Rx300 Lurching

[Damian]

Was contacted by my dealer yesterday on this subject, which supports Japan's new interest in this problem.

Was asked some very leading and loaded questions. effectively suggesting that this forum was the cause of me discovering the problem and without it I would not be here today. What BS! The fact is we live in London where town driving is the norm and when stuck in traffic it is painful and extremely embarrasing if you have passengers. Why should I feel embarrased driving a £35k car for ***** sake I should be loving it!

I'm not sure about the type approval bit. Do they have to get type approval for anything they fix on the car?

If they don't fix this will have to consider where to go. May go the same route as you. We love the car so it would be hard but I have also noticed an increasing level of vague behaviour. Some times under moderate acceleration it just

can't decide whether to use 2nd or third for example flicking between the two 2 or 3 times in rapid succession. This is on a level road and I'm not varying the pressure on the accelerator.

The other point, is the increasing occurance of putting my foot flat on the floor to pull away from a roundabout for example and nothing happening for what seems an eternity. This is the most worrying as I have now had a coupe of near misses as a result of this behaviour. I've also noticed as I use the manual selection more and more (to reduce the vague and slow response of the box( that even if I change down to second with my foot of the accelerator it may take a few seconds before it actually selects 2nd.

Getting more and more concerned in a nutshell. As this is unpredictable what use is it taking to the dealer? If it gets as bad as you describe then I think we too will be forced to return the car.

br and thanks again Michael.

D

[TonyUK]

Hello All,

This is the magic number to get the ball rolling.

←

Very magic it's invisible.

Could you please forward this number so I can start to lean on Lexus in Stockport a little more

Thanks

Tony

[fergy]

Hello All,

This is the magic number to get the ball rolling.

←

Very magic it's invisible.

Could you please forward this number so I can start to lean on Lexus in Stockport a little more

Thanks

Tony

←

Think what he meant is that when 10 complaints were reached it started the process of getting it looked at in japan....

[TonyUK]

Sorry got the wrong end of that comment

Tony

[m'ladys husband]

Hi Damian,

Now that is interesting!

It does seem that the forum is looked at and monitored - great.

Come on Lexus lets sort this out properly shall we?

As for our decision - we are awaiting a call today (Friday) to say if we will get a full refund or a 400h instead is a possibility but this is a VERY different driving experience.

It goes very well unless you pull away hard from a standstill when there is a distinct torque steer effect (this is due to the electric motors on the front wheels I am told by the dealership). I also found it was not as easy to turn in to a left hand bend at any seed over about 35mph as the 300 is. This may just be a different handling characteristic that you soon get used to but it was quite different.

Apart from that it certainly overcomes the lurching problem.

In short the 400h is a nice car BUT so is the 300 apart from this Bl***y gearbox problem.

Off to look at a Cherokee (i know, I know) and a Cayenne today to see if they are any real opposition or alternatives...any thoughts anyone?

Michael

PS. Yes Tony, 10 is the magic number!

[m'ladys husband]

Latest news- form a very angry Michale and wife!!!

I have just had a call from our dealership saying that LGB are surprised that we do not want to wait for the outcome of the meeting between LGB/Belgium/Japan on the 18th. Strangely enough, we want some action now not promises that someone might do something at some time in the future. I may even accept this if we had some idea of how long that period may be but as we were told by Mr Settle, it is not until after that meeting Lexus may or may not do anything and even then it will take some time, if they do decide to anything before its a field fix (see my previous postings).

What does it take for them to realise that this is not -as they maintain to this day - 'A characteristic of the car having an intelligent gearbox' or the other popular expression we are often faced with is 'The intelligent gearbox does not suit your driving styles'.

We love the car, that's why we bought it, and the two previous ones, but this is not how a £39k car should drive.

The upshot of todays call is that we have had enough and as Damian says in his last posting, this problem is a real safety issue.

I have asked that the decision be put in writing to me and am promised this early next week. As soon as I have the official words I will scan them in and post them for you all to see.

So, as of Monday we are putting the matter into Solicitors hands and will be demanding a full refund on the car. To be told that they are not prepared to discuss a refund or buy back until after the 18th is an insult...........its just a clever way of playing us along and then we are time expired on our right to reject the goods. Nice try!

