Duffyone

Got the recall notice, called our lame dealer, they told me it’ll take about an hour….. and as usual their estimate was not even close… two and half hours later it was done… missed two other appointments because of their poor estimate. Has anybody had good luck in selling one of these? My wife likes it and I hate it. Tried to trade it in a couple of times now (MB ML350/Acura MDX) both dealers offered very little for our RX on trade-in. Took it to the dealer we bought it from, they didn’t even want it. However, on the bright side, we have a 2000 ES300 that runs perfect, no excessive engine noise, no wind noise on highway, no recalls and as a result, no intent to sell it. Seems Toyota is on the same path as GM. :(

My RX350 sounds like a noisy diesel! This is our fifth Lexus and it has turned out to be the worst. Sure it’s noisy when it’s cold and yes some of the noise goes away when it warms up, but for what is supposed to be a luxury SUV it is far too noisy all the time. What does it sound like? Like I said it sounds like a diesel or an old push-rod motor that needs a valve adjustment. When talking to the dealer they tell me it sound like all 350’s. Somehow that doesn’t make me feel any better about the excessive noise. Contacting Lexus seems to be a waste of time. Evidently they have so many complaints they can’t even return your call within a week. First they said they’d have someone call in two business days; then when that didn’t happen they said someone would call by the end of the week, that was on a Monday! Sounds like General Motors all over again.

Our RX350 is our 5th Lexus and by far the worst! It is not only noisy when cold, but when warm. I've heard like most of you that "It’s the DFI" "It’s the timing chain" "It’s the a/c pump.” A $40+k car and it sounds like it needs a valve adjustment. We hear it not while driving, but when stopped next to a wall, like an ATM or drive-though. Maybe Lexus thought that if you can afford a Lexus you don’t need money or fast food. It’s funny that our ten year old ES300 (125k miles) is whisper quiet next to our rattling RX350. We’ll trade our rattle-!Removed! in on something other than another Lexus. It’s too bad, we really loved all of our other Lexus cars and suv’s. :( General Motors made great cars long ago, and then went to hell. Is Toyota/Lexus now on the same path? Maybe they should spend less time on all the silly bells and whistles and get back to basics.

SWO3ES... You know nothing about the circumstances that lead to my post. If a manager at Lexus tells me that he will call me back, I expect to be called back, not ignored! If a rep. from Lexus tells me they will have a supervisor call me back, I expect to be called back! If Lexus can not meet these expectations then tell me and I’ll purchase from someone that can. The first time I ask someone for assistance I do so calmly. The second time I ask, I’m still calm, but the smiles have gone. The third time I ask, and I’m still ignored, things start to get serious. My sales person asked his manager to call me at least five times, which stated at 10:00 in the morning and by 8:00 PM I still had not received a call. Dealing directly with Lexus in Torrance was no better. Whether our RX350 is junk or not remains to be seen. It has certainly not started out to be a happy experience. The RX350? The DFI seems to be noisier than we expected. The transmission is not smooth at all, very jerky. I’ll remind you this is our fourth Lexus and these concerns are new to us. Where’s my cargo net… oh, that went away. That whole nav. system seems to be behind the times. Even my Verizon phone has a better Nav. system. And where do we plug our iPod? Is that asking too much of a $40K car? I could go on, but let’s just say I’m glad this is my wife’s car and not mine.

Here’s one of the book, well at least my book! Yesterday we went to exchange our RX, but before that they needed to transfer a few items from the old to the new. The mechanic asked, “why are we doing this exchange?” …” ‘cause of the paint problems on the door!” The mechanic looked at the door and stated that’s not a problem, that’s just condensation. He walks over to his tool box, takes out a heat gun, aims it toward the spots…… gone in an instant. Evidently during shipment the plastic cover is affixed using removable glue; however, on occasion condensation will build up under the glue, between the base coat and clear coat. There is no apparent damage to the paint as a result, so all is well.

I wanted the same pads that originally came on my ES300 and was able to find them at autopartswarehouse.com. They came packaged in a Toyota box and the best part, not brake dust. I tried Akibono on my wife's RX.... BRAKE DUST everywhere! Depending on production date there appears to be three sets available at that website.... front pads are W0133-1615727, W0133-1615812 or W0133-1615805.

cwirth some of what you see is a perception issue, "One man's junk is another man's treasure." We have purchased a new car just about every year for the last 40 years. We've had GM products, Ford products, BMWs, Porsches, MBs, sedans, sports cars, vans, station wagon, race cars and plain janes, so we have basically encountered just about every situation imaginable, but this one was a complete surprise. My wife, the “inspector” went over that RX over and over again, we were totally surprised when we got it out in the sun three days later. If I would have written here after the purchase of our first Lexus I would have painted a completely different picture. You say no car is perfect, but it was, and continued to be perfect through 70,000+ miles and five years. My next Lexus had a few problems, a bad water pump and air intake meter. My wife’s Lexus had no mechanical problems, but had a small paint problem on the rear bumper, which was easily repaired. I’m rambling…. The bottom line, we have a new RX350 waiting for us to pick-up Monday, and we are hoping for the best, but are a little skeptical. If a person has a good experience, on average, they will tell one person about it, but if they have a bad experience they will tell ten people. Unfortunately that’s human nature. So I hope to write here in six months, telling everyone how great my new RX350 has been.

duh? Sure the pile of junk was inspected before delivery; however, the defects in the paint don't show while inside where it was inspected, even with bright lights.... but get it out in the sun... poor poor paint job. It's silver and there are spots where there is no matalic, just gray with clear coat over it! We're done with Lexus, done with Toyota products. We want our trade-in back so we can buy else where. Too bad they were a good company, but so was GM 'til they to thought they could do no wrong and quality was no longer necessary. BTW our other three prior Lexus cars were great with few problems, well, they did have to replace a transmission on one, but now after trying to resolve this at the dealer level, and after talking with everyone available at their headquarters in Kalifornia, it seems that things at Toyota have changed .... a lot! It's insured, I guess I could drive it to Mexico and leave the keys in it.

What a mistake we made buying a new Lexus RX350. We thought, how can we go wrong, the first 3 Lexus we bought were great cars, but his one… junk! The paint on the car is completely unacceptable; we’ve seen better paint jobs on fords and chevys at half the cost. The car is 4 days old with only a 100 miles on it and we want Lexus and the dealer to take this pile of junk back. Easy? NO! The dealer and their paint shop agree it’s a factory screw up… but, does the factory take a proactive approach? NO! Lots of talk and no action. Looking at the workmanship and quality of this car indicates that Toyota/Lexus is on a downward spiral. There is no comparison in quality from our previous Lexus cars to this pile of junk. This is the last Toyota/Lexus we will ever buy, period.