JohnRX400h

My RX300 was only 2 years old when it was replaced so it would have been another 68 years before I could comment on it whistling - sorry. :winky: Hopefully someone more helpful will be along in a minute. :D

Angus - you are right, i'll stay on the wait list for the Audi Le Mans (R9) or go for a 997, well you have to at somepoint in your life don't you? Sorry King - Off topic!

Enjoy the GS - I too am a bit smitten by it. RX400h is in the bag but having several 'Audi TT trade in' moments currently. Must resist, must resist, must resist......

Thanks for the comments folks. Now over 100 miles and I have not driven it yet! Ok ok ok I guess my wife's name is on the invoice! However the weekend is coming and I am looking forward to having a shot. I think she is getting me back for having the first test drive when she was away on business for a couple of days! :P @Baz - the button is 'Disp' or display. Look at the picture of the dials, you will see the odometer on the middle one in a rectangular display. Pressing the button cycles this display through MPG, Odo, Batt usage etc.

Ditto with last reply - sorry to hear and hope you get resolution.

I had new alloys on my RX300 but roof rails were fine.

Dave - I presume you saw this? http://www.lexusownersclub.co.uk/forum/ind...showtopic=23795 Shorter wait perhaps?

Picked up our new RX400h SE-L today at Lexus Edinburgh. I posted a review a few days ago and to be honest don’t have much to add today other than a few observations on our actual car. The dash is much darker than our old one which I really like – more suited to brushed aluminium and sporty I think. The trim quality is just as good as our old RX300 – don’t know what the comments are about on the US forum. The stitching in the leather has disappeared from the door as can be seen in the picture below but quality is just the same. Kids loved DVD player and were the quietest little mice in the back! Other than that, nothing extra to add about the car apart from saying we are delighted. Lexus Edinburgh service was as great as always. Car was ready and valeted at 9am this morning, everything perfect. I think we got a fantastic deal, won’t go into it too much as this is really between Ian, Simon and us, however, lets just say we have wine, car mats and a boot liner missing from the invoice and a really fair trade-in price. One last thing! – Really snazzy key ring – as they say the devil is in the detail – made me smile! Funny how it is the little things that make the difference. Thanks to Ian Reynolds, Simon Lane, Simon Fraser and several hundred Japanese Lexus workers! Pictures...........

I would say no to cargo nets due to the boot having two flip up bins at the back which are perfect for shopping. - No crying over spilled milk!

Remember that if it was not a test drive it will have been one of the Dealer team taking it home - Dealer Principle, Sales team et al.

Mats, Bootliner, Bumper Protector, 35% Front window tint (only to be used when showing car not on public roads :winky: )

Had beepers on Mk1, wanted them on Mk2 when we got it however after 2 weeks with camera we felt camera was better and we chose not to. Saved some cash and slightly unsightly bumper.

I am at 16000 miles and tyres wearing well - half way perhaps?

Hi Angus - hope you are well! Oh how right you are, she who matters!! Ruth really liked it. She agreed with me about the handling and the power - thought both were much better. She is still miffed about not having her wood steering wheel but is now resigned to the fact. 'It's not about looks it's about feel' she said. I presume she was talking about the wood in the car and not me!! :D We too are getting ours on Wednesday at 9am. Guess however we won't have to do the Harrods sale thing and put our tent up outside for 3 days before. Lexus Edinburgh tell us we can just turn up at 9am and it will be ready and waiting. This is better than Christmas!

Ahhhh, name changed cheers Matt JohnRX300 i'll miss you! :D :D :D

The rust is covered by the warrantee however the dealer has to send pictures to Lexus GB in order to get approval to get the work done. This depends on the size of the rust spot. Push your dealer harder on this one. Hope this helps! John

