2007es350

I think Kingofire owns an es330 not an es350. If he owns an es330, we can't expect him to really understand the improvements in technology of the es350.

kingofire

lol, you are comparing the whole fleet to the Acura RL and Acura in general. All my point was that, some of the stuff offered in the Lexus ES350 is cosmetic. There is truly no functionality. I personally can live without the Push start/stop, swiveling headlights, panoramic roofs or semi alanine leather. If your best answer is semi-alanine leather, its not that great. Why does the ES350 not have LED brake lights? Infiniti and Acura come with it. You know what, I can care less about LED lights because they are all cosmetics. The reason why i am happy with a ES330 over a ES350 other than the issues on this board, is that all the functionality items on a ES350 is present on my ES330 and i paid close to $15,000 less. You do have a point about the passenger 4 way seat is in poor taste. When i compared the RL to the ES350, all the items that i considered important were better on the RL over ES350.
On a side note, after getting the ES330, every single person that has been in the ES330 has told me practically told me that the Lexus has more expensive feel but the Acura TL looked better. Too bad they didnt have to sit in the car day in and day out and listen to the rattles and things.
You seriously cant ask a $45,000 Acura RL to have the same options as a $90,000 Lexus LS. Yeah it doesnt have park assist but i tell you what, knowing Acura, they will be faster at catching up with technology than lexus is when it has to catch up with technology. When i bought the Acura TL in 2004, the best part was that it didnt have too many additional options, heck it was either a TL with Navi or without. Thats it, everything else was included. Secondly, paying $35,000, which is a lot of money to me, XM was included, no have to buy the kit then get gouged by the dealer to install it. Its 2007, 3 years later and lexus STILL only comes with "sat ready". Paying $42,000, satelitte should have been pre-installed and all we'd have to do was activate it. Why is it taking so long to do this??? See satelitte radio to me is a "functionality" item as i travel a lot and not having to change FM stations in every state, I can just listen to satelitte radio and have to worry about music. If this was other way around and lexus came with pre-installed with Sattelite radio, I bet you that Acura would have responded in the next model year to include satellite.

P.S. The acura MDX has rear view camera too. You cant compare rear view camera between a SUV and a regular car. There are reasons why a back up camera is installed in a SUV. I know you are intelligent enough to figure out why.

kingofire

07lexusguy,

Last time I checked, i might be wrong but ES350's only have a back-up camera on the UL package only. I know that my ES330 does not have a back up camera, so the RL came out with the back-up camera before the lexus equivalent ES350. FYI, the new acura tl's will come with standard back up camera in their vehicle. I dont think you can find a back-up camera in a base ES350 that costs more than the TL. You can read the rest on my post above for other answers.

Guys, sorry to thread jack but please continue with the OP's question. I am not going to get into my car is better than theirs. I love my Lexus ES330 but am not going to close my eyes and become biased towards that company.

dreyfus

That is wrong. Any ES350 with Nav (like my Premium Plus) will have the backup camera. This is absolutely one of the best features of the car as my driveway is sloped to make backing into the street a visual challenge. With the display I can reverse with confidence and safety.

Unlike kingofire, I love the push button start and find it very convenient never having to dig out my keys. It is definitely a funtional plus for me.

I originally was going to buy an ES330, but then found the ES350 had 54 more HP and better MPG. After that, the decision was a no-brainer.

Purchasing a new model or redesign in the first year is never a really safe idea, but my ES350 has been largely problem-free and I'm happy with it.

kingofire

Thanks for correcting me about the back-up camera. I had not looked too closely on which models it came in, but your answer makes sense. I also do believe that a back-up camera is a very functional item and would love to have it in my es330. The RL has the back-up camera since last year i think. The horsepower in the new ES350 is the biggest functionality improvement from the older 330 to 350. My 330 feels very underpowered with the 225 hp especially taking the weight of the 330 into consideration. I absolutely loved the pick-up in the ES350. I truly miss that.
As for the push start, either way you get your car started. I want to keep this car for atleast 200,000 miles, thus my decision to buy a toyota product with legendary reliability, i was just concerned about the longevity of the push button start and when i asked the service about the cost to replace this out of pocket, he said close to 4 grand. I really dont want to spend 4 grand on the starter.

