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Speaking as someone who has owned and driven passenger vehicles, mostly Fords, since 1956 with automatic transmisisons and before NEVER had issues with any of them and also NEVER changed/flushed refilled the ATF except at overhaul time, only two of those, and both beyond 125,000 miles I cannot buy into your statement as this being a maintainance issue. My best guess is that in order to overcome the problem that led to so many premature transaxle failures for the '99 & '00 the '01-03 RX series has an "over-sized" gear type ATF pump. The over-sized pump results in too much localized, localized to the pump itself, ATF heating.

Well, I think I can tell you that the firmware does not have compensation for variations in tire diameter due to wear, pressure variations from temperature or owner "fill" pressure level. That said, I wouldn't think anyone would want to rely on the on board computer for anything other than an approximation of MPG.

When I discovered, at only ~40,000 miles, that my 2001 AWD RX300 had ATF that smelled and looked burned I immediately contacted Lexus corporate. Corporate told me to contact my selling dealer and the dealer said I needed to have the ATF flushed every 15,000 miles. What, WHAT...???!!! My RX has the trailer towing package, EXTRA ATF cooling radiator, and the hitch was removed the week I bought the RX, NEW. 98% of the time my wife and I are the sole occupants, "load". The owners manual does not require any transaxle service for the life of the vehicle... In short, I had no faith in and did not believe the dealer. Corporate was able to convince me, finally, that the dealer was being truthful. I did two drain and refills in short sequence and my ATF ended up looking "prestine". I'm now at ~70,000 miles and the ATF is beginning to look as if I will soon need another drain and fill sequence. There is NO QUESTION in my mind that my 2001 AWD RX300's transaxle has an embedded design flaw. And from all the posts I see on the internet the design flaw is likely fleetwide for all Toyota and Lexus FWD and F/AWD vehicles. So yes, he's "smoking" you... Failures of these '01-03 RX300 transaxles seem to be occuring at about 70,000 to 80,000 miles...

The clicking noise is generally the result of the starter solenoid having enough battery voltage "INITIALLY" available to pickup, engage, and then the additional HEAVY load, the starter motor, resulting from the contact clossure causes the battery CIRCUIT voltage to drop below the point wherein the solenoid will remain engaged, picked up. Repeat as necessary, click, click, click, click.......... Other than a LOW battery charge the battery circuit voltage most often drops because of an unusual level of circuit resistance... Such as corroded battery post connections, loose connections, poor/failed/failing battery cell(s), etc. On more rare occassions the starter has a shorted winding and is simply TOO great a load for the battery to "carry". Sometimes, in this latter case the starter will finally turn over after a few tries. And now the starter works again until by pure happenstance it comes to a stop on the shorted segment.

"up-to-the-every-other-second..." Useless feature, meaningless.

With the advent of EFI, Electonic Fuel Injection, there is no longer an issue of our high compression ratio engines in our cars not being able to run on regular, low octane fuel. The engine controlling ECU simply enriches the mixture in order to compensate for the use of regular fuel vs premium.

Just becuase they design a AT does not mean they know anything on fluid. They still push oil drains that are 10+ years old..BONG...Toyota does not make fluids. They buy them and rebadge them. I do not put much faith in mfg on fluids or anything. They write manuals that bean counters write, not engineers. YMMV, but if you think Toyota fluid is great, that is wonderful. I would tell anyone to test it compared to Amsoil or any other "top tier" fluids. Look at what gives you more, it an't toyo. Lastly, if toyo fluid was so good why did my car shifter smoother etc with a non-toyo fluid? hmmm.. "why did my car shift(er) smoother..." Maybe because the non-toyo fluid allowed the clutches to slip (and WEAR) a bit more tha Toyota intended..?? PLus warranty is a non issue. Not going into it for like the 1,000,000,000 time. If you like toyo sold fluid, keep using it. I will use other since Toyo quality it not what it once was. ...

