jashev

Excellent!! I thought so. Thanks for the heads up. Unfortunately my new RX has been delayed. The dealer low balled me big time on my trade-in. I was prepaired for a little bit of a loss but holy crap!! Anyway the sales person is working with me, my truck is in the paper and a bunch of sites and as soon as it sells my new RX will be ready and waiting for me. ← Since you are in NJ also, I would suggest you give Lexus of Cherry Hill a call. Vehicles are in stock. They will negotiate. Their salesman are NOT on commission so the pressure was zero. Their offer on my trade was more than fair. Just thought you might want to check it out. (I have no relationship with anyone at this dealership. This is not a paid plug (though if they are decent guys they'll give me 2 % :whistles: ) but I found the experience more than reasonable).

It is not legal in the United States to play a DVD on a screen which is visible to the driver while the vehicle is in motion. All manufacturers comply with this. That doesn't mean that there aren't numerous workarounds out there, however you are only asking for trouble if you try to watch a movie while you are driving.

I only have 400 miles on my car but have the following observations: 1. My gas mileage has been about what I expected, 27 combined hway/city. 2. I have no complaints about materials used or quality controls. 3. I find the missing remaining miles guage annoying, but not critical. In a luxury vehicle at this price, there is no reason to not have that option. 4. Again, tire pressure system is an annoyance and at this level should be standard. 5. I have had no problems with the climate control. 6. Don't particularly care about the wood. 7. Listened to the Levinson system and elected not to get it. The only difference I saw was about 100 watts of power which I would never use anyway. 8. I think it is negligent not to have a satellite ready radio system in the car. 9. I think it is ludicrous to disable the navigation and phone systems when the vehicle is in motion (though I have already hacked the navigation portion and now get full functionality when moving. Still working on the phone.) 10. I find the car somewhat susceptible to torque steer during acceleration and I also find it has a tendency to pull to either side during braking. 11. There are certainly better AWD systems available on the market (BMW X drive and Audi Quattro to name two) and I am surprised that Lexus elected to focus it's powertrain on a front wheel drive configuration instead of balancing the power more equally through the drivetrain. Then finally, there is the fun factor. This car is fun to drive, gets great gas mileage for the amount of power available and in my case, the dealer seems extremely competent. The verdict however is still out as to whether I would buy the car again. Jon

This stuff is strictly software related. No hardware involved.

I'm usually about 3 bars from the top. The bars are usually displayed in blue. Green occasionally. However, I had a scare yesterday, a very hot day here, going through a car wash. The battery display was about as usual before entering the wash. I decided to stay in the car because I didn't want the attendant !Removed! around and cranking the ignition, not knowing how a hybrid works. Of course, I had to put the car in NEUTRAL going through the wash, and of course I had the air conditioning on b/c it was so hot. Well, before I even got halfway through the wash, a warning was displayed that I needed to put the vehicle in "park" immediately because (as I found when I checked the manual) the battery doesn't charge when it's in neutral. And, surprisingly, the couple of minutes in the wash w/ the air conditioning on was enough to get me "in the red" and then to NO bars displayed. I assume the battery didn't really completely discharge, because according to the manual it wouldn't have started. I was certainly concerned, though, given the warnings from the dealer about how much it costs to recharge or replace the traction battery. I also find it strange and disconcerting that the traction battery could empty, or nearly empty, so quickly. ← That is interesting. I have noticed when the charge display gets to one or two bars, the engine starts and charges the battery. So in your case the engine did not start? Was the display on the dash showing ready? ← I had never turned it off and, no, the engine didn't die. I was worried though. ← The traction battery shouldn't be confused with the starting battery. My understanding is that even if the traction battery were discharged, the 12 volt starting battery would be unaffected. Is this not correct?