Matt - that's why I mentioned the door trim - I had read the US forum and saw this one mentioned. My wife will report on the interior tomorrow. Never fear this will be pleasantly fastidious. This is the woman who gave the RX product manager a hard time at the Birmingham motor show last year about the lack of a wood steering wheel so I am sure she will take her 'fine tooth comb' with her. However - new news.... Today we received a brochure 'par excellance' from Lexus. A large hard back RX400h 'book'. Open the inside cover and a hand written note form Lexus Director. None of your handwriting font rubbish, the real deal, hand written! "Thank you for placing your order for our new RX400h, Kind regards" Another Lexus Customer Care 'wow' Anyway to my point..... There are loads of really nice glossy pics on the book and some of the inside in there too. The photos of black interior don't show any stitching in the side panels or arm rests however the pics with the Oakham interior do. Hrmmmm wonder what the deal is here? The Oakham pics are definitely an RX400h as the doors have the Aluminium inlay and the correct gear stick. Guess we will just have to wait until I get more info. Oh and another thing Matt - I do now have a RX400h - Simon Lane at the dealership advised us that it arrived yesterday, just a bit of PDI ing to do and the 15th can't come quick enough. - So go on change my user name.... please! John

@ Matt - Matt good point - I did not pay too much attention to them but having said that if they were very poor I guess I would have noticed! That said after looking at my photos more closely I did notice that the door arm rests and the leather above is not stitched like my current SE-L. Perhaps we have found the chink in the armour? My wife is going to have a shot on Wednesday so I'll ask her to report. Apart from that the interior seemed fine to me. @ Saracen - I was only using my wee snapper camera. A Sony DSC-T3 - Fab little thing see here http://www.dcviews.com/_Sony/t3v.htm @ all - thanks for the comments folks - glad you liked my efforts! John PS Mods - Can I change my name from JohnRX300 to JohnRX400h?

After months of being on the wait list I finally got behind the wheel of a RX400h this morning. Many thanks to Ian Reynolds and Simon Lane of Lexus Edinburgh for letting me have a go so quickly – they only got the car yesterday at 2pm! Lexus Edinburgh – Excellence as always! :D I drove the car for about one and a half hours and I thought I would give my appraisal of all the different features one by one. Hope this is of interest to all the people waiting on the list for the 15th of this month. Breaking down the experience is probably the best way so I will try to cover all the ‘different’ features. By way of background I currently have a 03 RX300 SE-L bought pretty much on day one of the Mk 2 release and prior to that I had a Mk 1. Where to start but the start up – turn the key and nothing! Bizarre! Light on the dash says ‘ready’ and that is about all. Air Con starts to whirr but apart from that silence. So off we go – pulled out and what hits you immediately is the silence and torque. Little or no effort and the speed limit is upon me. How did that happen? First then the engine … or rather the three of them. As advertised it always starts with the electric motors and then the petrol starts, I really did not detect the petrol starting up at all, completely seamless, very clever. The torque over my current car is the biggest difference. The power is immediate, down to the electric motors I guess but when you stamp the loud pedal the car picks up straight away, the petrol then sounds like it reaches a predefined rev range and stays there. Indicative, I guess, of a CVT transmission, the most efficient revs at all times. The acceleration is very smooth and 70mph comes far too soon, so, obviously, I eased off! :winky: Nothing much more to say, the switching of engines and power is very clever under the bonnet but driving you very quickly just get used to it taking care of itself. In terms of engine note is sounds a bit like a big American V8 – no burble but just a constant whoosh rather than climbing and falling revs. The note is really only there, however, then you are accelerating hard, most of the time it is just simply either very quite or not there at all! And onto the handling I know a lot has been said about the Air Suspension of the SE-L not actually being as good as the sprung version but to be honest I have had no complaints apart from a faulty sensor replaced a few months ago. The 400h however did, IMHO, have better suspension. It has, apparently, been beefed up to compensate for the slightly heavier car. The car appears a bit taller and the gap between the tires and the body is larger but does not look silly, just a bit more ‘pumped up’. On the road how did this feel? Well I felt it turned in quicker, more direct, just better. It felt that if pushed it would tend to understeer, but on the whole felt more sure footed than my current SE-L. This was most noticeable it you ‘weaved’ the car to and fro on a straight. It followed the line you pointed it in better then the SE-L and did to start to ‘pendulum’ if that makes sense - if it doesn’t sorry – you’ll have to try it yourself! Steering feel Strange one this – the best way I can describe the steering is like driving a car arcade game. A very ‘electronic’ feel to it. It took a few minutes to get used to it but I liked it. Is probably added to the overall feel on the handling. I think the perception of precision it gave me helped the car feel better, again I am sure if I was a motoring journalist I could thing up a better metaphor but I can’t so if you know what I mean, great, if you don’t again book yourself a test drive! Brakes I am glad to say these are as good if not better than current SE-L. The very slightest touch brings them on and you can stand the thing on it’s nose if you want to. The regenerative breaking does have a strange feel. Like you are towing, feels like something is pushing the car back, the dash does however tell you how many ‘units’ you have accrued by the process. Another brakes related observation is when the car comes to a complete stop, the noise it makes is very similar to our other car an Audi TT (actually my car – the RX is my wife’s officially!). I fitted Brembo GT cross drilled disks to my car and they make a sort of whine when breaking which starts at a high tone decreasing when you slow down. The 400h makes the same noise – relevance, none – interest, perhaps not much but anyhoo! Next the Tech stuff My SE-L, being an early one, does not have the latest voice control and Bluetooth which I found very snazzy. The voice control was a hoot and even understood my Scottish accent! I wont go on about this though as it is not really new to the current RX range. The power screens however are below. Not a lot to add to the pictures. The consumption screen tells you average mpg since reset and the bars you see are average consumption over the last half hour in 5 minute increments. As you will see from the (slightly fuzzy, sorry) picture I was getting about 20-25 mpg on the open road which climbed to mid 40s when in town. I am not going to get into the huge MPG debate. Over my 30ish miles I got 32mph which compared to my SE-L is about a 50% improvement. That said, putting the environmental advantage aside, I really did not buy this car to save petrol, I bought it for the extra power and because, let’s be honest, I fancied the latest and greatest. Early adopter I think I am called by marketers! I really don’t think there are many people who spend £40k+ on a car and moan seriously about mpg – but perhaps I am wrong and in the minority – mpg does not float my boat – I am a petrol head – nuff said! ICE – did not get to try the DVD system in the back but photo attached. The kids will love it and now I need to make some back up copies of some DVDs for the car. The headrest screens did look nice and with one of my other hobbies being home cinema I was pleased to see they are in 16:9 format or widescreen as it is known. I know is is a lot extra to pay for a DVD system but with such a good fitting job and the screens and headphones all being Lexus branded it is definite ‘nice to have’. And finally overall impression Roll on the 15th! I am really looking forward to getting the car now. No post purchase dissidence as they say. I see this as a step change from the RX300 IMO. All the good bits of the car I currently enjoy with just enough extra bells and whistles to make it more fun. In terms on any bad points I really can’t think of any! I know I should try to give a more balanced view but I could not fault it! Perhaps after a few thousand miles there will be some niggles and on reading the US forum some have found (in rather a pedantic way I may say) some but so far so good. Many thanks to Ian and Simon for letting me have the opportunity to test one so quickly – thanks chaps and I am sure you are looking forward to taking my hard earned cash in exchange for my RX400h in a few days from now. Is it the 15th yet? Pictures.......