Does anyone else out there want to join forces?

Best regards.

Michael.

[harlowrog]

Moved house at the begining of July and only just got me computer up and running and now I'm off on holiday tomorrow for three weeks so I'm a bit out of the loop at the moment, however when I get back I am still up for anything you guys on here decide you want to do although as I've had mine a year the 'reject it' option is no good for me, loved reading all the updates in one go, keep up the good work and thanks,

Roger

[lexusUS1]

Caught this forum as I googled for the Lexus Lurching problem. My wife recently purchased a 2005 ES300 in 02/05 and within 2 weeks started to have the problem discussed herein. We ignored it for awhile until it continued to worsen. As with many here, it became very annoying and dangerous with time. Today we took it to the dealer (in the USA) for a review. The "fix" was as follows: "Test drove car. Found to be lagging when accelerating from a stop. Recalibrated ECM to reduce downshift lag when accelerating at speeds from 10-20MPH. Less gear hunting when driving on/off accelerator at 20-30MPH. Improved response rate during heavy acceleration from a stop."

I now find that the car idles at a slighly higher RPM in drive when stopped but the lurching has disappeared. Now I find that the general overall engine/transmission reponse is squirly at moderate cruise speeds of 40-50MPH as if it's searching for the right gear setting or throttle position. I told the wife to anticipate a reduction in gas mileage.

The Dealer also told me it was because of the octane gas we were running in it. The manual says 87 Octane is OK yet the Dealer says the car was designed to run on 97 Octane for best performance. This little tid-bit was not disclosed, not really sure if it's true any, but nontheless, it was not disclosed on the sales information sheet on the window nor did the salesman mention this at the time of the purchase.

Just some feedback from the USA..you're not alone!

[RxMike]

Hi all

Was contacted by my dealer last week asking a few questions about the lurching problem.

They say they were prompted to call me due a request that I had sent Lexus GB to contact me on this problem when I completed a customer satisfaction questionaire a few weeks ago.

I answered the questions I was presented and hope it goes up the chain to Lexus GB for attention.

On another note, drove the 400h last week at the dealers and was very impressed. Didn't find the torque steer an issue at all and it certainly isn't as bad as the mini cooper s if you choose to give that a boot full with the wheel off centre.

The drive is super smooth thanks to the CVT gearbox and the power transfer between 'milk float' mode and petrol is totally seemless - very clever.

Alas the price differential between our 17 month old RX300 SEL and a 400 SEL is simply too much, but I feel at this point in time this would certainly be our next choice of vehicle.

I just hope that Lexus can get on with fixing the problem of the slow speed lurch. I would be totally amazed if they don't read this web site. I know the dealers have a good look and their comments on what they see must be going up the chain to HQ.

It really is the only problem with what is otherwise a faultless vehicle.

Come on Lexus GB. Lets have a diagnosis / answer to this problem. I think on the whole your customers deserve this, and it certainly seems that this is one headache that isn't simply going to go away until its tackled.

Looking forward to an answer soon

Regards all

RxMike.

[m'ladys husband]

Good morning all,

I have today received the official line from Lexus re our complaint about the gearbox lurching issues. remember that his is our second Mark 2 RX300.

We changed to the 05 model year because we were told the ECU had been remapped and the problem resolved.

The letter is from our dealership after consultation with LGB.

It reads -

"Thank you for your recent involvment with the survey team, in demonstrating your dissatisfaction with the gear selection and subsequent drivability of your RX300. As you are aware from conversations with both myself and Steve Settle, the survey team is collating more data from the network and will be meeting to discuss a proposed action plan in August.

Whilst Lexus are prepared to investigate the gear selection further, your gearbox and the performance of your vehicle remains within the design specification of the car. Therefore I am sorry to say our position has not changed from that stated on 8th June in that I am not able to accept your vehicle back under terms set out in your letter and subsequent email on August 1st."

