ejm3

I'm a little late to this thread but honestly I'm reasonably impressed with my RX's snow performance.
I came froma Jeep Wrangler as one of my cars and I didin;t expect that kind of performance in the snow but overall it gets me where I need to go with little drama.
I don't live in Syracuse or Buffalo or places where the regularlu get a ton of snow but here in CT its just fine.

eightblack

I agree re the capabilities of the RX. I put Blizzak winter tires on it in November and man, the thing sticks like sh#t to a blanket. Better than my 2014 4X4 Tundra with its Michelin All Terrain tires...for general driving. Taking it off road maybe another matter entirely. I too live in Colorado and we've had a decent winter. Once you've put winter tires on ANY car, you will transform its performance and character entirely.

RXGS

iTrader: (2)

Used to have a LX470 now have a RX350 with Dunlop snow tires, i forget which exactly but very aggressive tread and i drive all western New York, Ontario, and am in ski country every weekend and have found the RX more than capable. Unless i went out looking to get stuck, there has never been a situation where i thought i needed the LX over the RX. That being said tires make a huge difference, my rwd GS300 is much more capable than many FWD and even some AWD cars with crappy tires. Buffalo NY has been getting hit pretty hard with snow and I have yet to get stuck or been unable to get out of a situation.

kurleedadd

So I read this thread before I went snowboarding last weekend. I wanted to see why my RX had for the snow and ice covered roads of the Sierra's.

Completely impressed with my RX. Not once did I use Snow Mode or lock the rear diff. And not once did it get out of shape or fishtail. Not sure what some people were referring to on this thread about their RX's not being capable. This is also coming from a previous WRX and Tundra 4x4 owner.

Only thing the RX could use is a transmission that downshifts by itself on inclines so the driver doesn't have to tap the brakes at all. I miss that from my Tundra. Other than that, very happy with my RX in the snow. Here' s a video. Listen on mute. We were having too much fun on the way home.

satnav

I started this thread 2 years ago. I still have this car. Can't wait till 2020 to get a new one (I keep them for 10 years) the car will probably still operate fine (knock on wood), but its just gets too out of date tech wise.

BUT anywise. Yeah I think the biggest inhibitor for the RX is the ground clearance when trying to climb in or out of driveway from a main road that has been plowed. I think the front over hang acts like a plow, but once the front has squashed the snow it powers threw. I bet if it had better ground clearance this would not be a problem it would be unstoppable in the city (relatively- other cars in its class)

LexusCO

I just wanted to add my experience as well:

I live in Colorado, and have owned my 2008 RX350 for 2 years now. Last weekend, we received 15'' of fresh, champagne powder. After shoveling all that snow, I was observing other cars in the neighborhood "joy" riding in and out of the snowy streets. However, ALL of them were avoiding the very deep drifts where snow was piled over 3-4 feet high.

I said, screw that, lets see what my Lexus can do!!! I grabbed the keys, went for a quick lap, and devised a strategy to start w/ the smaller snow drifts and work from there.

Pass 1: Fresh, untouched snow around 16'' high............No problem at all, no traction issues, barely could even notice a difference between the snow and driving in normal, dry conditions.

Pass 2: Larger, but moderate sized snow banks, around 24'' deep.........Again, not an issue. The Lexus plowed through the drift, and then felt like she was riding on top of the deeper snow. But zero traction issues, the feel and grip are simply amazing.

Pass 3: The deepest, gnarliest snow drifts i could find, 36-44'' deep........Same exact thing. The lexus needed a little momentum to make the initial blast through the snow pile, but once the vehicle was into the deep snow, it continued to plow w/ zero noticeable differences. Again, it just felt like the vehicle raised up on top of the snow and proceeded very easily after that.

Experiment complete! The luxury SUV and an aggressive driver supersedes the oversized Dodge Rams, Jeep Cherokee's, and Tundras in my neighborhood.

One important note: I did manage to have some ice/snow build up on the rims. This needs to be removed (either car wash or by hand) to prevent shimmy/vibration at higher speeds.

hovbuild

Rain freezes to the road surface then switches to snow . Heavy traffic makes the underlying ice get even slipperier. Get about 4 inches on top my Lexus is a sliding time bomb. New England road surfaces can get mighty bad for any vehicle. I owned at one time a fleet of sanders and plow trucks. Also quite a few pickup grocery getters with limited slip rear ends and 4x4. My awd lexus is a POS when the conditions get just right but so do all the other awd. The drive train is not the issue in winter conditions it is the tires you roll on. Winter tires make a HUGE difference even better on a FWD with snows as to an awd with 4 season tires.

carguy75

The Lexus RX need snow tires to handle at its best on snow/ice covered roads.

The stability control system(ETC) also need to be turn off when driving on ice covered roads with the RX because Lexus uses a very aggressive ETC programming that cuts the power to the wheels spinning which make it hard to pull slippery slopes.

I would put the RX350 in AWD lock mode and switch off the ETC if you need to pull up any slippery hills or driveways.

However, dedicated snow tires or even better rated all-season tires will give better snow/ice performance since I read that the stock tires(Bridgestone Dueler tires in particular) are "decent" for snow at best.

Joeb427

iTrader: (1)

It comes down to the tires...

monkeyRX

Agreed. Tires are more important.

vlad_a

Snow tires are a no-brainier, no matter what platform. That's why in some European countries they are mandatory.
Now just imagine what they do to a dedicated AWD platform, say one from Audi Quattro or Subaru Symmetrical AWD.

Our RX doesn't hold a candle to the Subaru WRX STi I had or the Audi S4 I have now, all on the same Michelin XIce XI2/3 tires. But, that's the nature of the (FWD-AWD) beast, so no surprises there.

fre3way3

I've never used snow tires but I heard AWD on the RX 350 isn't as good as xdrive or sh-awd

vlad_a

Honda's SH-AWD is still FWD-based, just has more bells and whistles. I did a back-to-back test drives of Acura TL SH-AWD and a Lexus IS350 AWD.
TL was alright, even fun times. Then came the IS350.
I was blown away how much better it was. Can't bend the laws of physics - RWD bias and better weight distribution.
I can't fully attest to the xDrive. Same as IS350, it is RWD-biased. However, I haven't really taken it through its paces, especially in the slick conditions. Granted, it's worlds better than the RX AWD, which is your basic AWD setup.

carguy75

What did you hear about the performance of the BMW/Acura AWD system that made it better than the Lexus AWD system?

vlad_a

I would word this question differently. What makes Lexus RX AWD better than the most basic mechanical part-time AWD setup? There is one thing I can think of to start it off - Electronically Controlled Center Differential. Anyone else?