Rumour has it the release date has been moved to the 6th? Anyone heard anything?

How about roll the window down, pop the bonnet, take some wire clippers, jump out the window, open the bonnet, cut the wire to the battery, get back into the car..... Nope have to agree with the masses here 99% of the time stop car and get out 1% of the time switch stalk to off and back to auto again... That is of course unless you are a private investigator pulling up outside people’s houses and spying on them whilst eating doughnuts? :winky:

I (we - it's my wife’s car :winky: ) want the extra performance. Not to fussy about extra fuel economy - guess you don't spend North of £40k on a car and scrimp on fuel. We also do most of our driving around town. We don't want an X5 or M Class as the service we experienced at both dealers was awful. My wife loves the RX300 and doesn’t want to change brand. With regards to it being a gimmick, well if it is then that's ok as well. Marketing people call my type an 'early adopter'. I like all that is new. To be honest I am at the stage of just plain wanting one, need it, nope, just want... Just a bit worried that when we are being big kids she will be able to beat me away from the lights in my remapped 225 TT (280bhp) Naaaaa I'll still be safe! :winky: PS Plus Kids can't wait to see DVDs in the back!

RX400h prices from Lexus.... Base Model £35,485 With ICE £37,685 SE £39,540 With ICE £41,740 SE Nav £41,785 With ICE £43,985 SE-L £44,350 So guess I better start looking down the back of the sofa for £44,350!! John

Glenrothes in Scotland she says as 'Glen rowths' Dead posh!

RX400h - Performance - 200 v 270bhp and shed loads more torque Oh and it's new, and you have to have new!