Yes, by all means, and give Lexus a certain/sure reason for voiding your warranty. oh please! Lexus is way behind the times on fluids...Then again if someone thinks color of ATF means something you are better then superman... Amsoil ATF is WAY over Lexus fluid( lexus does not make fluids) It should be obvious to all that Toyota's transaxle design is currently, constantly changing, in a state of "flux", since the initial design flaw, mistake, was embedded late in the last century. But, additionally, the frictional material for the torque converter lock-up clutch has been changed throughout the industry just within the last few years. Beyond that time the lockup clutch was only used in top gear and under low engine torque conditions to facilitate an actual OD gear ratio. Nowadays it is being used to (marginally) improve FE in maybe all the top gears of a 6-speed transaxle, 4th, 5th, and 6th. Who better to know the proper formulation for the ATF for a given car model other than the OEM designers of the transaxle....??

Are you fully aware of what might happen with the hybrid battery with an electronics overcharge failure..?? Life is FULL of danger. You mean like 10 or 20 gallons of toxic liquid high explosive in your tank ? :P CNG tanks are now plastic wrapped and can easily handle 5,000lbs pressure. Problem is that only works out to about 8 or 10 gallons for a moderate sized car. That's the supposed drawback to Honda's CNG car. Bigger Taxis / Busses though by nature of their bigness have more range w/ their more massive sized vehicle. My 2001 911/996 C4 has only a 13 gallon tank and that has yet to concern me....26 MPG hwy.

Yet another FWD Lexus...?? I think not.

Are you fully aware of what might happen with the hybrid battery with an electronics overcharge failure..?? Life is FULL of danger.

I purchased a Nakimichi from Ebay for my '92 LS400 and it turned out to be simply plug-n-play. My '92 didn't have a CD player so I don't know about that but I suspect the same...plug-n-play. But be aware a '93 will not work.

Anyone tried this with a hybrid, thought about it..?? PHILL is a device which connects to your home natural gas line and then overnight compresses and fills your CNG tank with enough NG for the next day's use/travel.

Only your future grandkids will be able to tell you if purchasing todays hybrid was a wise choice.

I stick with 32 PSI, always have, except on the rear of the Porsche. You should really be checking tread depth at the center and each side. Excessive side wear (both sides) in comparison to center wear indicates you're mostly running under-inflated, excessive tread center wear indicates too much pressure.

Before I would buy a higher capacity battery due to the need to close the doors more firmly and/or consistently I would probably add a switch at each door, the OLD way/position, to independently control the interior lighting.

My guess would be that due to your locality you do not want/need AWD. The 400h will, generally, only yeild extraordinary FE with predomantly city (NYC) stop and go driving, slow moving, traffic when it can recover kinetic (rolling) energy via regenerative braking. If the majority of your daily commute is free and easy cruisng the 400h's FE advantage will be nominal. If you could find a way to disable the turbo except at WOT the RDX might be worth a looksee. There are SUV's with smallish I4 engines but since you're looking at the MDX those are probably to small to consider in comparison. "battery (scarce)." Where did you get this idea...?? Or do you simply mean that there are not many being produced due to hybrid battery scarcity.

Car alarm..... Dome or Body ECU. If the car was LOCKED(***) and someone managed to open a door the alarm would sound... Or.... If the car was LOCKED(***) a door switch were "marginal" and even just momentarily indicated an open door.... Or..... If the body ECU had intermittent 12 volt power.... Has anyone checked the power GROUND point for the body ECU...??? *** Unlocked the dome lights would simply turn on. A trickle charger will/might ALWAYS, continuously, indicate a battery charge rate.........

Car alarm..... Dome or Body ECU. If the car was LOCKED(***) and someone managed to open a door the alarm would sound... Or.... If the car was LOCKED(***) a door switch were "marginal" and even just momentarily indicated an open door.... Or..... If the body ECU had intermittent 12 volt power.... Has anyone checked the power GROUND point for the body ECU...??? *** Unlocked the dome lights would simply turn on. A trickle charger will/might ALWAYS, continuously, indicate a battery charge rate.........

Shutting off the ignition results in erasing ONLY those parameters "learned" pertaining to driver "actions", "methods", etc. What I was trying to say was that some of those driver style/type learned parameters, say a really aggressive driver, will affect the way the transmission shift pattern is "adjusted", modified. THOSE learned parameters will be erased but not the base operational parameters of the transmission.

