deilenberg

Bought a CPO 2011 RX-350 today. It replaces a 2003 BMW 525iT (Touring/aka-wagon). The BMW is getting a bit long in the tooth, and at 107,000 miles and 10 years has gotten to the monthly repair stage, to the tune of.. well, being BMW - not cheap.

I have LOTS of BMW history and still own a few (an '01 M-Coupe that rarely leaves the garage, 1 of 600 made, and a 2007 R1200R - motorcycle - that gets more miles then my cars do in total.) The daily driver is a Porsche Cayenne, and the RX is for SWMBO (She Who Must Be Obeyed - Rumpole of the Bailey.) The Touring had been her car for the past 7 years or so while I was distracted with other BMW M cars.

Since we're getting up there, and our next vehicles are likely to be a powered wheelchair, figured we'd get something decent and.. reliable.

Turns out there are a scad of 2010 RX's showing up at NJ dealerships. 3 year leases are coming due, so lots of them with around 30-37k miles on them, ranging in price from $30k to $40k depending on the options.

SWMBO's requirements were fairly simple: AWD, navigation, light interior and no black or dark exteriors. Turns out Navi isn't a given on these trucks - I'm guessing the cost factor made it less popular then it was on the Porsche (where it's hard to find one without it.) It probably really doesn't make sense, since it will eventually have an obsolete interface, and someday maps won't be available (or be really silly prices - the case already on the Porsche), and it will be outperformed by something for $100 from Garmin, but she wanted it, so she gets it.

Found a few at our local Ray Catena dealerships (an old NJ family name.. my wife knew his sister in grammar school.) Found a salesman I liked at his Freehold store (and they had the best selection of ones with NAVI), new guy to the store, but not new to the business. VERY low key, didn't bug me, kept appointments, made for a nice experience (if you want his name PM me.) This sale would be his first sale at Lexus, so he went the extra distance to help make it happen.

There were three CPO'd RX's in acceptable color schemes that had navi available. I'd driven two of them last week, and while they seemed very competent, they didn't seem very exciting. I guess coming from a BMW/bike/Porsche background this might be expected, but the suspension on both of them felt very soft, the seats somewhat flat and hard, and the power - just adequate, nothing to write home about. The same day I drove a 2010 CPO X3 at the BMW dealer across the street, and it did everything in a BMW way. It handled, rode very competently, seats were comfortable and it got up and went (300HP in-line 6.)

Still - given the difference in reliability, I thought it was worth having SWMBO make the decision. So - today we headed over to the Lexus dealer, planning on going to the BMW dealer if we didn't find something she liked at Lexus (I knew - despite the lesser reliability, she'd like how the X3 drove, it was just like her wagon, but faster.)

She decided she didn't like the silver one - because it was silver with a gray interior. Boring she said. OK - there is a white with tan - lets take that for a ride. Our salesman, having no other prospects for the day seemed perfectly happy to have us take as long as we wanted test driving the trucks. I got it off Rt-9 (think a traffic nightmare moving from light to light at 70MPH..) and she took the wheel and wandered around the back roads giving it a try.

I could tell she wasn't excited at all. I can't say I was either. Lots of nice stuff about the truck (low miles - 24,000, all the options) but it just didn't seem like something we'd like long term. But - figuring it's worth seeing where the price would come in, we did the usual dickering back and forth to the point the sales manager was seated across from us. Nice young chap, never even asked "Whadda I gotta do.." - he mentioned he might find one of the other trucks was bought cheaper by the dealership and he could make a better price. We said OK - figuring it can't hurt.

He came back and said "How about the red one?".. well, we had discounted the red one because the price on the windshield was rather high, and it was a 2011. It has 35,000 miles on it, but looked absolutely like a new truck. No sign of wear at all. New rubber all round, new brakes, new floor mats - looked brand new.

Figured we might as well take it for a ride.

I'm really glad we did. It was night and day different from the other two. It sorta pinned me back in the seat (surprising me) pulling out of the parking space in the lot. The accelerator DID something - nicely. Got out on the highway and WHEEE! This puppy moves. Got on the back roads, and - it HANDLED. Nicely. Not quite BMW, but damn near as good as the 5,000 pound behemoth Porsche. SWMBO looked over at me and said "This ones different isn't it?" I said "Yeah.. it's red.."

We swapped places on the back roads and spent the next half hour with her grinning while wheeling it around the 2 lane roads of Manalapan NJ. We finally went back to the dealership, and walking in - looked at each other. Said the same thing to each other "This one right?"

And it was. The price came up right, The truck seemed really fun to drive, and we both loved the color. Seems every housefrau drives a white RX (including our neighbor), but don't see a lot of them in candy-apple colored red.

