wholeSlab

Hi,

Am at ~12k miles on my 2018 LC500h, it's been interesting. Pros are that the car looks great and, well, the noise it makes in Sport+ mode. The AV system has been surprisingly bad and Lexus seems to have no interest in fixing it. I am curious as to if others have found good workarounds for any of these areas.

Some thoughts/comments/issues:

- Backup camera with yellow line for alignment is wonderful.

- Freeway exit list appears randomly / when getting on highway and on top of turn-by-turn directions and is never wanted. No option to disable.

- Turn list ordering displayed from bottom up in bottom right hand corner instead of upper right hand corner. Maybe this is a personal preference.

- Navigation direction choices poor compared to Gen2/3/4 Lexus Navigation. I realize most people use a mobile phone for maps and all of the advantages, I prefer a larger display and integrated control in some cases.

- MP3 on USB drive current playing album covers only seem to be shown when car is in accessory mode, not when engine is on.

- MP3 on USB drive current playing song/album information only randomly displayed in HUD/instrument cluster, very inconsistent.

- MP3s on USB drive are sorted by ID3 track name frame and not by track number frame (even though the track number frame is read). I was able to work around this by writing code to prefix track number before the track name, so it's a solved problem for me (albeit with minor hassle), Lexus insisting that this is as-designed and that it will not be fixed seems rather odd ... I think anyone who works on firmware for a MP3 player would want tracks to play in their album order, dealership/customer service/etc. folks are at a loss other than insisting that nothing is going to be done about it.

- Rescanning of MP3s on USB drive occurs frequently and pre-read of next track does not occur, so if car is turned off towards the end of a song, when car is restarted it starts playing the first track from the first album on the USB drive.

- Cabin lighting is terribly dim, this can probably be improved upon through replacement of the map light LEDs.

- Radar-based cruise control is pretty nerve-wracking, all other cars I've tried this feature in do it better. Likely a result of Lexus' commitment to skipping a couple levels of autonomous driving. The lane-keep and other safety/technology functions are equally disappointing, in any case I got by driving fine without them in other cars so the best thing to do with this car is probably to enjoy being behind the wheel and driving it.

- 2019+ owners are lucky to get CarPlay/Android Auto and it doesn't look like the early adopters will get a backport (a common situation). It would be interesting to know if all of the necessary hardware is in place should Lexus want to make the firmware available, and what if anything changed from a wiring harness perspective. It may be that as parts become available for 2019+ cars that 2018 LCs could make use of the more modern electronics as a way to get CP/AA. I am sure it won't be cheap.

- 360 camera would be really nice -- I've already sat the front lip on the curb a few times and it's not pretty at all. I expected this to happen so it doesn't bother me too much, and similarly I know that being a better driver would have avoided the scrapes, in either case, would be nice if the technology was there to help prevent it.

- Brake dust as others have noted, should be fixed through TSB.

- Leather bolsters wearing too fast, but that is always a problem.

- Keycard (vs. keyfob) access would be really nice to have/add if ever possible.

Any suggestions for solutions are welcome and I hope will be of use to others. I realize lots of these problems may not ever have solutions, but as with the prefixing of track number to ID3 title tags, there may be workarounds as well.

Thank you + hope you all safely enjoying your LCs.

-Slab

dagsmcd

I have the same LC at about the same mileage. Did the TSB for the brakes and highly recommend it. The only thing I notice is that they are less sticky than the performance brakes at low speed - which is an improvement to me.

I've contemplated adding a front camera, as others have, and the following:

http://www.beatsonicusa.com/stn6297.html

wholeSlab

Thanks -- wow, you really have to dismantle no small amount of the car's interior for that installation. A good video to watch for anyone interested in the general complexity of this car. Would have been the smart thing to do before I tore up the front lip of the car. Thanks again for the link and will hopefully be getting the brake TSB done tomorrow.

Vitveet

I believe for all those "fixes", the car would cost $120k+ new. No, the car won't be worth it, but I can't see all these things being addressed by them in the next model year or 2 and keeping the price the same....guess we'll see.

V.

dagsmcd

Right - what I am weighing is whether the improvements from Beatsonic are worth the labor involved. Not that I will be doing it myself - but it just seems that with that level of surgery, something might get nicked, torn, scratched or worse.....

JONPRON

SuperGT

I've replaced all floor and boot (trunk) lights with high powered LED panels with great success. The end pins connect directly into the OEM socket (no need to use supplied adapters), ran the wire to the outside of the car's plastic trim and I simply used the supplied tape to stick them near the original light's position. $15 spent on amazon for a pack of four, problem solved.

hoonose

After making inquiries and such about the front camera, I'm instead training myself to remember to back into parking spots.

wholeSlab

Thanks for this, looks like you've identified a good part. Can you share an Amazon link to the specific one you used? As color temperature / quality / etc. vary across these parts I'd be interested in matching what you know to be good. Thanks again.

SuperGT