danfried

Cheap has nothing to do with it. Perhaps you don't mind if you're promised one thing and get another, but I don't like it. Regular fuel was recommended when we bought the car. Regardless, we ran it for a couple of months on premium fuel and it made no difference to the hesitation problem, so that isn't the answer. (It does improve city gas mileage, however) If you ask a service advisor who is honest, they'll tell you that there's a design flaw and they don't know how to fix it.

You're not alone. I've got the same transmission shifting and hesitation problems with my RX330. The dealer says that they all do that and it's because of the drive-by-wire system. I've contacted the regional office and had their rep drive the car. He told me the same thing - that I must use 91 octaine gas. I responded that that was unaccpable and that I wouldn't have purchased the car had I known that. The bottom line is that they won't admit that there's a problem and appear not to be able to do anything about it. I feel that the car is unsafe since it won't respond to power when you need it quickly. It's like you have to make an appointment to accelerate. I don't have the A/C odor problem, but we do leave the system on all the time anyway. It used to freeze us out of the car, but, on a recent service visit to the dealer I complained about that again and they said they had a fix. I'm not sure what they did, but it works much better now.

We have a 2004 RX330 AWD and live in San Francisco. In the city (stop sign to stop sign driving), we get between 11 and 12MPG on 89 octaine gas - it's worse on 87. On the highway we get between 22 and 23MPG. Our prior car was a 2000 RX300. That car got about 15.5 MPG in the city and about 21 MPG on the highway. I think that the difference is related to the miserable drive-by-wire system that keeps the transmission in the lower gears for too long when driving in the city.