charlesh

It seems to me that all your opinion about RX350 comes from others, including "The leather in RX300 and RX330 is actually inferior to BMW, driver side seats have shown cracks as early as three years of usage". It will misslead others if one copy others' opinion and "paste/paste....".

What all I said is based on my experince (I only test drive MDX, so I never gave comment on the performace issues between these two. But only these that I can see e.g. leather/wood etc).


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2000 Honda Accord
2004 Acura TL
2007 RX350

TunedRX300

No I have these creases on my Rx300 driver side seat, exactly as described by RX330 and RX400h owners. Please read my posting.
We all have our own personal experiences, but to generalize one person's opinion to many is not convincing. Show me an URL link that proves RX350 has 100% genuine wood, and its leather is more durable than those in RX300/RX330/RX400h. Now we are talking about little bit of objectivity.
I have never seen a call for biased opinions in favor of Lexus just because we are Lexus owners. Well now I have, twice in the same thread. Now that is funny, "let's circle the wagon and defend Lexus"

CK6Speed

iTrader: (1)

The wood in the RX and all Lexus is genuine real wood. I don't have an URL though. I have; however, taken apart the panels in my RX330 and confirmed it is real wood. It is a wood veneer though. It uses about a 1-2mm thick wood veneer on aluminum and plastic backing. My old SC400 used a solid block of wood carved to shape.

That said, I'm not saying one is better than the other as for me if the wood looks good (Fake or real) that is all that matters. As for the leather, I can't comment on the new 07 MDX as I haven't been in one just yet, but the leather in the Acura RL IMHO rivals that of the LS and felt too me much more supple and luxurious than the leather in the RX/IS/GS that I've been in. If the new MDX uses the same leather as that in the RL, I have no doubt it is top quality.

Lil4X

I don't know Lexus' logic on the wood-aluminum laminate, but years ago Mercedes introduced this kind of trim on their cars. The reason, they claimed was that in a collision the thick wood would used on contemporary "solid wood dashes" would splinter, producing a considerable danger to occupants of the vehicle.

There is another possibility for the adoption of the aluminum laminate, too: dimensional stability. A friend once bought an eight-foot 4X12 hunk of teak, out of which he intended to cut a variety of trim pieces for his boat. His wife took one look and decided this lovely (and extremely expensive) product of nature would make a dandy mantle for their fireplace at the new lake house.

It did. Carefully sanded and oiled, it was the highlight of the room. For about two seasons. As the teak dried, it began to curl and twist into something really nasty - my buddy eventually took it down and cut it up into pieces for his original purpose, replacing the mantle with one made of fine kiln-dried oak. He had the oak laminated with a teak veneer that was really indistinguishable from the original solid timber, and we all learned why you don't see a lot of solid exotic woods - many tend to twist and curl themselves into a potato chip, particularly in a dry environment.