greglongo

I have a 2004 Rx-330 basic all-wheel drive, with the most recent transmission upgrade on the ridiculous gated shift pattern, this transmission has a far too great R.P.M. spread between 1st. & 2nd. gear and to make things worse it will shift into 2nd. gear whilst in the middle of a soft turn from a dead stop, thus making it impossible to accelerate and at normal traffic merging speed without dumping it back into 1 st. gear, which does so with an enormous surge of power; which is usually too much power all at once rather than an normal agressive merge action while still in 1 st. gear. It will also while under moderate to agressive acceleration and with just the driver on-board exercise a fuel cut in the so called torque range of 3000-4500 R.P.M. well below red-line. It still stumbles when shifting on rare occassions despite re-programming. I have been informed by the dealer that this is the way it is and that nobody else seems to mind. In addition the so called all weather Michlins that this all wheel vehicle came equipped with are extremely noisy and probably one of the most dangerous slippery tires on snow etc. that I have ever driver on. I am 57 years of age, currently own a highly modified 1994 Supra (stick), 1995 Jeep Grand Cherokee (4 speed auto) & a 1997 Ford Aerostar (5 speed auto) and have owned many autos from a 1932 Ford Duce Coupe to a 1982 Porsche 911. I am completely dumfounded that I am the only so called person who takes this vehicle's obviously very dangerous driving traits seriously. I can live with the overly hard to the touch steering wheel, ulta quiet turn signals, rear floor mats that don't transverse the drive shaft hump, single CD audio system, non wiping rear wiper, noisy Michlin, obviously Neanderthal Michlin summer tires, but not the abusive self destructing transmission. If you are aware of a performance chip upgrade that adresses the transmission problem or at your wits end with the same dilemma, please write and lets see if we can motivate Lexus into thinking that we North Americans aren't brain dead after 40 and yes we really still know how to drive.