You will recall that I was promised an answer on the 1st August. This was not forthcoming and it was only because I pestered them all week that Steve Settle did chase the issue up and come back to me with the fact that there is a meeting on the 18th August at which the technical group and the Japanese technical team will meet (via a conference link (I think) and decide WHAT, If ANYTHING, will be done about he issue. It may then take a long time before any fix is in the user domain.

This car is now becoming a liability on the road as it cannot be relied upon to accelerate smoothly when needed. We have had a number of near misses in it and are totally fed up. Either we will rear end someone or we will have a side impact on a roundabout.

Drove the car for 275 miles yesterday and ended up in rush hour stop/start traffic in Plymouth. The car was a real pain in the neck - literally - it jerked and jumped all over the place and then when you wanted it to move forward briskly it did not want to be bothered..................PLEASE GIVE ME A THICK GEARBOX. INTELLIGENT ONES ARE OVERRATED.

As there seems to be a very open ended possible fix, if ever, to this problem we will be taking the matter to court to get the full money back on the car.

If LGB fix it in the near future we will be delighted to have a car that finally works as it should do. We have spent so much money on these RX300's over the last three years that it is crazy!

Lexus experience - it isn't that good!

Anybody else out there prepared to consider sending a complaint to TV's Watchdog about what is I believe a major drivability and safety issue on a luxury high spec product?

Michael.

[Damian]

Lexus experience - it isn't that good!

Anybody else out there prepared to consider sending a complaint to TV's Watchdog about what is I believe a major drivability and safety issue on a luxury high spec product?

Michael.

←

Lexus experience - it isn't that good! Second that.

Anybody else out there prepared to consider sending a complaint to TV's Watchdog about what is I believe a major drivability and safety issue on a luxury high spec product?

Yes!

Last night was in quite a hurry to get home. The thing was so unresponsive that again I ended up using manual selection for most changes. Even then it was slow to engage the gear selected hesitating to accelerate even though I'd selected the gear manually!!

What was really annoying is that when I did try and select 1st at speeds where it would quite happily select first on it's own (only when you didn't want it to of course :tsktsk: ) and throw you out of your seat in the process, it just emitted a quiet beep !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Give me strength! :tsktsk: :tsktsk: :tsktsk: :tsktsk: :tsktsk: :tsktsk: :tsktsk:

Other than that we love it. :D

br

D

[King of the Hill]

Hi Guys,

Sorry to hear that you are all having such a problem with the RX and that Lexus are not living up to their 'Pursuit of Perfection' motto. Clearly the Lexus' interprtation of perfection is somewhat different to ours? 'Language barriers!!?'

Anyway, I must say that I am glad that I opted for the GS as opposed to having a 400H, given the problems!

In my opinion this matter should be taken all the way. Lexus cannot believe that they can relax their service as their market share builds. They must remember that we have built this company and if they don't offer us the service that lured us from BMW, Mercedes, Jaguar and Audi in the first place we will just go back to those companies as they are still percieved as more prestige than Lexus. It takes years to build a reputation, but a very short space of time to ruin it. At the end of the day Lexus are still nobody in the European market relative to their competitors.

Personally I feel that the complaint should be made to Trading Standards and even the Euro NCAP safety board.

Furthermore, as far as the media goes you should get this information to Jeremy Clarkson...he will have a real field day with this and given his hatred for Japenese prestige cars he will really go to town on Lexus - this will be very detrimental and embarassing for them.

Perhaps someone has a link at TopGear or The Times...or maybee just a friend?

Anyway keep us posted and great work!!

:zee:

[m'ladys husband]

Hi Damian and King of the Hill,

As you know we have been to trading standards and also sent an email to Top Gear where we do have an insider who is a researcher for the program.

They have the full history in an email from my wife (who actually owns this car!). To date nothing much has happened with JC but we will be trying again as they are now researching the new series of the program.

I will get another email off to Top Gear and also to Watchdog and ask them to look at he thread here and contact me if they want to take this any further.

I like the NCAP suggestion....it si a real safetry issue and it does seem to get worse - clever these intelligent learning gearboxes aren'y they! :D

Damain, sorry to hear of yoru drive last night. It always seems to play up when you really dont want it to. It must be a real pain in the neck in heavy traffic like you have in London. We ahve an apartment in town and tend to trake the DB7 when we go up as it is a much better drive than the Lexus is in traffic - it should not be but it is.