We're picking it up tomorrow

Figure you'll hear more from me. I'm sure I'll have questions, ideas, opinions, but it looks like it will be a fun thing to drive. Gotta start planning our next NJ to the west-coast trip I guess (doing it on the bike this summer, maybe do it again in the fall with the RX) to visit my son and his wife in LA. The BMW did it a few years back, the Porsche 2 years ago, I think it's time for another little drive, and I think this one should be fun.

BTW - I don't know the lady in the dash's name. She might be Canadian since it was built there, or could she be Japanese. Helga lives in the dash of the Porsche (very authoritative), and Doofus (always somewhat tenuous on directions) on the GPS on my bike.. but I'd love to be introduced to the lady in the Lexus dash - at least on a first name basis. Anyone know her name?

And really do wonder why three Lexi of the same specification, about the same miles feel SO different... any ideas?

BTW - if the former owner of this one is on this forum (you bought and serviced it at Ray Catena of Oakhurst) - thanks a bunch. I saw the service records.. 3,000 mile oil changes at the dealer just like clockwork. I don't think I'll do them quite that frequently, but you sure took care of a leased car way beyond what most people do.

Don Eilenberger, Spring Lake NJ

kitlz

Great story, Don. Congrats and welcome to CL. The Lexus badge was removed from the tail gate on the '11. No doubt that makes the RX faster Enjoy your new red toy.

watch37

Great write up! Congrats on the new ride. I'm thinkin' the red color with new tires made it faster. We used to own a white one, which made SWMBO feel like a dainty princess (her words, not mine, but I concurred).

StillLine

Congrats on the new ride! Yes, the red ones are the fastest and I'm pretty sure the chrome wheels add another 20 horsepower.

deilenberg

Thanks for the kind words..

I've been putting myself into nap mode the past few days wading through the Nav manual and the owners manual. It's hard to believe they could make more complex manuals..

Haven't stuck the Quick Tips DVD in yet - have to try that soon and see if that makes things easier.

So far - Questions:

1 - No radio station selection buttons... having to use the nav interface is a bit distracting.

2 - Sirus interface seems a bit primitive. No way I can find to just get a listing of all the stations available (guess I gotta visit the website to find them.) And when I try to change genre - it seems to take two clicks of the mousy thing to change. Probably doing something wrong, but I'll figure it out sooner or later.

3 - Stuck in an MP3 memory stick with about 3,000 tracks on it (basically what I have on my iPods), and so far the 2nd album comes up with the album name, but no tracks showing in the album. The same stick plays OK on my Porsche and PCs and IP radio. Have to figure out what's up with that (it's an Enya album so it's not a big loss.) Other albums seem to work fine (I have the stick setup as Album-name, track with each album in it's own directory (folder). Anyone know if the system builds an index for itself on the USB device (my Porsche interface does this.. takes a bit of time, but then access/searches are very fast.)

4. How does one cancel navigation? Say if you decide to stop using a route? There is nothing obvious, and this is going to embarrass me since I gave a friend a load of.. for the iDrive interface in his BMW having no obvious way to cancel.

5. See that there are 3 FM pages - but no FM-Autostore that I could find (where the radio scans the entire band and saves the XX most powerful stations it gets.) This is super useful on cross-country trips to quickly store local stations as you drive along. BMW has had it for decades, Porsche for about a decade. Is there something I missed while nodding off reading the manual? The other cars offer it on both AM and FM.

6. When in an audio mode with multiple pages (like FM mode or AM or Sirius) - does one have to use the mousey thing to switch from page to page? Pressing the buttons for the mode doesn't seem to do the page to page switch, it just switches mode. I think.

Truck has an odd combo of accessories. Has all the interior stuff I'm reading about (heated/cooled seats, easy-access, auto-wipers, auto-headlights, etc. etc.) and has HID's - but it does not seem to have power folding mirrors. That's a useful thing when it's heading into a carwash or parked in the city. Odd that it isn't included in whatever packages I seem to have (or odd that it just wasn't standard.)

Have to give a big hats-off to the dealer (DeSimone in Freehold NJ) for CPO prep. There are no signs at all that the truck was ever used. And they installed everything that would have come with it new (like the cables for the console inputs at the bottom of the center bin. New floor mats, new rear-cargo webby thing, new manuals, etc.. I even talked them into a NAV map update (12.1 is now installed.) And they got me 90 days of Sirius free. If one was looking at it in a dealership and didn't know Lexus changed the grill/rear-lights, it would be about impossible to tell that it was a used car.

Also a thumbs up to my salesman (Anthony Bruno) - this was his very first car sale at DeSimone, and he's quite new to the field. He used to be an investment manager, but I think he's found a great 2nd career in selling quality cars. He's a car-guy, has photos of all the cars he's owned on his cell phone I'd do that too - but my cell phone doesn't have enough memory. Car guys usually understand car guys, so we meshed well.

Best regards,
Don Eilenberger (who doesn't have a sig yet..)
'11 Blazing Ruby Red (made that up) '11 RX-350, NJ Shore area.