If you look under the battery mounting/support plate you will see a fairly high wattage resistor that is used to "dim" the high beam headlamps when they are being used as DRLs. Unplug that resistor and your DRLs will go OUT.

Doesn't matter, the engine/transaxle ECU will still erase, FORGET, anything unique it "learned" about "your" driving style just as soon as you switch off the ignition. Otherwise the next driver (your better half..??) might get VERY PO'ed. On the other hand it might take many "drive cycles" maybe as much as 500 miles, for the engine/management ECU to learn all the tolerances of the various sensors, servos, etc. The car will probably not "settle" down and drive in a consistent manner until those initial drive cycles are completed wwest: do you have a reference to quote that states that the "learning" that occurs takes place only during a single driving trip and then resets when you turn your ignition off? Not to doubt you by any means, and what you say could well be true, but the theory that you state above (I have read you say this before), goes against most of what has been discussed throughout these posts - which is that "semi-permanent" learning occurs and the only way to reset it is an unplugging of the battery. You may well be correct, but it would be good to get this firmly established before there is any further discussion on the issue. Boston Snowboarder Some years ago, 5 or 6 maybe, I ran across an engineering white paper that explained the then method of driver style/type learning. And wouldn't cars in the rental fleets have to be somehow modified if the ECU didn't erase the "memory"? The fallacy arose thus... When you unplug the battery the ECU forgets many of the parameters it must learn to correctly run the engine and transaxle optimally. So of course drivers will "feel" as if their previously learned "style" has changed, but in reality it is just the engine management parameters being returned to the defaults, those approximate parameetrs "loaded" initially at the factory. Interesting. I saw your post sometime ago about this. I wonder why Lexus does'nt visibly explain the "learning" ECU concept? Basically you're asking, "why doesn't Lexus hire intelligent, or at least semi-intelligent, salespersons.."..?? Next time you encounter a Lexus salesperson try to explain to them ANY technical design of which you are certain sure. Back when ABS was first becoming common I wasted FAR to much time trying to convince these salespersons that the benefit of ABS was NOT for shorter or quicker stopping distance but to allow for directional control during severe braking. So guess which opinion became general public "knowledge", TRUTH or....?? But I do notice that these days the manufacturers are putting correct statements about ABS functionality/use within the owners manual. But the salespersons are still.... WOT..!! (no, not Wide Open Throttle, but Waste of TIME.) I have combed various years of lexus brochures and it is never explained in any detail, other than that the ECU "learns" driving style. So perhaps it is really just a marketing gimmick. No, BA, brake Assist, for instance, in some implementations, "intuits" your intentions during panic braking by having learned some aspect of you driving pattern. If you QUICKLY release the gasw pedal and then QUICKLY apply the brakes these systems will automatically go into BA mode. In orde rto do that reliably it must "learn" your normal gas pedal "activity". The same thing is true of the latest '08 NCF, New Car Feature, being tried as yet another fix for the infamous (ten years and running...)1-2 second transaxle downshift delay/hesitation. If the driver "quickly" releases the gas pedal the system "intuits" that the driver's most likely intent is to slow the vehicle whereas a comparibly slow gas pedal release "intuits" an intent to enter cruise mode. In this latter case an upshift might be deemed more appropreate. In both of these instances it is clearly beneficial for the ECU to have "learned" the driver charactoristics. Your last paragraph is quite provocative. Maybe the "learning" is really just the ECU optimizing parameters that have to be optimized. But how much does it really vary driver to driver? My point was that buyers are "buying" into the fallacy of the ECU "learning" driver unique charactoristics because it clearly appears to do so if you drive the car the first few drive cycles have a system reset or battery disconnect. What's really, actually, happening is that the ECU is "re"-learning, OPTIMIZING, the engine and transaxle control parameters which were erased. That's why, as some of you have no doubt discovered, the emissions test systems will not use the ECU "history" to pass the emissions test until enough drive cycles have elapsed after a system reset of battery disconnect. How much variance is there??? With regard to the ECU learning individually unique driver style/type there is probably not enough variance from the time you first start the car in motion to the point that it is most finely resolved that the average driver would notice. ...