Two features I sincerely wish Lexus would have NOT implemented on my RX400h--

1.) the auto-re-lock feature, whereby I'll unlock the doors with my remote, knowing I'm on the way out to get in the car, and by the time I do a last check of the lights in the house, turn on the house alarm, and walk out to the car, the stupid thing has taken it on itself to re-lock the doors so I must unlock them again. What a pain! I understand this might be good if I lived in an apartment complex where my car could be a good distance away, but I don't and it's a nuisance. Took me a while to realize that the car was actually doing this itself, and I wasn't just absent-minded. Should be a way to disable this in my opinion. Conversely I discovered that if I use the remote to open the power rear door while the car is locked, it doesn't re-lock the rear hatch when I re-close it. Even more stupid!

2.) the disabling of the power rear door feature, whereby the convenience of the power door is more than offset by Lexus's safety paranoia--if the car doors are locked, the inside power door switch is inoperative--STUPID! And, as I just found out this morning it is also inoperative if the transmission is not in "Park". Honestly, Lexus designers, do you really think I'm so stupid I would reach down and press this button while I'm driving down the road? I took a friend to a cupcake sale this morning and pulled up outside the building, stopped the car and with my foot on the brake, pushed the button to open the rear door. Nothing happened and I'm thinking, what--I know I unlocked the doors, right? So I unlocked them again and by this time my friend is at the rear, pushing on the manual open button. Still nothing. Finally in desperation I shifted in "Park" and it finally opened. The guard at the entrance door was obviously amused at this wonderful Lexus feature...

 

All high end cars are the same -- just need to look around more.

 

Not so much a safety feature but what I found really really irritating was the warning display for low washer fluid.

I'd be driving down the road, use the washers to clean the window and the low washer fluid and the bright ! mark would light up. So far so good. I now know I'm low on fluid.

You would think that you could now hit the display button on the steering wheel, the message would disappear until the next time the car was started (my wife's equinox does this - things like change oil, low washer fluid etc. - one warning when the car starts, then iit's gone after you hit the display button on the steering wheel (to cycle through the different screens) - doesn't come back until the car is started again.

But no, on the 400h, the message pops up, the exclamation light comes on, I hit the display button, the message disappears and two seconds later it comes back on.....over and over and over. Very irritating when I'm on the highway and really don't want to pull over to top up. It's LOW on washer fluid, not empty, no urgency to pull over right now to refill.

 

How often do you run out of washer fluid? I've never seen the warning, but then again I keep the fluid topped off. Either keep it full, or you could carry a bottle of fluid in the car I guess.

 

as for the trunk, i myself have been dumb enough to try to drive and not realized the hatch was open. i'm educated and consider myself somewhat intelligent but any person can be in a hurry and not realize it's open. dumb feature maybe, but they didn't put it there for no reason. most things aren't. my guess is someone was driving and opened the hatch and caused trouble. instead of it ever happening again and a lawsuit follows, best to simply prevent it from ever happening.

 

Here where we get snow and slush and the municipality drops tons and tons of salt on the road at the first snowflake...I go through a fair amount of washer fluid. I do keep an extra in the car, but really don't see the need to immediately pull to the side of the road to fill up. Like I said, it's a LOW warning, not an EMPTY warning. It would be nice to acknowledge the warning and then have it disappear and I can fill up when I reach my destination.

 

Do you honestly think that any mass-produced product is specifically designed for you?

You can either change your process for leaving the house for 1, have your dealer increase the auto door relock time, or have your dealer disable the auto door relock.

 

I, too was not impress the logic behind car must be in park in order for the rear hatch to power open... but over the years, I've gotten used to it.

 

I have a 1965 GMC Pickup that has none of these annoying " safety " features. I love driving it. Buy something of this vintage and your obvious annoyance will be gone.
R Wyle

 

To me, the more annoying safety features are the lockout of power seat memory, bluetooth phone dialing, and GPS destination searching while the car is moving.

Also the rain-sensing wipers, which I disabled because they never wiped at the timing I prefer.