Still

to be continued ... Turns out the new rims had to be formally introduced to the car computer at the dealership by way of their computer - this wedding is getting to be expensive! <_<

to be continued ...

Apparently (so far) it was my spare tire ... <_<

I have accomplished this feat once also. It was exactly 38.0 - granted it was on "a trip down off the mountain" (about an hour and a half), but it wasn't all downhill! I got about 27.5 coming back, so that still averages about 32.75 for that particular trip. One the whole I'm averaging about 28 even when I'm not trying. Now if I could just get this tire thing figured out. <_<

I have accomplished this feat once also. It was exactly 38.0 - granted it was on "a trip down off the mountain" (about an hour and a half), but it wasn't all downhill! I got about 27.5 coming back, so that still averages about 32.75 for that particular trip. One the whole I'm averaging about 28 even when I'm not trying. Now if I could just get this tire thing figured out. <_<

B)

So ... I got my sweet new 400h back in July and so far I couldn't be happier. :) I'm the one who lives in serious snow country so I took my new sweetie into my local tire dealer and bought her four brand new and expensive Michelin Latitude X Ice Radials with four A - 7 Sport Edition Aluminum Wheels to boot and I had them mounted day before yesterday. My tire guy told me that he "took care of the sensor problem" for me so off I went, happy as could be. Yesterday I drove into Reno and back (about a hundred miles) and then about ten miles from home all hell broke loose on my dashboard. Exclamation points and warning lights all over the place - scared me half to death! I pulled over, called the dealership and got a salesperson (it was after hours) who informed me that the tires "might blow off" and that I should get the car into the dealership ASAP. Today is Sunday; tomorow I'll call the dealership and try to find out how on earth I'm supposed to get the car back into Reno without having the tires blow off. Has anybody else here put their snow tires on yet? Did you have them do a special alignment afterwards? Did the sensor go on? Did your tires blow off? Does anybody remember where that link to a special alignment for a 400h is?

My 400h is about two months old now and I'm getting over 30 MPG without even trying. (Well, I do pretty consistently use the engine brake feature when I'm going downhill and I do live in the mountains.) I love this car (although I just now read the thread on "pulling to the right" and now I'm thinking I may wish to check the alignment.) Also, will somebody kindly direct me to the snowtires thread? I seem to have completely misplaced it and ol' man winter's on his way to my house! :)

He sure did! :)

I got my Sanyo Katana from Working Assets and too it to my dealership and one of the salespeople there did all the work for me in about ten minutes. The only problem I'm having so far is with the voice recognition function. I think I speak too slowly and use way too much expression in my voice. A clipped, robotic voice (coming from me) seems to work better. http://www.workingassetswireless.com/ ;)

BRIDZILA

I just talked to a friend who asked me to ask y'all about the hybrid's battery. She was told that if a hybrid gets into an accident which "violates the integrity of the battery" that a hazardous material team has to be called ou to clean up the toxic mess. Anybody know anything about this?

Aha! This link was very helpful! Thank you. :)

Jim Nazium wrote = I'm probably stuck with my Sprint/ Nextel contract, so I guess it's looking like maybe a Samsung for me. Anybody here really, really happy with their Bluetooth phone? Or the LG. CR kinda likes the LG and/or two of the Samsungs from Sprint.

What kind of a phone do you have? (I can't begin to answer your question, but I'm shopping for a bluetooth phone for my new car.)

Just to add, Archie is correct for the most part. Only I wouldn't bother with paying for the consumer reports report. (I did and there was nothing I didn't already find for free, and I actually found more info than they provided anyway). I would hit the lexus forums (this one and carspace.com seem to be the better ones) to see what other people are getting them for. Of course the forums are no substitute for actually having the real figures. There are a slew of free sites out there (google is your friend) that will tell you the real cost. edmunds.com and cars.com are good starts, but they pretty much only list the basic info. If you dig deeper, you'll find the holdback (edmunds mentions it actually), the wholesale holdback, the TDA, and of course the invoice price. For a jump start (this is all from memory) for lexus, the holdback is 2% of base MSRP, the wholesale is another 1%, and I believe the TDA varies with models (this one is harder to dig up) but I think is around $400-$600. Subtract all that from invoice and you'll have what the dealer really pays for the car. This is helpful!

This is one of my favorite things to 'clarify' . . . "savings" ? ? How does one quantify savings? Own a Harley? How do you quantify your purchase? A vett? How do you quantify your purchase? 55 chevy? you fill in the blank Point is, virtually NO one buys a car (a money looser at best) as an investment ... or for how it's going to pencil out. My wife likes the 400h because it's light years quieter than the straight I.C.E. version. I like it because I blow through less $$$ at the pump. Sure, if you ARE a lead foot, you'll only get 25mpg ... but driving real carful, I CAN get 33mpg on the AWD version, and I like knowing that. It's my tiny little way of giving less support to al queda. We had a Range Rover that only got 12mpg on a good day, prior to the 400h. Just because we could 'afford' to be wastefull didn't mean that we didn't want to be a little more responsible. Yea, at our age, we may not be around to do a lot of things ... but that doesn't mean that we want to blow through our kid's kids natural resources. Ok, off the soap box. Enjoy your purchase, either way. The salesman at the Reno dealership tried hard to pressure me into buying a new RX350 by stressing that there "might be the perception" of lesser traction on snowy roads. I had him repeat the phrase "the perception" just I to make certain that I had heard him correctly. In fact it was "a half-second's perception" that he was talking about. He tried fairly hard to talk me out into a n RX350 even while I insisted that it was the environmental aspect of the hybrid which was important to me. I think he was mostly motivated by the fact that he had RX350s on the floor and no 400h-es. Now that I have made a down payment on a 400h they are telling me that there will be a lengthy waiting period because of the popularity of the 400h-es due to our currently outrageous (already existing and to be expected) gas prices. <_<

Let me see if I got this straight? I could take my Lexus to a Toyota dealership for servicing? That could come in handy sometime. couldn't it?

Please do not send "personal" emails. The purpose of the forum is to share information and help all. Not even friendly 'asides'? :cries:

Consumer Reports doesn't recommend it for a vehicle with "this high of a reliability rating". Nice, huh?

Gordon, I'm new here at this forum, and I'd like to offer one big "thank you" for taking the time to post here. It's great to have somebody from 'the other side' who is willing to share his knowledge with us. :) Communication is definitely the better way to go -- for everybody concerned.

I'm curious too. Anybody have somebody they could ask? My guess is that my salesperson will tell me what he thinks I want to hear .

100% markup. Yikes. Well, actually, that explains a lot, doesn't it? <_<