pcan

I did the same thing this morning. I inserted my wife's RX330 key to my daughter's RX300. After that, The ignition locked on the RX300. I tried disconnecting the battery 2X, opening and locking the door several times, letting the key sit in the ignition few minutes. After about 2 hours of this frustration, ignition turned like nothing ever happened. My guess is that by disconnecting the battery it somehow reset the ignition to reconize the key again... but this took 2x, I don't know why.

Seemingly there is no easy solution for the 1-2 second transaxle downshift delay/hesitation provided by the adoption of DBW, e-throttle, that was Toyota's latest fix. The delay/hesitation occurrance has been somewhat alleviated on the Avalon (and most likely fleetwide) via adoption of a new firmware implemented "feature". The NCF, New Car Features for the '08 Avalon indicates that the engine/transaxle ECU control firmware "watches" the rate at which you release/reduce pressure on the accelerator pedal immediately subsequent to a period of acceleration, "slight" acceleration. Apparently a quick release will indicate a desire to decelerate and thus the transaxle will be more likely to remain in the previous low(er) gear ratio. On the other hand a slow and easy release of pressure more likely means the driver wishes to enter cruise mode, simply sustain the current roadspeed and the transaxle upshifts. Apparently this all began back in the last century during the design phase of the RX300. Using, adopting, the Camry engine and transaxle in the heavier and larger RX300 series meant making the transaxle a bit more robust and that was not as easy task given the sideways mounting of the engine/transaxle assembly in the engine compartment. So some had to give....GO... So the ATF pressure sustaining/holding accumulator was eliminated to make more space for larger gears and clutches. And that resulted in the inability to sustain enough fluid pressure to support two gear changes in quick sucession. Apparently Ford, with the new Edge, encountered the very same problem. But their solution was to adopt a variable displacement ATF pump so enough fluid flow could be provided for quick sequential gear changes even with the engine at idle. Just wanted to share with all about my experience. I bought a used 2004 rx330 in Nov 06 with 40K miles on it. It's been making whining noise from the start, but didn't realize what it was... Now it has 60K miles on it and finally I got annoyed with it enough to take it to the dealer... still under warrenty... till 72K miles. They said the whining noise was from the transmission and replaced it with a rebuilt transmission free of charge. No more whining noise.... runs great. I am happy with Lexus service :)

Seemingly there is no easy solution for the 1-2 second transaxle downshift delay/hesitation provided by the adoption of DBW, e-throttle, that was Toyota's latest fix. The delay/hesitation occurrance has been somewhat alleviated on the Avalon (and most likely fleetwide) via adoption of a new firmware implemented "feature". The NCF, New Car Features for the '08 Avalon indicates that the engine/transaxle ECU control firmware "watches" the rate at which you release/reduce pressure on the accelerator pedal immediately subsequent to a period of acceleration, "slight" acceleration. Apparently a quick release will indicate a desire to decelerate and thus the transaxle will be more likely to remain in the previous low(er) gear ratio. On the other hand a slow and easy release of pressure more likely means the driver wishes to enter cruise mode, simply sustain the current roadspeed and the transaxle upshifts. Apparently this all began back in the last century during the design phase of the RX300. Using, adopting, the Camry engine and transaxle in the heavier and larger RX300 series meant making the transaxle a bit more robust and that was not as easy task given the sideways mounting of the engine/transaxle assembly in the engine compartment. So some had to give....GO... So the ATF pressure sustaining/holding accumulator was eliminated to make more space for larger gears and clutches. And that resulted in the inability to sustain enough fluid pressure to support two gear changes in quick sucession. Apparently Ford, with the new Edge, encountered the very same problem. But their solution was to adopt a variable displacement ATF pump so enough fluid flow could be provided for quick sequential gear changes even with the engine at idle.