New Owner 2 Month Review

[Valkirk]

Well as a newcomer to the marque and having now been the proud owners of a RX300 (Bluetooth) for coming up to 2 months and having done approx 1.5k miles since purchased I thought it would be nice to put down my thoughts both of the good and the bad and see if others seem to share the same views.

Purchasing experience - Definately the most pleasant dealership I have ever used and our salesman was superb!

Good points - Very friendly, helpful and will go out of their way to help. After buying found the brakes were fairly weak and found the windscreen had a chip in it so they took it back in to check and replaced the discs, bled the system and repaired the screen FOC

Bad points - It seems there was a muck up with the Tax Disc which had somehow been sent back for a refund meaning when we picked up the car there was no Tax; then when they dropped round the Tax disc the next day there was no holder for it. Also still waiting for the Service Book to arrive!

Driving experience

Good Points - Firstly I would like to say to Lexus that whatever they change in the future please please do not change the seats; these have to be the most comfortable seats I have ever sat on. In fact if they could bring out a sofa range for the house that would be perfect :)

The car is very easy to drive, the steering is light at low speeds and firms up nicely as you speed up, there is plenty of power if you need it but crusing along is where the car shines and it does it very well indeed!

The sound insullation is excellent creating a wonderfully quiet area to be although you might not want to leave it quiet given the superb quality of the sound system! Even with just the standard version the audio is excellent with clear bass notes and perfectly balanced throughout the range.

The gearbox does a superb job (Except 1st and 2nd gears) of changing with the smoothest of changes.

Versatility is great and short of someone needing 7 seats would allow you to pretty much carry anything you would ever need to and yet the size of the car is not to far from that of a normal saloon.

Bad Points - Parking this car is not as easy as it should be, even the new models are not getting PDC sensors front and rear which they should be; the camera is great but in low light levels and for the corners of the car it is fairly useless plus you have to be looking at the screen rather than listening for beebs!

The Bluetooth is troublesome although this may be more to do with the phone, however I have had system crashes where i have lost all audio capability from the car including radio, cd etc until the ignition has been turned off and then back on again.

The climate control system! This has to be my first (and probably only) real main gripe; how this system got through development I have no idea and I expected far more from Japan's finest! If you have the system on Auto it seems to want to blast you with air through the two large vents in the centre console, for some reason these do not allow you to manually turn them off. Even if you turn the system off, when you are driving at speed the draft you get through these vents is very high and unless you go into the climate control and specifically direct them to the ground or windscreen you end up just pointing the vents into the centre and trying to just direct them away from you. Dual climate control is hopeless as whoever has their side warmer the other just gets cold air blown at them again through the unclosable main vents. - If lexus read this then please could they develop more 'Discrete' climate control!

The lurching issue in the car is not as bad as I thought it would be and have noticed it really only occurs if you are coming to a stop but before you do you take off again. It just seems to be a bit too aggressive and could do with toning down.

Suspension is great for soaking up bumps but does create a lot of body roll in the corners which although I am happy with I do think future models are prime candidates for magnetic ride dampers or similar that can adjust the settings on the fly to give a bit less roll in the corners yet maintain the lovely soft ride on the straight.

The engine does feel dated in how quickly it springs to life and how much automatic choke it seems to need for the first few mins; however this may have already been solved in the 350 and the 400 doesn't even start at all when you turn the key :) and all the engines (including the new models) have fallen quite away behind the new BMW range of engines in both economy and BHP produced. However as I did not buy this car for blasting around in but just for the most pleasant comforable journey they are more than adequate - although the better MPG might be appreciated at the pumps :) !

At the moment not sure if the ASL is broken but it doesn't seem to adjust the volume of the audio well enough that I don't have to manually adjust when speeding up or slowing down.

Lastly the auto dimming of the display and controls should really allow for a longer period of dark before changing as in dusk or going under bridges etc it actually becomes distracting going dim then bright as it can't make up it's mind (I know you can manually alter but you shouldn't have to really!) and why do I need to open the door to turn off the lights even after taking the key out? I could see a follow me home use if they ust stayed on for say 30 secs or something but to turn off when opening the door rather than when I tun the ignition off, just don't see the point.

Oh yes and stop telling us what we can and can't press in the car whilst moving...we don't always drive without passengers!

Overall

This car is superb - if they could just add PDC (Don't really want to pay £700 to have it fitted) sort out the climate control, and allow passengers to alter the Sat Nav etc whilst moving it really would be truly excellent!