Ripmaster

This is our third RX (2011) - and will most likely be our last.

The whole display interface is so behind the competition it is embarrassing for Lexus, in my opinion (we have th full navi package, etc)

The satellite character limitation is just the tip of the iceberg - and I agree with BCRCornet - Lexus poorly engineered this entire facet of the vehicle. Have you ever tried to browse for a new station on XM? First you have to know the genre (i.e. pop, rock, talk, family, etc) then you need to scan through all of the stations in that segment to find it...don't get me started.

Another annoyance: So while I'm driving, you're going to restrict my access to my contact list (from displaying) but let me scroll through my recent numbers list? Really?

Oh, and how about making us Lexus customers pay for navigation traffic...? Thanks Lexus.
Urg...

Cruiter

1st welcome to the C/L forum.

RE: your unhappiness with the 'setup' which in reality is the best Lexus has had as of the date your car was manufactured. Many manufacturer's offer something a little different but while you might like something better on another car, other things will not be as updated or have the same overall quality as your Lexus. I'm trying now to point out the RX has been the best selling model for Lexus since the RX was introduced. Lexus again is at the top of the charts in reliability, customer satisfaction, and resale. And the law of sales numbers pretty much say's it's the best in it's category.

RE: the number of characters in the display I think it's enough. Wasn't long ago all you could see was the frequency you were tuned to. Now we have enough characters to figure out who and what and people want more. I don't get it.

Now this is just my opinion and we all have one, but the other items you mention are things that start to become more distracting to the driver than necessary to use. A very high percentage of statistics now are caused by drivers distracted from 'DRIVING' by; hand held cell phones to fiddling with NAV systems, to 'searching' for new stations. I suspect this might start a debate, but it's my opinion and I'm concerned about it. But I'm also grateful for what we do have. Occasionally I check the internet at home to see what XM/Sirius has added or changed and print out a new sheet.

And I'm a fan of adding an address while driving through the 'audible' system. It works just fine for me. Lots easier than manually entering it. But that's just me.

MNP

I agree this is way down on the list of life's problems, but you would think for $40+k you would get the full name of a song on the XM display.

Worse than this, to me, is the mediocre quality of the audio system (on the basic model). And the AM sound quality is exceptionally bad--much worse than any AM car radio I have had since 1963.

TomT127

I'm inclined to agree. The JBL system we had in our RAV4 we traded in for the RX was better. Of course it needed to be since we had to turn it way up to drown out the road noise.

TexasRxh

Regarding the XM display the RADIO screen and the Navi rIght-side screen both limit the number of characters displayed. Supposedly if you go to the RADIO screen (via the hard button) and click TEXT you see the full sing title and artist name, up to 64 characters. What I see on that screen most of the time is - - - - -; in otherwords, nothing. Sometimes it shows the full song title, occasionally it also shows the artist but it rarely shows both. Now, the information seems to be there because the truncated display is showing it. I've asked my dealer Tech Rep (who is usually very knowledgeable) and he says it's because the Sat station is not sending the data to the vehicle. Um, it got the data and truncated it for the other display! This TEXT display also seems to update periodically (maybe every 15 secs?) because there is a noticable flicker and sometimes data will show up. Perhaps the system is only pulling an updated value every 15 secs?

At any rate, it is annoying; especially when this function works just fine on a Ford Escape or Infiniti G37. I would really appreciate anyone who has solved this problem letting me know. Thanks!

TexasRxh

I got to play around with the radio and settings for a while on my 2013 Rx450h while on a recent trip. I believe I've figured out how the 2 XM Name/Title displays work. Here's what appears to be the case, although there may be other scenarios that cause the same results.

So there are 2 displays. First there is the short text display which you see on the RADIO screen and the same display in the right side of the NAV map screen. As far as I can tell they both behave identically. Then there is the long text display. You get to this screen from the RADIO screen by clicking TEXT. There are only 2 items on this screen - NAME and TITLE. The short text displays show only 15 characters whereas the long text display shows [maybe] 80 characters or so.

Here's the tricky part and it functions differently in the 2013 than in previous MYs: the long text fields streamed by XM are blank if the entire name/title fits in 15 characters. If it is longer then the long text field is populated. The way the 2013 system works is that when you select the TEXT display it shows you what's in the long text fields. But if the song name and song title are both less than 16 characters it displays ----. I'm guessing the guy who programmed this display didn't think of showing the short text field value if the long text field is blank, which is how the previous MYs work.

I've documented this in a series of photos and sent it to the Tech Specialist in the dealer service department. She apparently has contacts that the new car tech specialist doesn't have.

m1964

I fully agree w/ above point about distractions...Depending on traffic, I sometimes have to pull over to be able to discuss something over the phone -even w/ BT I cannot focus fully on both driving and the phone (depending on what about/whom I am talking to)