Am off to France for 36 hours but will try and get a mail off to BBC before we go, if not then on Monday for sure.

'Pursuit of Perfection' my backside!

Take the money and say 'its a characteristic of the car' is wehat actually happens. Its a shame they dont tell us about it when they try to sell the damn thing to us - we could then make a balanced decision.

Best regards.

Michael.

[m'ladys husband]

Hi all,

Complaint now done to Watchdog and also another one to Top Gear again addressed to our chm on the research team.

Watch this space for news of contacts.

Off to pack now!

Michael.

[King of the Hill]

Hi!

Why is it that we in the UK have no law similar to that of the 'Lemon Law' in the US. Perhaps this is something that is worth changing....but how?

[BHives]

I've been following this thread with great interest as I to have been fed up with this lurching since last year. Out of interest I have filled my last two fills with Super Unleaded and have found a great difference in reduction of the lurching - even in normal auto - I have also noticed an improvement in fuel consumption averaging 24-25 mpg - still not fully convinced but shall keep monitoring - shall be intersted in hearing if anyone else has tried this ??

[AlexUK]

I have been reading again all the comments made in this thread.

I have also experimented with various driving speeds & gears etc. to get the not so desired lurch! I can get the lurching effect as described in my previous posts, however it is nowhere near as bad as described by some of you in this thread. BHives is using Super Unleaded I don`t know what grade that is but I`m using 95 Octane petrol & also averaging about 25 mpg. Lexus are suggesting 97 Octane for best results! Just maybe BHive has a point, I would like to try 97 Octane fuel when I can find some.

Also if this problem is as bad as some are saying on this thread why are there only about 12-15 people moaning about it. If it was that bad surley there would be more complaints registered?

Some of my friends lurch with gearboxed cars but thats down to bad gear changes

Regards Alex

[m'ladys husband]

Moring Bhives, AlexU and King off the hill,

Yes, we tried using Super Unleaded and found that here is a difference especially when you use Shell Optimax as I do on my own car. M<uch better performance, ssmoother and also better fuel efficiency but of course at a higher cost.

BUT the problem is still there and on the current car we have used both normal and super unleaded.

Our dealer said normal is absolutely Ok and this was conmfirmed by the two Japanese engineers that looed at th car.

BUT the problem is just the same..the car lurches whatever petrol one uses.

So, we decided to stick with Lexus recommendation that normal cheap(!) unleaded will do the job.

Amen to the Lemon law - how do we get it here other than try and raise awareness.

Michael.

[King of the Hill]

That, my man, is the $64,000,000 question...perhaps someone on the site is a legal expert or just plain clever?

[TonyUK]

Got a phone call last week from Lexus, asking the new customer type questions regarding satisfaction with the dealer the service given the this that and everything else. I mentioned to the person from Lexus about the dangers on the problem I have experienced with the sudden and very rapid acceleration experienced at low speeds, I also told him that my dealer had had a look at the ECU and it was all correct and this is how the car performs, this was not a satisfactory resolve to me, he said he would pass the comments on to the dealer I purchased the car from.

Another point that I have just realised, all the automatics I have had in the past have had a kick down feature that if this type of acceleration was required whack the throttle to the floor and you got the power virtually instantly. I have noticed that the RX does not appear to have this feature it seems to make assumptions that because my foot goes down I must want to accelerate as quickly as possible, this is not the case but would like to feel some nice progressive power rather than a howl from the engine a snarl from me and a punch in the back and one day a smack up the rear for some poor unsuspecting punter sat in front of me when this happens.

One final question has any one else noticed that the implementation speed seems to increase on this fault as the car is driven for longer periods ie lurching occurs at anything less than 20mph rather that less than 12.

[GlynnB]

Coming up a steep hill out of Huddersfield last night in a 50 zone I came up behind 2 cars doing about 30. Double lane my side going up with a single lane coming down so I dipped the accelerator and flew passed the first car. Just passing the second car and the gearbox changed up then down then seemed to be nowhere. The car I was passing now needed to pull out to overtake a parked car and a car is also coming down so I can't cross the double lines into the down lane. My car then picked up again and we all just cleared. I must confess that I would struggle to say exactly what happened as I was so hyped up by now but the incident no doubt resulted in more black marks for 4x4 drivers.

