biff44

All right. After 1 month here are my pet peaves. They are all minor, but a surprising lot of them considering the "luxury nature" of the RX350.

Seat does not go back far enough for a big guy. Another inch of travel would be great.

Arm rest is totally inadequate and too high for a guy with big arms.

There is no aux input coax jack for an MP3 player (almost made me decide against the car).

The lights in the storage compartment do not come on when the door is opened, you have to fumble around in the dark for the switches.

When it rains, water beads up on the spoiler. When you open the rear door hatch, that water runs right into the car. Either you need to angle the spoiler down more, or put a little lip on the frontmost edge.

The little dull green light on the rear view mirror is really annoying at night. I had to plug mine up with a little bit of sticky foam.

If you have big feet, the top of your foot can hit the bottom of the retracted parking brake pedal when it is resting on the left foot pad.

There is no power outlet on the backside of the center console. I would prefer to power my Ipod (or some new gadget of the future) with a wire coming from behind, not from the front on the floor.

The map holder on the door is not tall enough to hold one of those full size road atlas books--it only holds small maps.

The light gray interior floor is too light in color. It really shows the dirt quickly. A darker carpet, and lighter upper interior might have been smarter.

The passenger side seatbelt, when there is no passenger, sometimes raps against the hard wall when there is road vibration. A softer part would not make as much noise.

The fog lights seem to turn off when the highbeams are on. Why not let them stay on, as you can use all the light you can get when you turn on the brights.

I question the mechanism where the storage space cover retracts every time you open the hatch door. Why? What if I want to throw a computer in there to hide it from view. I open the door, put in the computer, close the rolling cover, close the door. Why not let the rolling cover stay in place until I push a button for it to retract?

There is simply no place to rest an ipod! The best place would be between the center console bid doors, and the door on the cup holder. But there is no place to attach the ipod without blocking the "open/close" button. So you have a customer swearing at Lexus everytime he takes a corner and his Ipod goes flying! What a major screwup! If you had a small unobtrusive attachment screw to the side of the transmission shift lever, and sold an ipod holder to attach there, your customers would be happy again.

Any other takers?

lexuslover

those are all very valid pts. i am a 5'7 female so most of the size limitations don't apply to me

as for your others:

ipod/mp3 jack - have you looked into vaistech? that's what i have - here are some instructions i posted https://www.clublexus.com/forums/sho...light=vaistech i keep the ipod on the floor and then take the ipod w/ me or hide it under the mat. the ipod stays in the tray while driving on top of a sticky pad so there is no sliding. with vaistech you don't need to hold the ipod while driving either.

retractable cover - you can lock those into place with the tabs closest to the rear door hatch. to unlock them, you just press once and it will be back to the regular position.

SilverLady

I agree with you on a lot of these.-

Aux input - incredible they left this out, considering all the other Gen 5 Nav cars got them - I have to believe this will be added next time. Ditto with no power supply for the back seat or decent cupholders for back there without turning it into two seats.

Ipod spot - I guess as there is no place to plug in the Ipod, it doesn't matter. I bought one of those FM transmitters (very inferior to an aux input), and it fits in the dashboard power supply and holds the Ipod in addition to supplying power.

Agree on armrests, although I have gotten used to them. They should at least be adjustable!

I took the trunk area cover off before the RX was out of the dealer lot, so no comment on that.

The RX rear hatch door has too much of a curve. With standard SUVs, the hatch usually opens more out and back, so you have a rain/sun tailgate cover for loading and unloading. With the RX, it just goes up so you get wet.

Not sure what you mean by compartment lights. The few in the back go on and off like the refrigerator door - I never use the switches.

Fog lights going off when highbeams are on is pretty standard for OEM foglights.

32kcolors

Do you really need it if you have the navigation system?

BobsGX

[QUOTE=biff44;2346792]
The fog lights seem to turn off when the highbeams are on. Why not let them stay on, as you can use all the light you can get when you turn on the brights.

QUOTE]

I read where there is a federal law that says no vehicle can have more than 4 head/fog lights on at the same time.

biff44

Interesting replies! I guess a few of my peaves are that I did not take the time to read the manual!

I too have a FM transmitter for my ipod. However, being an Electrical engineer, I can assure you that you are missing out on 30 dB of dynamic range and any high frequencies above 14 KHz if you use that option! Also, I get a lot of noise pickup sporadically from FM radio stations on long trips. I know of the Vaistech option, but am not sure that it is worth $300 for better sound quality.

