i believe lexus cars has a sticker underneath the hood, on the passenger side. Its a silver sticker with the plant name on it.





and here are some production line pictures i have

 

hmm. I dont have that silver sticker on my car ....

 

My impression from examining the tags on the vehicles is that the 2RX had more generic; some Lexus, some Toyota tagging for labeling, whereas sedan models had more Lexus-only tags. Probably because now all such luxury sedans are Lexus only, whereas the 2RX was built simultaneously with the equivalent Harrier.

In either case though, and particularly for the new models, they are built to the highest specifications that Toyota uses; and for the new Lexus models, using dedicated Lexus workers in addition to the longstanding Lexus assembly lines.

It's interesting to read about the Kokura plant; Lexus.com's manufacturing page hasn't been updated yet with it. Evidently the Kokura plant began construction in 2007; I wonder what other hybrids may come from there (HS perhaps?) as it apparently will be a hybrid-only site.

 

I'm pretty sure any car from any company is prone to rattles or develop them eventually. I know Audi, BMW and MB have their rattles too, maybe not exactly dash rattles, but door rattles and just rattles in general. Whether or not it's more frequent in Lexus I don't know.
I remember riding my in friend's brand new 08 X5 though with less than 3k miles and that thing rattled and squeaked so hard it sounded like it was about to fall apart. I mean really, it was serious, whether he got a bad one or they're all like that though I don't know either.

 

Even newer cars aren't immune from rattles and squeaks, I've caught a mechanic at work stuff 3M foam tape into the cowl into a fresh off the truck 08 Accord EX-L one time.

 

This is TEHhot

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1rA9qOdyEYs

 

I can understand the stringent clean room requirements for the hybrids. Being a satellite design engineer myself, I've been in many plants where I had to "suit up" before getting anywhere near sensitive hardware. The reason Lexus surpasses the competition in things like build quality is because of their near-insane focus on perfection. They must have determined that bits of dust in the hybrid build process lead to problems down the line (even if not for years later). So they eliminate that problem by expending some effort up front. Classic TQM, applied right!

 

One of the digits in the VIN tells you where it was made. A search will turn it up, I'm sure.

 

dude, you are saying lexus has more problems than BMW/Audi/MB?

thats funny :-). Or are you serious?

 

The waterfall filter is pretty neat looking, I'd love to tour one of their plants. Some plants in Europe have a lot of artistry in their architectural details, the pictures I've seen of Lexus plants are more functional than stylish, but the waterfall is a very neat and useful touch, along with the brightly-lit inspection facilities, etc.

 

omg! is that like a parking lot of some sort? where?

 

It's the VW Glass Factory in Wolfsburg, Germany. Cool as hell but it's a productivity killer I'd bet.

 

A poll was done on the e90post forum about HPFP. And about 54 out of 185 one more replaced, that's around 30%. There was a guy who works at BMW service who says their are more 335i coming in on flatbeds in than they sell in a week. 90% of them are completely stock. BMW has known about the HPFP for 2 years now. These pumps should not be failing at the rate they are.

I'm just a little frustrated because I feel like my pump is gonna fail. Lately i've been having these 5 sec long cranks.