2007es350

LOL. Gotta love the "sky is falling" attitude. I really doubt that the push button start will cost you $4k to fix. I think the fobs are around $350-400. Maybe about $1k for the built in receive and computer. Out of curiousity, was it your salesperson that sold you the es330 the one that gave you the $4k estimate?

RobF350

the push button itself has nothing to do with the actuall starter motor,
it just replaces the old key tumbler.


I doubt a push button switch is $4000

alot of hot rod guys have been using the push button switch from the Honda S2000 for years now instead of keys.

ES350Bob

2007..Rob......he mentions the service department told him replacement cost and I know when PHM's failed the way they got it to work was swapping out the computer between two ES350's, so she had to wait till they got a new one in to get her's working again.

I know he posted he got a 330 to avoid the transmission problems on his Thanks Guys thread..

RobF350

what am I missing?

he said he got a es330 because he was worried about replacement costs in the future, like the $4000 push button starter.

I read that as he thinks if the starter motor goes its going to cost him $4000.

kingofire

No, this was the service advisor after i had agreed to buy the ruby red ES350. I had read here that out of warranty fix for the push start would be close to 4 grand. I called the service advisor and he told me that as of right now the price would be between 3-4k. He also added that in 4 years or so when push start becomes standard in most cars, the price might go down but realistically would still cost over 2 grand. My family has had a long standing relationship with this service advisor. He's a close friend of my dad so i dont think he would BS me.

kingofire

Sorry, let me clear this up. I mainly bought the ES330 for 2 reasons. First, I went to take a second test drive of the car i had agreed to purchase and during the test drive, i experienced the "transmission flare". I really didnt feel like going thru what some of the people here have been so i decided to wait. Secondly, when i went to the another dealership, I was given this great deal on a "certified pre-owned" 2006 ES330 with 10,000 miles for $25,000 dollars. So i took it after the test drive. Part of the reason, I got a great deal is because my dads friend happens to be a service advisor there and happened to catch me while i was negotiating(being stupid, i didnt even think of him while negotiating). He pulled some strings for me and got me this great price. We just started chit-chatting and he told me that he wouldnt have let me buy the ES350 if he knew about it because he sees a lot of them come back for one problem after another. He told me that he has personally worked on something like 23 es350 transmission problems and so far lexus has bought back 4 es350's from him. I was reading this forum and someone had mentioned the price to replace a defective push button start system so i called him up and he agreed the price to be in the mid 3k.

amf1932

Somehow, I don't believe this story.....AT ALL!!
Especially these remarks:

ES350Bob

Alan...,

Seems plausible to me that someone who worked on a Lexus daily as their job would express caution to someone they know when we ourselves suggested to people thinking of buying them......here use this pre-purchase checklist before signing, changing lately to more often suggested...wait till the 08's when the bugs are out, especially the transmission issue is resolved.

I found PHM's start failure thread, link below, that ended up with entire computer for the car as the culprit and those are not cheap by a long shot. Could not find the other thread where the cost of the main ECU was stated which might have been on GS forum but it was or is on here somewhere and it was up there in the thousands of dollars, certainly so if one key FOB is like 400 dollars or more. Note to ourselves, do not misplace a key FOB.


post #9

https://www.clublexus.com/forums/sho...+start+failure

LexBob2

Since PHM's problem was back in September and hasn't surfaced again, it sounds like it was an isolated problem.

e-Mel

On that same thread dshahs420 says his service department quoted $1500 for an out of warranty starter replacement. Quite a difference in price from the 4K of the other dealer.