rongro

I recently purchased a 2013 RX450h to replace my 2008 RX400h. My wife drives a 2009 GS350. In my previous Lexus the speaker phone had great quality and so does the GS350. The new RX sounds like a cheap toy. Very tinny and the quality of the sound is poor making it difficult, sometimes, to understand what the other party is saying.

I asked the dealership to check it out and they advised me that the bluetooth phone speaker sound is normal for the 2013 RX's. I got hold of a salesperson and we went to a 2013 RX350, hooked up the bluetooth, and sure enough, the quality was anything that you would expect from a Lexus product.

I love everything about the car except for the speakerphone, which I find to be irritating. I wrote a letter to the VP of Lexus at Toyota in California. They passed it off to the Customer Satisfaction Department, who in turn called me to discuss the issue. They had checked with the dealership to see what was done (which was everything I had done.) The radio, CD/DVD quality is excellent. It appears as though the speakerphone uses one speaker, while other audio uses multiple speakers.
The Customer Satisfaction person advised me that if they get enough complaints about the issue, they would probably look into it and might even initiate a change and update for those with the issue.

I opened this forum in the hopes that those of you with 2013 RX's that used the bluetooth phone system will call and register a concern. Their number is 1-800-255-3987, option 2 on the menu.

I would like to hear from others that have used the 2013 RX bluetooth speakerphone and what they think of the quality.

TexasRxh

rongro, I've had my 2013 Rx450h for about 3 weeks and I do use the BT. I previously had an Rx400h with BT and I think the 2013 sounds better than the 2008. Perhaps I've never heard a really good BT speaker??

UCSB

My 2010 450h BT phone support is excellent ... unless Lexus downgraded the system there might be something wrong with your car (or phone, or compatibility). Definitely not a cheap toy.

dctex99

I have to agree with the opener of this thread; I was surprised at the poor quality and how hard itwas to unerstand on Blue Tooth! Fortunately I don't use it much, but agree they chose a cheap speaker to reverse into a Microphone for some reason??

markrivers

TRY bluetooth streaming from your phone.. music content etc.
See if the sound is distributed to all the speakers ( ala CD/DVD/Radio/ Sirius XM etc).
if it does, which i'm very confident it will, then the problem is Software. which will be an easy fix.

by the way, what phone are you using? have you updated the software of your phone?

rongro

I have an Iphone 4 (not the 4S) witht he latest software updates and it worked great in my 2008 and works great in my wifes 2009 GS350. I have used the BT streaming and sound quality is excellent when I listen to Iheart or Pandora, but here the system uses all 12 speakers, whereas the BT phone connection seems to use only one speaker.

rongro

+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

Interesting, I had a 2008 400h and the sound quality of the BT phone connection was subperb, whereas the 2013 is nowhere as clear or base as the 2008 or the 2009 GS350.

TexasRxh

Another data point: my daughter called me yesterday while I was in the car and I thought it sounded very tinny...but she was using her iPhone on speaker and she was on a highway. I think it's the same mic regardless but the sound quality was very much worse than "normal,"

Cruiter

I upgraded to my new EVO LTE yesterday from Sprint. As soon as I was in the car I turned on the phone, asked the car to find it and within a couple of minutes it was registered and all my contacts were showing. So if anyone is considering this phone it's not a problem. I haven't tried the music yet because I use my iPod with USB but I don't suspect it would be a problem over Bluetooth if you wanted to do it.

wayner

I agree with the original poster.

I used to have a 2005 (or 06) RX400h and 2006 IS350 and the BT quality was fine for these.

A few months ago we upgraded to a new RX450h and GS350 and the BT in the new cars sounds horrible. And it can't be the phones as the phones sound fine in an older Lexuses.

And the phones that I have tried include a BB9900, BB Q10, BB Z10, iPhone 4, iPhone 5 and iPhone 5s.

BT audio for music is just fine, it is just the handsfree for stuff like the phone and Siri that sounds awful.

philj

Yesterday I went to the dealership because it's time for me to replace my car.

Currently I drive a LS the sound quality is great however the sound quality on the GS that I was test driving was not as good. I called my office and my assistant who speaks to me all the time on my cell phone agreed that she could not hear me as well.

I've seen also in some references to this.

I'm checking to see if you can switch microphones. I'm hoping that if I put the same microphone that was in my LS that the sound quality will improve at least for the people I am calling.

Not having good cell phone quality is a dealbreaker for me so I hope I can get around this problem

TechNut

I have noticed a difference between cars and phones. We had a 2006 Prius and the Bluetooth sounded great. We replaced it with a 2010 model and the sound was very tinny using the same phones.

Our previous RX 330 didn't have Bluetooth so I can't really compare the Lexus models, but I can confirm our 2013 RX doesn't sound very good with an Apple iPhone. When we bought our current RX, my wife had an iPhone and I had a Blackberry Torch. Her phone sounds very tinny and I generally have to ask her to go back to the phone so I can understand her. I had no such complaints when using the Blackberry. Unfortunately, I had to downgrade to an iPhone for work purposes and now I get complaints about the sound quality - with people often asking me to repeat myself.

Bottom line, the iPhone (4S or 5) is not a good match for our 2013 RX, but the Blackberry worked fine. The Blackberry offered other cool integration - for example the car would read my new e-mails to me. I suspect your problem isn't the car but the poor Bluetooth of the phone. Pair a good quality Android like one of the popular Samsungs and you might be surprised.

Doug

charlesn

I just came off a lease on a 2010 RX 450h and rolled directly into the 2014 model, so I can confirm that there is a HUGE difference in the sound quality of phone calls between the two cars. In the 2010 model, calls on my iPhone 5s running iOS 7 sounded great! In the 2014, the very same phone sounds awful on calls, for exactly the reasons described by the OP: cheap and tinny sound with the audio apparently routed to only one speaker. I also agree that this is more of a problem than just poor sound--like the OP, I"m sometimes having problems understanding what people are saying on calls. I don't know how or why Lexus screwed up a perfectly good system, but the downgraded sound quality is very disappointing.

Lajick

Hey guys,

Sounds like there is definitely a quality issue at hand here. Keep in mind that the microphone is located on the overhead console and the output speaker for the phone is located on the drivers door. When using bluetooth, there's a transmit volume which will control the quality of sound coming from your end. As for music, there are two sound system options, the basic would be the Lexus Premium Sound System and the upgrade would be the Mark Levinson System. If you're going from one to the other there may be a huge difference. Also, if you're streaming music via bluetooth, i recommend having your phone volume turned to its max for better sound. Probably not a huge help to anyone, but i'm sure Lexus will resolve all your issues if brought to their attention.

(Reference to MY13 & MY14) ..

wayner

@charlsen - did you try asking your dealer about this?

As I mentioned above I went from an Rx400h circa 06 and an IS350 circa 07 to a 2014 rx450h and a 2014 GS350 and experienced exactly the same thing. My dealer said no one has mentioned it.