Greetings everyone! Let me start by thanking all active members in this forum for all the good information that they provide; this forum was very helpful to allow me to understand a number of questions about the ES 350 prior to buying it. All in all I am rather pleased with my new vehicle. It is clear that a lot of thought has gone into the design of the ES 350, and it is certainly the nicest car my wife and I ever had. Having said that, and in the expectation that Lexus lurks in these forums seeking information on how to make their vehicles even better, there are few points where I think improvements are warranted:

1) Although I am hesitant to even bring this matter up given how much controversy it seems to have raised before, I share the opinion of others that the fading function of the audio system (I have the standard Pioneer system) is peculiar. To be clear, I was aware of the way this system worked before I even test drove the car and did not find it to be a deal breaker, but it still seems to me that the system is overly front-biased for what my ears are used. Just my viewpoint - I knew what I was buying and do not wish to discuss this any further. Just giving Lexus the opportunity to know that this design is not necessarily appreciated by everyone.

2) It is the only car that my wife and I have and thus we use it on a daily basis to commute to work and also for recreational travel. Unfortunately, the console seems to have been designed on the assumption that only the driver is present in the car and limits access to a number of functions/options once the car starts moving. Notably, it limits how you can interact with music media in a USB stick. I can appreciate that Lexus is intending to limit potential liabilities that could arise from distracted drivers, but upon detecting that a second person is riding the car in the passenger seat (it already does it to activate the passenger airbag and concierge, for example) it does not make sense that the system still denies access to the detailed list of musics (or the album art for that matter). An option could be given to acknowledge that it is the passenger and not the driver who is using the console. It seems that the expectation is that the interaction with the console should be done mainly through voice commands once the car is moving. This brings us two problems: good luck remembering all the songs available in that 64Gb stick and, in our case, our foreign accent leads to system responses that are sometimes frustrating, other times hilarious, but certainly aggravating.

3) As well-described before, the console has a lot of trouble handling appropriately the order of the music media within each album unless one goes through hoops and loops to arrange it in a rather specific way in the USB stick. I am still working on following the instructions kindly provided in this forum (https://www.clublexus.com/forums/es-...ack-order.html) and hopefully they will work. However, it strikes me as something that Lexus should already have addressed in the vehicle firmware given how long ago the problem has been identified.

And that is is, for now

GGC