(I believe that I heard some beeps going off while this was happening)

[johnc201]

...................................................................

Another point that I have just realised, all the automatics I have had in the past have had a kick down feature that if this type of acceleration was required whack the throttle to the floor and you got the power virtually instantly. I have noticed that the RX does not appear to have this feature .............................

←

My RX300 has a kick-down feature, although the throttle resistance at the kick down point is not all that marked. In fact, the kick-down is one of the contributors to the lurch. Depressing the accelerator through the kick-down (in a low speed high gear situation) can produce a double downshift (the first caused by the demand before kick-down and the second demanded by the kick-down). This was also a "feature" of the Tiptronic gearbox in the Audi Allroad I had before the Lexus, in a couple of overtaking situations I managed to get the gearbox to downshift to the point where the engine could not cope with the road speed and gear requested, and it simply stalled! Not funny when you're overtaking on the wrong side of the road.

Back to the RX. I acquired mine in February, and experienced the lurching and delayed response on a few occasions. I have since done just under 10k miles, nearly all driven by me (the wife gets a go if I'm in a really good mood and she has been very good!). In that time the problems have totally disappeared.

So, has the gearbox adpated to my driving style, or have I adapted to the gearbox? As a result of reading this thread I have been consciously monitoring my driving habits to try and find out.

I find that I am being less aggressive with the throttle pedal, depressing it somoothly, and pausing when I feel a downshift beofe deciding whether I need any any more throttle - and I don't go past the kick-down point unless I really need to!

Do I have problem with this? No. Like every other car I have owned in the last 30 odd years, I have modified my driving style in order to get out of the car what I want to get out of it. Its not something that has happened consciously, or with great effort, but, driving the car verey day, it just happens.

Like, I suspect, the vast majority of RX300 owners I think its a great car. It does what I want it to do supremely well, with high quality, and in great comfort. If it doesn't do that for you then:

a you got a lemon or

b the car just dosen't suit you

If you have had more than one and you're still not happy then "b" probably applies. In which case do a reasonable deal with Lexus to hand it back and get your money back, go buy an X5, and be happy.

But please, stop trying to paint a great car as bring intrinsically flawed - it aint!.

IMHO

Cheers,

John

[King of the Hill]

IT'S D DAY FOR LEXUS!!!

Lets see exactly how good their customer service is!!!

[Damian]

Everybody is entitled to there opinions and I woudn't normally say something like this but there are parts of your post which frankly I find are insulting my intelligence.

I have done almost 13k miles and I have tried to find a solution. How else do you drive over a speed bump for example? There are a number of them on my journey to and from work and I get stuck in traffic a great deal as I live in London.

Here's the scenario. Car's slowed to around 8mph. I want to go forward, therefore I need to press the accelerator. I barely touch it, it selects first which in turn creates engine breaking effect and pushes you forward. It then realises it's mistake and then selects 2nd.

As you appear to be a genius when it comes to driving, perhaps you could point out to the rest of us how we are all driving incorrectly in this situation?

Many thanks and look forward to receiving your advice on this subject.

As we've all said already the car would be perfect otherwise but this lurching is not comfortable for either myself or my passengers.

br

D

[M'lady's husband]

Morning all,

Yes it is D DAy for Lexus.

Lets hope they find the time to tell us what they have decided to do (if anything - worrying isn't it?) to sort this otherwise great car!

I agree with you Damian....well said.

John, if you read the postings carefuly you will see that we are not whinging for the sake of it, to do so would devalue the cars we own and none of us want that.

We just need to have a £39k car do what it should do without the need to adapt

our driving to suit the damn car!

My old T5 Volvo and my DB7 both work as they should and dont need any special treatment to enjoy the driving experience so why should we put up with this nonsense from a world leading prestige car manufacturer?

Will post again as soon as I hear anything from Steve Settle or Lexus Southampton.

Michael.