By Brian Gill
Okay, that headline is one huge, bold, big-talking claim. But the fact is, the lengths Lexus goes to help make premium cars continue to just blow the Lexus magazine editorial team’s minds. Consider, and judge for yourself whether Lexus deserves the headline:
Reason 1: The stethoscope treatment. First up, think about this: every Lexus LS engine is fired up on a test bench and personally inspected before it goes in a vehicle. That’s right: every engine. Each of these engines was individually placed on what’s called the Assembly Balancer while a skilled technician pored over the running engine personally, looking, touching, and even listening with a stethoscope to help make sure it hummed along perfectly.
Reason 2: Magic fingers. Get yourself a piece of paper. Close your eyes. Touch one side, then touch the other. Can you tell which is the front, and which is the back? Lexus engine-machining technicians can. These guys and gals are trained to feel the difference, a skill that takes years to develop. So why is this important? It’s those same fingertips that go over engine parts before assembly, backing up the digital measurements with a craftsman’s touch—checking smoothness and curvature, and looking for any minute imperfections that must be rectified before assembly.
Reason 3: No dust in the wind. To say Lexus is obsessed with keeping micron-size particulates away from precision components is an understatement. Once engine parts are made, Lexus preps them for assembly in a lab-like clean room, isolated from the rest of the facility. Here, workers are given “air showers” before they enter, parts are kept in special dust-free containers, and each part and container gets multiple high-power vacuums before components are assembled.
Reason 4: Military discipline. Lexus’ plant workers aren’t U.S. Marines, but you’d never know it by watching their skills tests. Take the process for testing a worker’s ability to install a single hose grommet correctly. Three superiors gather around the installer like drill sergeants. One commands loudly, “TODAY, WE WILL CONDUCT A SKILLS CERTIFICATION FOR THE BASIC INSTALLATION OF THE AC DRAIN HOSE!” The installer answers with a military-like response, installs the part while shouting out each by-the-book step, and finishes by standing at attention and reciting everything that could go wrong if this small part isn’t installed correctly.
Reason 5: Quality metal. You’ve, of course, heard of Iron Man. Well, Lexus has an Aluminum Man, specifically Toshikatsu Kuroyanagi, one of Lexus’ elite Takumi (the 10 masters who oversee different areas of a Lexus vehicle). His job: ensure quality at the liquid metal stage of engine creation. You see, apparently not all aluminum is alike—so Lexus quality starts by ensuring the molten metal contains minimal gases: the fewer gases, the stronger the metal will be when it’s formed into parts. The fact that Lexus devotes this level of in-house care to the raw materials it uses is just plain impressive.
Reason 6: Extreme prototype testing. To help ensure that electronic systems function despite atmospheric energy, such as television waves, solar radiation, and lightning, Lexus engineers subject new vehicles to wild electromagnetic interference in a giant chamber made for this purpose. That’s in addition to subjecting prototypes to temperatures ranging from 225 degrees above to 30 degrees below Fahrenheit.
Reason 7: Your engine’s inspector could have been an orchestra conductor. Remember those stethoscope inspections we mentioned earlier? It’s not just anybody who conducts them. Lexus Takumi Toshimitsu Kayashima sums it up this way: “An orchestra conductor is able to discern in an instant if one of the instruments is off, even when everyone is playing at once. In this way, our engine inspectors can discern from 20 different engine sounds happening at once, and on top of that, the tones that differ with each rpm.” In other words, Lexus uses people with maestro-like hearing to help make sure your Lexus engine runs precisely.
Reason 8: Responsive paint. This is the kind of deep thought Lexus puts into how your Lexus vehicle looks. First of all, vehicle paint will appear different under sun than under clouds. So Lexus gives its vehicles two base coats (out of a six-layered paint system), one designed for each lighting condition. The first base coat contains large aluminum flakes, which sparkle better under sunlight. The second base coat contains smaller flakes, which sparkle better under cloudy skies.
Reason 9: Lexus was the first to... Speaking of introducing the production-auto world to new things, it’s Lexus that consistently puts out vehicle systems that the world has never seen before. The world’s first prestige luxury hybrid. The world’s first eight-speed automatic transmission. The world’s first LED low-beam headlamps. The world’s first active pedestrian-detection system. The list goes on. Lexus is basically a brain trust of visionaries—and these are the kinds of minds that are thinking about your next Lexus vehicle, right now.
Reason 10: Dependability. Even in a year of recalls, Lexus continues to rank very high in quality studies, and the automaker has been a recognized leader in the reliability department for years. There are reasons for this, nine of them listed above. The true Lexus experts, Lexus owners, already know this, of course, and will likely not be surprised when Lexus continues to be a top reliability leader in the years to come. ’Nuff said.