garsarno

I remembered this little point - our 1999 Town Car needed the torque converter replaced within a few thousand miles of new along with the driver's seat back leather that was wearing prematurely also was replaced under warranty. Also, the differential, at 1,000 miles, was almost empty of fluid with no visible leaks. Refilled with synthetic oil. My daughter's 2004 Mountaineer AWD needed transmission work within 10,000 miles of new.

Pheonix

I also say bleeds like a stuck hog anytime I cut myself pretty good, or if something is bloody.
For example:

Guys be glad your engines are loud. It scares away deer.

You can even combine them!
"Damn! When I was using the cordless to unbolt the coolant exit on the upper intake air chamber. It raped my finger on the sharp unfinished edge! I blead like a stuck hog!"
I also reffer to almost any mechanical, "how hard is this to do" question I come across to my scaled of, "How big of a pain in the *** is this ***** to do for the average person?".

The moral, is. Um... Always wear gloves, and drive loud cars. They keep you from hitting animals. Except cows. Cows are just dumb...

ES350Bob

Unless the deer or animal is slightly hearing impaired, in which case you had to deal with a loud car damaging your kid's hearing over time, repeated exposure to it, or your's, and then you hit a deer, other...LOL...

Pheonix

*or* you could just aim for the deer in the first place & get everything out of the way. And still have a loud, economical, and powerful car! LoL!

ES350Bob

LOL...yeah that's it, just take aim and go..

Nah, I couldn't aim for a deer that hears normal let alone one with a hearing impairment..<G>

P.S. Is there a note to self yet to wear gloves when wrenching and maybe goggles too?

P.S.S. Do you have a warning you can post with the future bloody shots, something like the images you are about to see are graphic, view only after eating at least an hour before? <G>

toneman

Can someone here offer to verify that, when someone is saying that their engine is "quiet"--do they mean that it's so quiet that they don't even hear it running, or quiet in that there is no "abnormal" engine noise (e.g., valve clatter) to be heard, while either inside or outside the vehicle?

I mean, I can't hear any valve clatter or piston slap while I'm inside my car...but my engine is definitely not "quiet" to the point that I can't even hear it running...even while it's idling.

ES350Bob

tone.

The cold started demonstrator I drove was WHISPER quiet at idle, could not hear it, no vibration in steering column either, so quiet you could mistake that it was already on and try to push the start button again thinking you needed to start the car. The salseman even said a lady made that mistake in thinking it was not on.

My 2 prior Lexus ES300 cars were the same, so quiet you cranked them up again once in a blue moon....LOL..yes it happened and they don't/didn't take a re-crank quietly I can tell you that.

My ES350 is anything but that, the 2 loaners I drove were anything but that.

wdlugitch

Brain warp!

onsknht

Believe it or not... That is the best way to avoid a deer collision.... Accellerate and aim for it!

1) The accelleration part lifts the front of the car, thereby creating less of a chance of your instrument pod being caked in guts/blood.

2) If you aim for the deer, chances are it will move from that spot and you'll just miss it.

Do not click your brights or honk at the deer... The lights make them freeze and the honking freaks em out and makes them unpredictable. The lights are a no brainer, testing the horn theory I've seen deer on numerous drives fall and flop around the ground they were so startled by the horn.

P.S. I find a shot of brake cleaner in the eye to be quite relaxing... Carb cleaner just doesn't have the same ooomph.

P.S.S. I'm cool with the dead animals, but the bloody fingers is enough to make me hurl... I've had way too many similar experiences, I'd like to not relive them. Just this past few weeks I finally got rid of a "black nail" I started last March!

toneman

Well I won't dispute your finding that the demo you drove was whisper quiet since obviously I wasn't there to discover otherwise, but ponder this--Edmunds' measured the cabin noise level reading as being 41 dB at idle (I assume that the measurement was done inside the vehicle--after all, who really cares how loud or quiet the vehicle is...while standing outside of it). If the ES is really supposed to be whisper-quiet at idle, then what the heck did their instrument pick up--someone's tummy grumbling? I mean, a whisper itself measures around 20 dB...so most noises in the human audible frequency range can easily be heard (assuming one doesn't have a hearing problem to begin with) even if it's only 40 dB. If the 41 dB reading could somehow be attributed to the "engine noise" issue that folks have been talking about, wouldn't Edmunds have mentioned something about it in their Road Test article?

FWIW--in the same test, Edmunds measured the sound level at 74.6 dB at full throttle, and 67.5 dB at 70 mph cruise.

Would I like for my ES to be whisper-quiet--you betcha! However...your demo car notwithstanding, forgive me for being a bit skeptical that the ES 350 is (as opposed to "expected to be") whisper-quiet at idle, given that a whisper itself measures around 20 dB, yet Edmunds measured the interior noise at idle at 41 dB. Not only that, in both my own car and in another brand-new ES 350, I could hear the engine from inside the vehicle. Not loud compared to the idle noise level inside my Denali, but I can definitely hear it--i.e., it is definitely not whisper-quiet. I would almost go as far as to say that perhaps your hearing threshhold isn't as good as it used to be, mine is apparently much better than yours, or your definition of "whisper-quiet" apparently is different from mine.

I will concede that perhaps the ambient environment that the vehicle is in could perhaps affect the interior sound level reading--e.g., it might be easier to hear an idling engine from within the cabin if the vehicle is inside an enclosed area like a residential garage than say, perhaps if it were sitting in a parking lot.

currie0522

My Honda Goldwing (1800cc, horizontally opposed 6) is so quiet, that the only engine noise is the fuel injectors, and when moving most of the noise is transmission whine.

gappell

The engine on my ES 350 is just as quite as my 2 previous ES300's. I don't think the engine needs to be noisy to deliver more power. The manufacturer delivers the noise to sound powerful.

garsarno

In my prior post, I was lamenting that we were having buyers regret over the ES350 and should have looked at another new Town Car again. Well, I smashed up my LS last week and have an Avis rental 2006 Town Car with 6,000 miles on it. Granted, it's a rental but what a bucket of bolts in comparison to the ES350. The differences: loud engine with no go, wind noise, road noise, transmission sluggishness etc. I will not complain about "Alexis" again.

jgtile

Last year I had a 2007 Town Car rental with low miles....gee, was it sluggish, drove like a boat, the inside was all plastic and noisy....I had a hard time passing because apparantly the weight of the car doesn't allow the engine to have much power...argh!