exBMWowner

After 5,000 miles on my LS460L, my overall enjoyment of the car is being frustrated by two relatively minor yet noticeable issues.

1) The navigation system is not very flexible. In particular, I can't seem to find a way to look at the turn by turn directions for anything beyond the three turns that can fit on the screen at one time. In many cases I have no idea where it is proposing to route me and I have to roll the dice on taking its directions. This is particularly frustrating when using the XM traffic feature to re-route you, because you can't really tell where the new route is going to take you off to unless you only have three turns to make before you get to your destination.

Am I missing something here? Even my 2000 Acura TL can show me all of the turn by turn directions by scrolling the screen up and down.

2) When listening to music on the hard drive in random access mode, the forward and backward buttons on the steering wheel do not act like you would expect them to. On an Ipod, if you were in random mode and pressed the forward button, it would forward to the next randomly selected track on the drive. But on the Lexus, it forwards you to the next song on the album. So, if you don't like the song being played and want to stay in random mode, you either have to suffer through listening to it, listen to the next song on the same album, or hit the random button once on the touch screen to disable random mode, and then a second time to enable it again. Does this seem like an obvious oversight on the part of Lexus?

I know these probably seem like petty items, but they are really annoying and seem like a flawed design to me.

Iceman

I see how those could indeed be frustrations. Isn't it amazing how the seemingly smallest things can really grow in importance once they get stuck in our craw?!

Regarding item 1, my 2002 Lexus nav has a "route preview" feature that will virtually drive you through the entire route. It's buried within a couple of menus but available to use.

Regarding item 2, I agree with how you think the forward/reverse buttons should work in random mode. But I suspect that if they did it that way then there'd be other people out there who would prefer it to work the way it does now. Rather than a design flaw I see this as a user interface choice. They had to pick one way or the other (or make this a user-selectable feature, I suppose).

ikey78

For item 1:

Push the Map View button. You can then push Route Overview. That gives you a map of the total route which might help in the situation you describe although it may be difficult to figure out individual turns.

There is a Turn List button on the top of the Route Overview screen but as like many other things in this car is greyed out and inactive while the car is moving. When not moving it will allow you to see all the remaining turns.

For item 2, pushing and holding the Random button until it changes tracks is the only way around the problem you describe.

mcalbala

There is also a route preview buried pretty deep in the navigation system, which is actually quite helpful

exBMWowner

The problem with the route preview is that it really can't be used with the dynamic rerouting feature that occurs when the current route is determined to have a significant traffic jam and the nav system is attempting to route you around it.

I was driving down the 101 in LA yesterday and the traffic was so bad that it was recommending I get off the freeway and take surface streets, even though I had more than 50 miles to go. The turn by turn directions only show the first three turns, so you really have no idea where the system may be routing you, what freeway you may eventually end up on, and how many miles of surface streets it wants you to drive down. It makes it very difficult to have any confidence in the system. I tried taking the system's advice once and it put me right in the middle of a traffic jam on LA surface streets where I needed to make a left turn and only two cars were making it through the left turn signal. It probably added 20 minutes to my commute. Pretty frustrating.

bird1028

I have the SWB LS460 with Levinson sound system. To my absolute amazement, the system has neither a pause or mute button for use during CD playback (or mute for radio, satellite etc)!

This is really the most incredible oversight; has anyone, ever, at any time owned a CD player that could not pause?

This is my first Lexus--I had heard that Japanese audio was always a little suspect, but one would think that the Mark Levinson name implies some degree of design sophistication. My only guess is that they forgot......remarkable.

Am I missing something? I would be delighted to be told that the pause control was right in front of me all the time.

Johnny

That's a new one on me. Every CD player car I have owned in the past did not have a pause button. The only functions I recall are Repeat, Random & Mute. I'm also not aware of other high end autos featuring more complex functions than that (then again, I haven't been around much). An aftermarket player plugged in to the Aux port could make pause available to you, but the functions would have to be triggered from the player.

vraa

iTrader: (2)

Lexus apparently isn't fond of rewinding or forwarding or manipulating the songs in any fashion.
My LS400 (IIRC) didn't have a rewind or forward for the Nakamichi CD player.

Johnny

Interesting, even my Acura tape player could do that. And Nakamichi of all things!

Grrr... we're living in the dawn of the Nanny state...

vraa

iTrader: (2)

I think it's less nanny (I'm saying this just because I love Lexus) and more arrogance.

"Our sound systems are so fine-tuned that there is no reason to fast forward, pause, or rewind the music, unless you have inferior musical tastes"

encore888

Regarding the pause music thing, usually I just press power. That pauses in mid-track, and pressing power again resumes the track IIRC.

Bossa_Nova

On my Mercedes S600 there is not a pause button but if you are listening to a CD or the radio and press the CD or radio button (as if you wanted to turn on that function) it mutes the radio or pauses the CD. I don't have my LS yet (600hl on order) but maybe someone who does could see if that would work the same way on a Lexus.

bird1028

The only method to pause the CD is indeed to turn off the power, then turn it back on.

I guess my consternation is that in an audiophile system, CD pause is a basic, basic function. To leave it off the system deliberately makes no sense whatsoever.

bitkahuna

iTrader: (20)

Lexus is certainly not alone in not offering a pause button.

My Ford Explorer though, does have a mute button on the steering wheel. As well as a 'media' button to switch CD->AM->FM... and all the rest.

jgoergen

My 04 LS430 has a mute button. I also was wondering why they eliminated it.