jeffofla

For vehicles in its class... Consumer Reports

http://money.cnn.com/popups/2006/autos/reliable/3.html

I have to say that it's easy to look at the problems brought up here on Club Lexus and say that the problems are widespread, but those of us who have had problems and warranty repair (me included) are by far, a minisicule minority. The reality is that the majority of the tens of thousands of Lexus ES 350's that have shipped since April 25th are deserving of this ranking.

ES350Bob

How can the ES350 be rated at all at this time, wouldn't it be a more accurate picture to wait till the model year end? It seems to soon to ask people about reliability within the first 6 months or less they have owned a car, any car. Regardless of my own experiences it seems premature either way.

garsarno

Wait until the subscribers get the annual questionaire to fill out. It will be interesting to see how it rates then.

LexBob2

I thought the Consumer Reports rankings were based on subscribers questionaires. I just read an online news/business report to that effect. I know the surveys are mailed at random, but I've subscribed to C.R. for quite a while and have never receieved one, even though I've purchased quite a few new cars during that time. Just FYI, had I receieved one, I would have rated my car highly.

ES350Bob

It does require subscription to rate at their website and I'm not interested in paying to critique a car, any car, let alone one out for only 6 plus months which the CNN article fails to point out.

Now that I have seen that from Consumer Reports I rank them no differently than the magazine reviewers, none of which mentioned even wind noise, except the guy Sajeev Metha.

Another reason to love this site as I do, actual owners, actual opinions from those who own and operate them, the good, the bad, the indifferent.

Even the other owners website where AMF is a moderator has issues reported on it as does Edmunds. So who paid to subscribe in order to rate the ES350 so soon is beyond me.

LexBob2

Just a thought, but are you suggesting that Sajeev is the only reviewer who's credible, since he heard wind noise?? How about Car & Driver, Consumer Reports (the magazine & their subscribers), Consumer Guide etc., they test a lot of cars, probably more than Sajeev, and I'm guessing with more sophistcated equipment. As I said just a thought, but we must look at the big picture out there as well as on this forum.

wanderer99

Wow. I'm stunned.

From what I read at tha Edmunds.com forums I wouldn't buy the Hyundai Azera either as that has front end\tire vibration issues that haven't been solved.

Gojirra99

I know JDPower has an Initial Quality Survey (problems within the first 90 days of ownership for a new car), but I didn't know CR has one too . . .

Pheonix

And yet all of the complaints thus far. None of them will affect reliability. Driving satisfaction. Yes. Reliability. No. Just food for thought.

e-Mel

Same here.

ES350Bob

I trust the other CR more than this CR indicated.

Celibon Reports: With his poll of actual owners on here.

Lack of reliabilty does not mean the car is disabled by the roadside in need of a tow truck, it would include trips to service for other than it's first 5k service.

garsarno

As a subscriber to the magazine, we receive the questionaire once per year to rate everything from appliances to cars to whatever they choose. With cars, there is rating on the operations of parts of cars, electrical etc. That's where the transmission and cold engine noise can be reported on.

dreyfus

Note the LS & the SC are rated as the top automobiles in their class as well. Lexus is definitely the car to own if reliability is important to you.

Remember, our CL poll had 104 respondents (not 147) out of some 60,000 cars sold. Due to the enthusiasm of our little community here, I'm sure we're not a representative sample of ES350 owners.

However, I'm going to be very interested in how the dots are colored in Consumer Reports' next auto buying guide AFTER the annual survey from ES350 owners comes in. I've filled one out every year for years on my other cars and can't wait for the next one. After this survey you'll have a large, real owner response from a wider cross section of ES owners. The numbers should be interesting.

PsychDoc

UTTER FICTION

The car effectively hit the shores of the US in May/June. Any report that is now on the newsstands had to be prepared at least a month ago to go to press. That gives maybe a grand total of five months experience to draw upon. As others have said, CU does not send out it's annual survey until the spring (I'm a long term subscriber) so no truly organized attempt to gather data could yet have been undertaken.

This is pure fiction guys.

Nothing meaningful is yet known about this car's reliability.

For the record, while the car is far from perfectly designed in a number of respects, my particular car has been 100% problem free since I picked it up on June 8th. So I suspect the data will be positive when it comes in.

I really do hate junk science masquerading as real science.

And that's just what this "report" is.

ES350Bob

dreyfus,

I don't know about transmissions or engine knocking tapping as regards volume of complaints, but I do know wind noise and rattles is very widepsread.

The dealer had said to me they'd take all the help they could get on rattles alone, inundated with them for resolution driving them nuts and that was back in August. And they call wind noise buffeting and are VERY aware of it.

As to the 60,000 units sold, maybe, but when the stated goal of Lexus was to sell 70,000 units for the entire year I am wondering if the 60,000 is inflated since they have been sold only for 6 months plus or minus.

I agree with Psych, the Consumer Reports is fiction, IMO not at all based on valid market research criteria to determine a reliability factor.