks to get any useful information, as evidenced by my encounter with ventilated seats. I would be generous at this point, if I gave that option two stars. But it sounded great in the brochure. BUT after a month of very extensive testing, I can tell you that this RX=350 is 100 percent operational per the OM.

Had the experts study my RX-350. Finally solved the mysteries behind ventilated seats. So here is the story. Only the front 8” section of the seat is ventilated. So the rest of the 12” from the front section to the backrest get no ventilation and no cooling at all, per my test using a temp sensor placed on the middle of the seat. Because the 2016 to 2018 RX-350 seats are ventilated (and only partially) and not hooked up to the AC ducts, they can only cool by passing a slight amount of ambient cabin air thru the front of the seat. Even if you put tracing paper on the seat, the paper does not move. Air flow is only noticible to some people. Lexus service say my RX is therefore working fine. So, Paul is right in a sense. The fan gets it air from the floor, so what ever temp that is, that is the air that will cool the bottom of the front 8” of your seat. Since AC cools best in hot weather coming from the top vents, it would be a trade off to select air from the top and the bottom, just to get more air under the seat to indirectly cool the seat. But you’d want to do that to make seat cooling work to maximum benifit. My last and final test will be to measure the temp under one of my legs where cooling is actually occurring. I’ll measure the temp w/o the Air on and then note the reading after using max air for the next 10 minutes. Since there is no advertised cooling improvement, there can be no pass/fail criteria. In other words, it is what it is. But inquiring minds wanna know.

Thanks for the info on the Toyota. My RX goes in tomorrow morning for my only problem, and We’ll have the answer on cooling for sure. Dumbest thing I did in last ten years: Putting up a bird feeder - roof rats, mice and chipmunk envasion. Never again... Les, MACV 67 - 69

Now you’re talking. Call Lexus! By the way, my 350 has the exhaust vents next to the rear hatch and the grating on them would surely keep the mammals out. Let us know what they find. Well guess what? Had to call Lexus today and give them the bad news. I put an outdoor thermometer on the seat this AM. I taped it down and ran the wire and the thermometer into the console. I sat on it in the 350 until it stabilizes at 91 degrees. Then I made a trip to Cabellas with the AC set to 66 degrees. The temp element was exactly in the middle of the seat. Absolutly no change in temp. Not even a tenth of a degree. Now all I do have to do is take it in to Lexus and show them the thermometer and ask them what happened to the ventilated seats? I love it! Les, SP-5, MACV 67 - 69

The inside air intake is ALWAYS below the windshield because that is the point where the air hits the windshield creating a high pressure point, needed to force air inside. The somewhat polluted air that gets sucked into the engine compartment due to blowby and the like is channeled down and under the car. The small vents found elsewhere are used to prevent a pressure impulse when a door is closed. Those should have some sort of grating also to prevent insect and amimal intrusions. Only see them in the rear door well. Just what I was always taught. IF you have an animal stuck in your ducts, it’s most likely Jamed up against the heat /air exchanger and I think getting to that may me hard. But I am not a mechanic.

I checked the ducts on the 18 RX and I think you are absolutely right. The vent openings are 3/16” x 7/16” slots. This IS BIG enough to allow some rodents in. OK, then here is the fix. Go to Loews and have them run you off about 3 or 4 feet of their aluminum screen off the roll they use for this purpose. Open the hood. Just under the windshield wipers is a recessed bay that has 4 banks of grated opening (on the 2018 anyway). Cut out the screen to fit over each air bank. Then use silicone caulk around the rim to hold them over each of the banks. Let it dry. Cons: That may restrict some air flow but ask Lexus about that. Also, do mice like to chew on aluminum screen? When I had mice in the attic, they had me stuff scree into the air vent between bricks on the outside and that did keep them out. Really hope this helps.

You may have finished off the mice yourself if and when you left the car out somewhere on a hot day. Nothing or no one survives that. Call pest control - they are brilliant when it come to ways of eliminating rodents. Too quote my pest guy, “the only thing that attracts rodents is food, a warm place to stay, and privacy”. In other words, they are hungry, warm blooded animals that enjoy your crumbs, but don’t enjoy your company. Sound like they found one or two of those needs in your Lexus. As for vented seats, there is no air blowing thru the seat and the car is new. I’ll ask Lexus Support to define “The meaning of “vented” so I can troubleshoot it myself. The dealer consultant was no help by saying that it really doesn’t “vent” like you would think. Good luck with the pest control guy - you need one...

