My father just bought a 2006 Lexus RX330 not to long ago for my mother. Walked away with it for $2,000 under MSRP since he paid in full, not a bad deal, especially since he had to have it special ordered. There was none in my area with the breakwater blue, grey interior, and fully optioned, so they ordered it for him. The car arrived and everything was fine and dandy.
After about a week it blew a fuse for the lighter. So, I get sent out to fix it. I looked all over the car for a spare, but it doesn't come with spare fuses. So, I head off to my local auto parts store with fuse in hand, come to find out Lexus RX fuses are special and only available through Lexus. So, I call up the dealer, I have to order a minimum of 10 fuses (not assorted either, 10 of one type) and they are quite expensive. So, I wait a week, get the fuses in the mail, and fix it. No big deal since it was the 12volt lighter port, but if if it was something more important it could be a real PITA.
So, two weeks go by, my father's driving the car and I noticed the airbag light is on. Apparently we don't have airbags as they are turned off. I can't figure out how to turn them back on, so I call the Lexus dealer again. They say we have to bring the car in. So, I take the car there and the guy explains to me the airbag sensor is very sensitive and if anyone kicks the bottom of the seat it will permanently turn the airbags off and they have to be reset with the computer. That's great, especially when you have kids that ride in the back.
Anyway, I leave the car there and when I go to pick it up there is grease all over the light grey floor mats, what made me really pissed is I just detailed the friggen car! The guys that worked on it weren’t there so I had to take down the managers phone number and call him later. I called and left a message, I'm still waiting three days later. Suffice to say my parents are pretty PO'ed.
Finally, yesterday my father and I went to change the oil for the first time. Well, we spent a half hour looking for the oil filter. I finally found it, but to get to it we had to take the whole plastic skidpan off the bottom front. What a PITA! I don't know how the guys at the Lexus dealer change the filter, but I would hate to be them.
For a $45,000 Luxury vehicle, and our first non-American car, so far I'm not impressed. We had four Ford Explorers both new and used before this and only one of them gave us more trouble than this vehicle, but at least with the Ford we could get parts down at the local autoparts store. My father keeps saying he should have bought a new Explorer instead. All in all, Toyota/Lexus is leaving a bad taste in my mouth.
Not very impressed with Lexus.
