Hey Guys,

Will be looking to upgrade wife's 3rd gen RX-350 in the next couple of years. Was thinking about getting another RX-350 when it occurred to me to take a look at the hybrid given that crappy city fuel economy is the only thing that is not great about the RX.

We own cars for a long time, current RX is 2010 and it still has plenty of life in it. Never owned a hybrid. Just wondering how would long term reliability compare to a non hybrid RX. Also, how about total cost of ownership, in terms of repairs and such.

Finally, is it worth?

 

Mine is over 10 yrs old now, 130,000miles. Other that having the water pump replaced under warranty, which is the same component on an RX-350, the only thing I've done other than fluid and filter changes is back shocks and 1 brake job. Regular maintenance is about the same as RX-350, or maybe a little less as the brakes last longer. If you read thru these forums history, you'll find the usual collection of individual issues which I think are spread fairly evenly between 350 and 450h, so far reliability seems comparable. If, and key word being IF, you have a major powertrain failure it's very likely to be more expensive to fix on the hybrid.

Is it worth it can be a technical analysis or a subjective one. If the decision is solely about economics, if you do a lot of city driving in relatively flat areas the 450h can easily be twice as efficient as a 350. If it's more highway, or lots of hills, then the benefits can dwindle to almost 0. If its a once a week trip to the grocery store, even with an increase in efficiency it might be hard to come out on top. Then add the personal factor, is the wife going to try to pass everyone and try to be first to the next red light, or will be happy to cruise along. The subjective side, the 450h drives somewhat differently, lower center of gravity, no gear shifting, different kinds of sounds sometimes. These can delight, or annoy, as an individual perception.

 

Our 450h is only a few years old so I can’t really comment on actual long term reliability based on experience but I would basically expect what we experienced with our 400h which was very reliable. The issues it had were not specific to being a hybrid — stuff like the power steering rack, headlights & rear hatch switch.

Worth is always highly subjective no matter what the topic. Asking 450h owners if it is worth it won’t necessarily tell if you if it’s worth it to you. I mean, if we didn’t think it was worth it we wouldn’t have purchased it in the first place. For us, mileage was a consideration but the bigger factors were acceleration and rise characteristics. The hybrid RX’s are by no means sports cars but they do accelerate faster and with less noise than their non-hybrid counterparts. Our 450h was recently in for maintenance and while the 4RX 350 service loaner was nice we were ready to get our 3RX 450h back.

Is mileage your only concern? I mean, you can do the math to see what sort of MPG you need to get versus the price premium you’d likely pay for a hybrid to help you on that item and figure out where you’d save money due to MPG.

 

Appreciate the feedback.

By worth it, I'm referring to total cost of ownership and overall satisfaction being either better or comparable to RX-350, but not worse.

Our current RX is being driven primarily in the city and my wife not being much of a "car person" is largely concerned with reliability, durability and good city MPG. Performance would not be a factor at all and given that we tend to own cars for 5-10 years, my chief concern would over high cost of repairs for hybrid components in addition to increased complexity of said components which would limit service options to dealer only. On a related note, currently I have no idea if hybrid components tend to fail more frequently. Although, anecdotal data seems to indicated that thats not the case.

Honestly, I did not even consider or had been aware of improved performance vs RX-350. I'm sure my wife wont even notice, but its certainly a welcome bonus as far as I'm concerned.

 

I've had a 2010 450h for about 3 years now, just passing 100K miles.

Great car, excellent city mileage, but the best features are not the fuel mileage. I love the turbine-like shiftless driving and the utter quiet at intersections,since the computer turns the engine off until it's needed, then--1/4 second later--the engine is quietly running again, thanks to the "starter" motor built-in to the system and powered by a jolt of 600v from the traction battery. A/C and power steering are electrical, so no need to have the engine idle to keep cool on hot days.

The car will probably get a bit better mileage on the highway, too, since it uses an Atkinson-cycle engine, a bit different from the conventional Otto-cycle engine.

As for mileage, I get about 29 city and high-20's highway.

Add in legendary reliability and I think you will love the car.

 

I previously mentioned ride quality (misspelled as rise) but meant not just the ride itself but the quietness compared to the conventional RX as well which the prior reply did a better job of covering. Those were a big part of why we are happy to return service loners. The 350’s are just noisier and don’t ride as smoothly (though they’re not bad) — in addition to being more sluggish and having somewhat lower fuel economy numbers.

As for performance, electric motors have torque immediately available where gas engines have to spin up for it. This helps the hybrid in starting from a stop, passing, etc. Granted, driving with a lead foot can kill fuel ever omg even with a hybrid but I’m still able to get 24-26 city. By comparison, I think I get 19 at best in a 350 but it has been a while since I have actually checked with a service loaner. Don’t do much highway but it’s about the same, maybe a little better.

 

Great point!

RX-350's don't have best ride quality nor sound insulation. For a while, I thought it was the Pirelli Scorpions that I put on shortly after we bought ours as a CPO, but having driven several brand new loaners over the past 5 years, I realized that they are all like that. The 2010's seem to be especially noisy and bumpy. I was looking forward to addressing some of that with a tire swap that I need to do anyway in about a year or so. Will likely go with Michelin Defender LTX tires.

 

I got picked up in Uber Select in SF this weekend in an RX350. Definitely worse ride characteristic than 450h.

I think all cars should just be hybrid (it's happening now with Mercedes and other European cars with their 48 volt mild hybrid systems.)

My brake pads wear less, the 12 volt battery lasts something like 100K miles plus. I have less number of components that depend on the accessory belt (I got close but I think water pump still works off the accessory belt). I have the rear wheels giving me traction even when there is no central tunnel and center diff - though the traction enhancement is questionable. The engine runs less time (less wear on the engine). Also the center of gravity is lower (much appreciated on an SUV). I guess the disadvantage is that the battery could wear out. But I think we don't need to worry about that until you get to about 250K miles at which point, I may either replace it with an aftermarket battery (cost is getting cheaper - aprox. $2000 today) or just sell the car. Or simply just drive around like a mild AWD car around town as an extra car... I think, by that time, there should be much better technology in cars.

BTW. I have 60% brake pads left and I have about 91K miles on the odo.

 

just so you can laugh, at the Mercedes forum, which I frequent, today, here are the topics people are commenting on:

"sun roof stuck open"
"changing flex disk at 80K miles"
"brake booster assembly failed at 36K miles"
"drive shaft center support, what is the part number"
"parking brake stuck"
"broken center jack pad"
"start/stop not working"
"camber issues on 20" wheels"
"key fob battery life issues"
"parktronic malfunction"

all just from the first page of the forum........

 

Nice! Let me save this list for next time the subject of MB or BMW comes up in conversation with the wife.

 

I'm curious do you live in California or New York? The reason I'm asking is I'm wondering if there's something wrong with mine if you're getting such good mileage I'm only getting 20 mpg average completely stock