Aren’t those air vent intakes located in front of the windshield and already grated to prevent rodent/bird intrusion? Could be coming in from the inside and not via the vents. But not likely you or anyone would leave a Lexus outside with the windows or sunroof open long enough for a bird to build a nest and hatch a chick. So neither your scenario or mine makes much sence. Sorry, but no help.

Ventilated seats are a big let down. I went to setting/vehicle/ventilated seats and set the 0 (normal) to max cool (-2). set mode to S_Mode. Cranked down the AC and turned on the cooling to all high position (3-green LEDs. No air coming form the seats and the seat is warm except for the front 5 inches of the seat. Took it to the dealer and they verified that all setting were correct and that it was working because the front 5-inches of the seat was cool which the rest was ambient temp. Used a powerful LED flashlight to see if any light shines thru the seat anywhere and nothing so I don’t believe its designed to be “ventilated” BUT rather cold air blown under the seat where something is better than nothing. A true head scratcher in deed, Paul.

Actual Results taken today: 66 MPH indicating 27 MPG while on adaptive radar cruise = constant speed. Engine: 8th gear 1,800 RPM 20” tires. 10 MPH headwind. FWD These are roughfly the conditions you should be reading in an 18 RX-350 that is on auto-pilot.

The 18 RX has what I thought was a useless IPOD tray with a flip up cover. Its just big enough for a stack of ones and a coin purse. I like it and use it. F Sport console may not be the same.

My wife had knee replacements which made her shorter (believe it or not) and with the seat low, she still can not back into the seat. So I built her a 4 inch hi step with carpet and a handle to attach a cord. She stand on the step, sits down and pulls up the step by the cord and places it on the passenger seat. Works great. FYI: I traded a Camry because it was too low for her to get out of after surgery. Now she can’t get into the RX. She could not get into the RAV4 either. What the heck are you going to do.

Fill up the tank. Reset the [after fuel MPG]. Reset the trip A or B. Next time you get gas, does the Indicated MPG match what you calculate by using Trip divided by gallons put in the tank? If they match, that sez you have a real problem and not just a computer glitch. IF so, watch your tach rpm when you are going 65 MPH? IF the engine has warmed up and the tack is much higher than 2000, you may be in a lower gear than you should and that should only happen when you are using the paddle to force a lower gear, which I’m sure you don’t. Almost seems like your are not reaching 7th or 8th gear.

Thank you Paul! I’ll investigate your findings today and report back hopefully with similar results. So far, I’ve not seen any indication that the feature is working but the weather has been cool and I don’t leave the car out for long periods like you would if you used it for work so have yet to drive it on a hot day sitting in the sun. The RX only has 300 miles and I’m still testing all the features. Thanks for the added info. Did not understand after reading the book that the seat fan could be tied into the speed of the AC Fan.

Here are actual numbers on an 18 RX FWD: 29 MPG at 55 MPH Interstate. 27 MPG at 65 MPH Interstate. 26 MPG at 70 MPH Interstate. I can’t extrapolate 80 MPH but guess you are getting poor MPG at that speed. MPG to MPH is not a linear function. Drag gets a lot worse the faster you go. No reason to worry about how much fuel you have left in the tank unless you are trying for a record. I found that the driver’s bladder gets full long before the gas tank gets empty.

Same question in a new 2018. My guess is that if the driver is sitting on the seat, the air will be blocked. So the design is therefore to cool the leather seat, which in turn will then cool the driver indirectly. I will leave the RX in park with the air on and place a strip of paper on the seat to see if it moves around.

After 4.5 years driving the Camry 2.5 H and trading up to the V6 RX-350, I can tell you the following: Best Camry H MPG was in the suburbs always hit rated at 43. Second best is 50 MPH on state divided highway, 45 MPG where you can run under 60 MPH. Worst was city under 7 miles distantly from point A to B - 38 MPG Next worst is Interstate running at 70 to keep from getting run over. Contrast: My RX-350 non-H gets only 21 mixed town/suburbs and 26 on the interstate. Based on size, weight and engine size differences, no complaints or surprise there. The H is perfect for someone with long commute times in heavy traffic. Freeway fliers? Not so much better than a non-H.