I'm somewhat familiar with the Volvo system and I think it works really well. However I would still say that the BMW X drive is the best I have ever driven. The X drive can take as much as 90% of the power being applied and transfer it to a single wheel if traction conditions call for it. Under normal driving conditions, hard acceleration transfers 80% of the power to the rear wheels. I have driven my wife's X5 in fairly severe winter conditions and could not spin a wheel even when nailing the accelerator. If you develop an aftermarket kit for the RX400h, let me know. I would certainly be interested. As far as the navigation system is concerned, I have used a number of different systems over the years (all allow full function when the vehicle is in motion) and have found that once you know the system, it is no more distracting than drinking a cup of coffee while you are driving. There have been numerous times when I am enroute to a destination, then I get a phone call on the way which changes a meeting to some other place. Or after a few hours driving on a trip into unfamiliar territory, I want to find a restaurant and a gas station nearby. Or I want to change my routing preference. It's also ridiculous to disable the phone function when the vehicle is in motion, since it simply makes me pick up my phone and dial directly through it. This process is much worse and much more distracting than being able to get access to my phone book information while the vehicle is in motion. Make these systems so easy to use that it doesn't distract the driver, or if they feel a need to continue this path then allow the passenger to make entries. Their sensor's already know when someone is sitting in the passenger seat, so why not link the system access to that. That would seem to make much more sense to me.

Where do we find this hack??? Yes, this is totally absurd...$50,000 car and we have to pull off the road to add a new address to the GPS or call someone. It seems this is more hazardous than using the GPS. I have been using an external Garmin for years and being able to change destination while traveling is not an option but a necessity! ← There are a couple of options but this one apparently has been successfully implemented on the Prius. It not only allows navigation input while in motion, but also provides the same freedom for the bluetooth phone interface. As an added bonus, it also eliminates the "I Agree" screen at the beginning of each session. I have emailed them regarding RX400h implementation and am waiting for a reply. http://www.coastaletech.com/nav_kit.htm There is this interesting but less attractive solution which requires no additional anything. It basically gives you the technical codes to key in on your screen to disable the function. Unfortunately, the sequence would have to be repeated each time you shut the car down. http://hybridcars.about.com/od/ownership/ss/navigation.htm Regarding satellite radio integration I have been in contact with these guys and they are interested in using my car to test the functionality of the XM implementation they have running for the Prius. They are not too far from my home and I will probably go along with the testing when I get back from vacation in a few weeks. http://www.priusxm.com/ Hope that helps.

Hey Guys, I am new to Lexus ownership (years of BMW, Mercedes and Audi cars instead). After doing some research the RX400h seemed interesting so I purchased one last week. With 400 miles on the car my mpg average has been about 29. Extremely reasonable for a car with this kind of power. I am also amazed at how thoroughly integrated the power systems are in this car. After 25 years of software design I can honestly say that the programming is brilliant. There are however a few things which I can't believe Lexus customers let the company get away with. 1. This nonesense about locking out navigation and telephone functions when the vehicle is in motion is absurd. BMW and Audi started down that path and quickly abandoned the effort when their car club members, customers and dealers all started screaming at them. I have owned two new vehicles (BMW 745il and an Audi A8L) which initially had this restriction when I bought the cars. Within two months, the dealers had been given software patches to remove the restictions. Doesn't Lexus listen to their customer's feedback? This has apparently helped spawn a few new businesses who now produce a system to neutralize this feature. 2. It is bizarre for a luxury car manufacturer not to provide an integrated satellite radio option today. When you are purchasing items in the 50K+ range, you don't expect to have to find a private shop to install a third party satellite radio system, after you purchase the car. 3. Finally, and this may be a matter of personal preference, when I own an AWD vehicle I don't expect to experience torque steer during acceleration. Both the Audi Quattro and the BMW X Drive systems seamlessly channel the majority of power to the rear wheels during hard acceleration. Lexus might take some lessons from that book. Even though this might sound like severe criticism, I actually feel that the overall car is quite a technological achievement and is fun to drive. That's why items like the 3 I have listed become even more frustrating. When a manufacturer comes this close to really doing the whole vehicle right, it is annoying when they blow it on a few details.

I have been an avid BMW owner for many years. I have owned some version of just about every model during that period of time (from a 1973 2002 tii (which I still have) to an M roadster, 750iL, 745iL, an X5 4.4 and Z8 (both of which I also still own). There is no question that the parts and maintenance costs on these cars will be somewhat higher than many other models (probably Lexus included). There is also no doubt that they will also be amazingly fun to drive and will have terrific handling and performance. In addition, '01 BMW's are particularly attractive since this was before the company remodeled. As far as the ML is concerned, I've known a great many ML owners and have yet to find one who has a nice thing to say about the ML. Don't know if that helped.

Walked into the dealership on a Tuesday evening. Test drove a car. Picked it up from the dealer the next day. Something smells rotten.

Hey Guys, I have a Cingular phone (Razr) but have not been able to download my phone book to the car. Is there a trick to this?? Jon