I'm so glad I met you, now I know at least 2 people who like remote touch!

 

But do the other dealerships have you anything to offer you service wise? Maybe that isn't important to you, but it was me. If you have a problem, how confident are you that it will be handled without causing you inconvenience or frustration?

 

I too like the remote touch fine. I don’t care for touchscreens in a moving car and I hate fingerprints.

Lexus isn’t the only company that has good customer service lol. I know lots of people with other luxury cars and they are very satisfied with the service they receive. Lexus service varies from dealer to dealer too.

in any event, I’m not going to base the car I choose to drive every day on the dealership that might see it a couple times a year.

 

right but rx buyers ARE old and don't care if features aren't the latest and greatest. GS, esp. GSF would be more, uh, current.

 

I know Lexus isn't the only company good at customer service. I worked in Customer Service for a Fortune 50 company who was known as one of the best, so I think I know good customer service. Well, good luck to you! I hope you have a much better experience than me!

 

i thought lexus don't have problems so thus service isn't important.

 

Im not saying features and infotainment aren’t driving customers away, I’m saying the controller itself isn’t the issue.

 

Oh how I wish that were true! I just want perfection...is that so hard? . But I guess they would have to change from "The Relentless Pursuit of Perfection" to "Perfection, here it is".

 

Whether or not a journalist is loaned press cars also depends on how many followers they have & their relationship with the PR department of the lender.

 

OK, after hearing lots of btchng and whining about the remote touch, I decided to make a layout from my '16 NXt.
I also had the prior mouse pad system ('14 GS) and no issues with that system either. I don't know why people are blowing this way out of proportion.
I think 1 stupid journalist got handed a new lexus and couldn't figure it out within 15 min, just started bashing on it, and the other lemming journalists just follow along.


Hard buttons for some of the features mentioned are labeled, no need to use the remote touch.

I set up my Home screen (Home button circled below) where it splits into 3 screens: radio on top, vehicle data
(I use vehicle's mpg), and navi screen on the right.

I hardly ever use the remote touch area, except if I wanted to input the data for navigation, but then, I use my phone mostly.
I use the steering wheel control to change to a different audio source.

Unless the newest system is lacking these layout, then I have no other input.

 

Some of the higher trim level Lexus models lack a 1. No AC on/off button. So you have to remote touch your way to the A/C button if you like to use the manual mode. Your NX has an easy to press A/C button, the LS flagship does not. 2. The heated seat buttons in the top end LC or LS are again, a remote touch affair. You have to use the remote touch to press the desired heated seat level. What is even more bizarre is that there is a "seat" short cut button for the heated seats, but all that pressing just brings up the heated seat menu for remote touch. (really dumb) A two step affair to warm or cool your rear end.

All I can say is that when I saw my 78 year old father get frustrated with the remote touch and then trade it in. I then started to notice has terrible remote touch can be for some individuals. For him, he has had cars that have had a dedicated A/C buttons for how many decades? Then Lexus does this dumb deletion thing. You notice the lack of radio presents that are easily adjusted with a single press of the a button or touchscreen (new Avalon). These presets have been around forever. They have no trouble changing radio presents in their 15 4Runner, but hate their Lexus.

If you drive the Land Cruiser, despite having the exact same software as Lexus, you don't have these critiques as the touchscreen is easily manipulated for the digital A/C button or the digital pre-sets among other things.

 

Remote touch is better than touch screen alone, especially when touch screen is paired with a cheap, incoherent system. However, remote touch is a hopeless clusterpluck compared to the iDrive system in BMW, and to make matters worse, the organization of the screen/button layout is a mess.

It is a problem with all quasi premium Japanese brands - Acura, Infiniti and Lexus. They all have terrible infotainment system, and refuse to just copy the Germans. MB and Audi more or less copied BMW, and from what I've seen the Koreans did as well.

 

In principle, I agree that it's a somewhat odd choice to put the seat heat/ventilation controls buried in a menu. My in-law's Durango has heated seats controlled by the touchscreen and I hate that. But in practical use, at least for me, it wouldn't be a big deal. Like the LS, my GS has the automatic function for seat heat/ventilation. I turned on the auto mode nearly a year ago when I bought it and haven't touched the buttons since. I wouldn't care if it were in a menu on my GS. Same with the AC button - couldn't care less. My IS had the button and I never touched it once. When it comes to these functions in a car, I am a true "set it and forget it" user, though I could see how it would be frustrating for those who want to do all of the manipulations themselves.

I consider the ability to have all of these functions on auto part of the luxury vehicle ownership experience so it works for me, but clearly not everybody.

 

I agree. I don't like that in my Durango the heated/ventilated seats and steering wheel controls are buried in a menu. It's a pain in the butt and the on screen buttons are rather small that it is annoying. On my BMW, and all of my previous Lexus', they were hard buttons which makes things so much easier.

As for the A/C button, that doesn't bother me as much as the sync button for multi-zone climate control being buried in a menu vs. a hard button. Both my Durango and BMW have it in a menu and it would be much easier if it was a hard button that I could just push. I believe in my previous Lexus' it was a hard button.

 

Perhaps the best of all worlds is to follow the PC laptop model. You want to reach out and touch the screen? Fine. You want to just slide your thumb or a finger on a little pad? No problem. Or maybe keep your fingers on the qwerty keyboard and just move around by means of a little nub, right there on the keyboard? Great. All are variations on function selection, each is best under certain conditions.

My RX has the little joystick, and once I got the hang of it, thought it was great. I've never used a touchscreen on a dashboard but imagine it would have two very big issues, first being bumps in the road making selection tough, and second being the need to watch your finger as it interacts on the screen, taking focus away from the road. With the joystick, my hand falls naturally to the device and I only need to glance at the screen, which is conveniently set back in the dash so minimal focus change is needed (the same reason the speedo and tach are set so deep in my '69 Vette's dash).