When I was at the dealer for service yesterday my guy (the always-excellent David Fazio) pointed out that my car was exactly one year old, having been built on 5/19/2022. I'd planned to make a post next week to mark the first year of owning my car (I took delivery on 5/26/22), but this seems like an opportune time. I thought I'd follow up on my initial impressions from last year (https://www.clublexus.com/forums/nx-...t-problem.html) and see how things have progressed. So without further ado:

POSITIVE

• I'm still very pleased with this car. My initial impression was "not perfect, but it's really really good" and I am happy to say that I stand by that.
• Performance remains more than adequate to my needs - I can zip onto the interstate with no difficulty, and if I'm in the mood I can put my foot into it on surface streets and have a little fun. Brakes are excellent, cornering is good for a small SUV - what more can I ask for?
• Gas mileage is hovering around 25mpg, as expected. I can get that up past 26 on a long highway run, if I keep things under 80mph. Sometimes I wonder if I should have gotten the hybrid, but not very often.
• I drove the car round trip to Houston (~1900 miles) last month, and it was as comfortable as I'd hoped. I did initially have the seat set too low and tilted just a bit down, but once I realized that (my right leg had started aching after about 400 miles) and adjusted the seat properly, that resolved. User error, not the car's fault.
• I regularly get compliments on the looks of the car. The side view is great, Lexus nailed that 100%. I'm still not a spindle grille fan but I have gotten used to it, and nobody has made any negative comments about it. Overall it's a win on styling.

LESS SO

• The one consistent complaint I have about the car is the engine noise, particularly at low speed. I had hoped I'd get used to it, but I haven't - it's just not premium. Seems like Lexus could have tried a little harder on sound insulation.
• My phone still fails to connect maybe one time in eight, but usually a quick restart of the infotainment system resolves it. I'm tempted to blame my phone more than the car, I do sometimes have connection issues with other devices.
• Oh, and the gas tank size...14.5 gallons, really?

PROBLEMS

• The issue with the interior rain coming from the rear window washer was eventually resolved. It took a month or so for Nalley Lexus to get the part in, but once they did it took about an hour to fix and the problem hasn't come back since.
• A second issue was that the rear doors developed rattles. When I went in for my initial 5000 mile service I asked that this be looked at, but they were unable to replicate the noise. I don't really blame them here...I had noticed the rattles were becoming less noticeable with time, which I assumed was due to the temperature change - by the time I had the car serviced in November or December they had just about gone away. I figured they would return as the weather warmed, and I was right...they were audible again around March, and by May they were pretty much constant. So when I went in yesterday for my second service I gave detailed instructions on how to trigger the rattles and prove that they were coming from the rear doors, and they had no problem replicating the issue. It took a couple of hours on top of the usual 10,000 mile service to fix them, but those rattles are GONE. I suppose it's possible they'll come back down the road (this repeatedly happened on my POS Saturn years ago), but for now I am a happy camper - the car is tight and rattle-free on even the roughest roads (I-285) around here.

And that's pretty much it. Very pleased with the car, wouldn't change a thing.

 

Good update. I would be interested to know what you instructed the mechanic to do to replicate your noisy doors. Just out of curiosity.

I concur with most of your observations, but I personally find the sound of the engine quite good. Going into this vehicle I had heard a lot of complaints about the A25A engine in the 350h and 250 (and for that matter, the RAV4 too among others) being pretty noisy. I also remember coming out of work one day before I got mine and my colleagues NX350h had been remote started and was clattering away (probably the direct injectors), but I remember test driving a 350h and found it quite acceptable inside. As for the T24A (turbo) engine in the 350, well, I gotta say I like the sound of it. When puttering about town it sounds decently quiet, but when I get on the throttle there is some engine noise but to me it sounds competent, not annoying. Like, I'm working hard, but not too hard, I got this! I actually like it enough that I'm wondering how much am I hearing from the actual engine vs the active noise control system supposedly active as well. I don't actually hear the turbo spin up though like I have noticed on some other turbocharged cars - but I'm older, maybe that's beyond me now .

Certainly the hybrid would have been more pleasant at the gas pump, but like you, doesn't bother me most of the time. While certainly the NX turbo isn't going to be nearly as good as the other NX models, I find it gets better fuel economy on the highway than my RX hybrid did, so that's a bit of a plus for me. As a long time hybrid driver (Camry H and RXh) plus time in a Crosstrek, this is the first time since 2006 I have a vehicle with an automatic transmission (over 16 years driving CVT based vehicles). This was actually my biggest worry, that it would annoy me with all the shifting (and that this transmission had some early issues when used in the Sienna and RAV4). I still don't understand how some people actually prefer having their head bobble around like getting slapped in a 3 stooges movie from all that shifting, CVTs might not be perfect, but smooth they general are very much. But am I actually happy to report that I am mostly pretty happy with it. I officially grant the transmission my coveted "acceptable" rating, and that's from an auto-trans hater.

• I like the fact that its fairly aggressive at downshifting when slowing/coasting so when you get on the gas it just goes, no delay. I've heard others complain about this when you get these little rpm bumps when slowing, but to me that's a good thing, not a bad thing.
• The "direct shift" feature works pretty good. I tested this the other day, cruising around 70kph (45mph) I put the gear display up on my dash, cruising nice and easy in 7th gear. I then pushed the gas pedal about 90% down and it pretty much instantly dropped to 3rd gear and just went. Very good response.
• My only complaint I suppose would be 1st gear. Its so short. Its fine for puttering around with modest acceleration and a not so bad shift to 2nd, but it can be a bit of a 3 stooges slap when shifting into 2nd under fairly quick (but not 100%) acceleration. It's amplified a bit I think between 1st and 2nd because when I get on the throttle say 80% at very low speeds it goes quite nicely, but when the boost pressure hits a bit later extra power comes on briskly and because I find 1st gear so short this extra power isn't very linear and thus leads to a less than "comfortable" shift to 2nd. I suppose a full out 6200rpm shift would be ok, but this in between space with power ramping up but then going for what feels like a short shift to 2nd is not quite perfect for me. But pushing the shift to 2nd a bit later at that throttle setting probably doesn't make much sense either. I suppose the nature of a smaller engine with turbo. I think it would be cool to mate the T24A with a CVT though.

 

It was pretty easy actually - there's a rough bit of road about a mile from the dealership that I passed over on my way in that made the doors rattle very clearly. I wrote on the form (my dealer has a form for describing noise problems) they if they couldn't hear the noise right away to go to that stretch of road and head westbound at ~30mph to produce the noise. As for proving it was the doors, I indicated that while the door was rattling to press on the forward upper corner of the inside door panel and the noise would stop immediately.

I don't know if they had to do any of that, but I wanted to make sure they had everything they needed to identify the problem. And the problem is gone, so mission accomplished I suppose.

 

Of course you realize in one year your '22 NX is now 2 model years old! Say thanks Toyota!

 

True, but not important in my case - I tend to keep cars ten to fifteen years.

 

Hello Dorsai. I have the exact same issue and when I press on the top edge of the back door closest the B pillar, the rattle stops. Do you know what the service guys did to stop the rattle?

 

I don't, sorry. From past experience, though, my guess would be that they put some felt or other type of padding where the inside panel meets the body of the door. This is probably a common enough problem (given the multiple reports here) that there's a standard fix for it - take it to your dealer and ask.