wamo

I have owned my AWD '06 RX400h since early 2005 (2nd one to hit the road in my state). Being that this is Minnesota and we get to experience every kind of weather imaginable, I can honestly say I have never gotten it stuck. I've also never experienced the AWD lock out problem. IMO driving on snow and ice has more to do with tire design and tread depth than the vehicle itself. That's where you'll need to be very careful. If you read the forums, you'll see a lot of grumping regarding tire lifetime on the earlier RX's. I'm on my 3rd set of tires and don't have 80K miles total on it. I drive it every day but I live ~5 miles from work. It's the age old performance and ride comfort vs. wear and noise problem. You can buy tires that will last longer but bthen it rides and sounds like a pickup. If buying a used RX, check the tire tread. If there's 4-5 32nd's left, you'll probably be paying for a new set within a year. My batteries are still seeming to be going strong so I can't offer any more insight than the other members on this question. Being I have an '06, I was affected by the inverter recall problem. Completely covered under warranty. Other than the inconvenience to take it to the deal (75miles drive one-way), it was completely replaced a little over a year ago and all has been fine since. I didn't have any catastrophic failure while driving. All in all I'm quite happy with the vehicle. Along with a recall or two everything has been covered under warranty. The only other thing is I've had a couple little annoyances with the Mark Levinson audio system. The worst was it ate a CD once and the head unit had to be pulled to get it back. The dreaded "Error 04". The internet is your friend on this one. I did not take it to the dealer and pay several hundred bucks for them to pull the unit and potentially have to send it in to be disassembled. Only had to buy a magnetic socket and I was able to pull the head unit myself watching the youtube video. Once removed, the trick is to leave the unit plugged in, turn it upside down, and then hit the eject button. The disc cassette get's hung up and won't move slot 6 all the way up. Gravity fixes that problem. I supposed it would work to use a hydraulic turn table and invert the whole car -- but that seemed a little excessive. 8*) Good luck on your search.

Well my 2006 RX400h is now about 7.5 years old and Error 3 on a disk in slot 6 showed up yesterday. I had no luck making LamD's suggestion work. But I found this youtube video that shows how to remove the entire unit: It was a bit of challenge to get at the upper 2 bolts that hold in the radio but it came out pretty much as described in the video. Before dismantling the cd changer and manually extracting the cd from slot 6, I turned the unit upside down and did an "Eject All". The CD popped right out. From now on, no CD's in slot 6 for me. Repair details: The bezel around the shifter can easily be removed with out using any tools by sliding the between the seat console back and just using your finger nails to pry up the bezel. Should come right up. The panel with the seat heater controls and power adapter also just pops out and can be hung over the right side of the center console without unplugging the wiring harness. The radio head unit and CD changer are held in by 4 bolts and a couple of clips on the bezel. The two bolts under the head unit are no problem to get at. The other two are a real bear. Getting the bolts out without dropping them down inside the center console is bad enough, but putting them back is even more fun. I spent more time putting them back than the rest of the entire removal and replacement. To get at the 2 upper bolts you'll need a 3/8" or 1/4" socket (10mm) and at least an 8 inch extension. Mine's a 12". A magnetic 10mm socket is optimum. If you don't have one, you will need a magnetic pickup tool -- preferably one with an LED light. Once you remove the 4 bolts, the radio pops right out and there's plenty of slack in the wiring harness to turn the radio upside down and eject the stuck CD. Push the head unit and changer back in and put in the bottom 2 bolts. I then wish you all the luck in gettng the upper two bolts back in. Truth is, I'm not sure they are required. The other panel and the shifter bezel snap right back in. If you have the right tools and are a little bit handy, you should be able to handle the repair and save yourself a few hundred bucks.