IF Vaistech made a wireless connection one (NOT in the FM band, but at 915 MHz for instance), then that would make a lot more sense! You could have the full digital dynamic range, 10-20,000 hz frequency response, and you would not have some kludgey wiring exposed to the ipod.

As far as where to put the ipod, sure you could rest it on the center console. I do have a sticky pad so it does not move around much. But I can not find a sticky pad that is gray colored (so it looks like heck), and do not like to leave the ipod resting right next to the cup holder (which holds a lot of coffe on my numerous long trips). I looked all over the dash area, and there are no good places to attach an ipod holder. I have found a goosneck ipod holder that plugs into a cigarette lighter, and a big leather thing that somehow clamps onto the right side of the of the shifter/leather. Both look pretty kludgey!

I will have to figure out how to use the rear hatch automatic lights! I must have them turned off.

billy44bo

The seats move way to slow. Need to speed them up when you want to change from memory positions or full front to full back.
All lights need to shut off after 15 minutes or so with key out or not in the on positions. This would keep the batter from running down or night if you left a light on in the car.
My 2001 Dodge will do this so it can be done.

Lexus needs to find a paint that will hold up to road used. What good is it when you drive down the road and anything and everything, i.e. bugs sand will put a mark on the front of your car?

Husker4the

I will second the fact that the paint seems to chip VERY easily.

lexuslover

the Vaistech option also does a couple things that am FM/wireless transmitter does not:

(1) charges your ipod ( i hardly use the charger at home anymore)
(2) presses "I agree" for you when you start up the car
(3) integrates with your factory head unit so you can view song titles, etc.

Vais is a club lexus vendor now as well and was recently selling the unit for $219. they do a group buy every now and then so maybe you could get in on the next one!

i know the sticky pad also comes in white which is made for apple, if that helps...

32kcolors

biff44,

With the Vaistech, you control your ipod through the factory head unit or NAV system so there's no need to find a convenient place for it. I just put mine under the passenger seat out of view and it doesn't slide there. Takes just seconds to remove and re-connect. Lexuslover has a thread here with step-by-step instructions on how to install the Vaistech unit and you can install it yourself.

32kcolors

Not in Gen 5 NAV, which is what the RX350 has.

lexuslover

are you sure? my cousin with an 07 ES350 and gen 5 nav has the i agree functionality as well... (and all the 2IS ppl have it as well). we just did the install on my cousin's ES about 3 weeks ago and it works great.

if not, i am sure vais is working on it. when i bought mine a year ago they said the i agree would work but it didn't on Gen 3 nav systems. once they figured it out i sent it in and they did the firmware update and sent it back to me. i am lovin the I Agree push!!

salimshah

[QUOTE=BobsGX;2347177]It is a carry over from past and has its roots in function [not just form where ppl want their cars lit with "white" lights .. apearence issue].

Fog lights need to focus low and have and wider spread, while high beems focus out further and up. With fog around, the high beams have a blinding affect as the light is bounced back into the driver eyes. Thus the high beam and fogs both on never make "functional" sense.

Salim

SilverLady

I have the "gooseneck" ipod holder/charger/FM transmitter which doesn't look too bad for a kludge However, it is still a pain (there are no real clear radio stations, and the almost clear ones are not consistent), and I have to take the IPOD out of the case to fit in the thing. And as you mention, I am limited to FM quality from a crummy transmitter. I installed it, tested it, played around with it and now just about never use it.

The Gen 5 system can play mp3/WMA CD disks, which is a big improvement. I can burn lots of songs on one disk, and control it from the steering wheel and other audio controls. The system reads the song codes, so you can see them in either the audio screen or on the little text screen on the radio (if you push "text" it advances to the next line of info for the song). You are limited with how much you can search the songs while the RX is moving - a bit of a pain but I can see where it can be distracting.

As far as the override - I think the issue is with what DVD disk version you have. The newest version that just came out apparently updates the system software to eliminate the manual override, which means that any electronic equipment that just duplicates those steps will no longer work.

32kcolors

Thanks for the info. I'll contact Eugene and see if there's a firmware update for my unit. At the time I bought it, it wasn't working for Gen 3 and 5.