Is there anything to be done with the horrible turning radius? Is it just mine? My T100 turns almost half of what the RX does.

Yes I did a search.

 

Having sailing experience is helpful. You don't turn so much as tack from point to point. Parking could be more accurately described as docking and U turns are an exciting lesson in yawing.

 

Being it is how the vehicle is built and nothing can be done, Carvers humorous response is your best option

 

Turning radius has been addressed in RX330 +, I am not sure what Lexus engineers were smoking when they were test driving the RX300

 

I do sail, but I think I'll teach the misses how to use the parking brake to slide into parking spots.

 

Think of it as a feature. I've had more excitement parking in this car than any other car I've driven. I mean it's always a fun game of "will I make it into the spot?"

 

Yeah, it's a feature alright!!! A feature most of us could live without. My 2000 Toyota Tundra with 4 wheel drive has a better turning radius than my wife's RX300. Whenever I drives the wife's RX300 I am reeducated on the great feature!!!

 

I especially love this "feature" whenever going to a mall packed with shoppers during Christmas time.

My friend thinks I have random bad days with my parking skills, but they don't realize the difference between parking a civic and a RX300 is.

 

It seems strange that the RX designers/engineers which I would assumed to be Japanese and they live in such conjested spaces that they would design cars to have very small turning radiu. The engineer of RX must be somebody living a Texas.

 

Haha this is the truth. I went driving with my friend the other day (he drives a Civic coupe) and I had to make a U-Turn. He just sat there and laughed while I struggled to get the car to even make a 3-point turn.

 

Any suggestions on fixing squeaky drive belt noise on initial start up?

Belt tensioner?

 

This is a typical symptom of needing to replace the two accessory (i.e., alternator, A/C, etc.) drive belts (not the timing belt). The fix is replacment of the belts with OEM (Lexus or Toyota) belts.

 

The RX300 was the first gen of the RX, after the rollover tests, the cheapest way to increase safety points is to increase the turning radius. Some SUVs even reduced the ground clearance for other safety issues. For us RX300 owners, it is simply bad with high turning radius, but for the manufacturer, it is a big chunk of saving money to have the car meet the deadline for the market sales.

 

Same here.
Every time I have to make a u-turn, I have to look for at least 4 lanes clearance and then my friend looked at me and say "Do you know how to do u-turn!?"

I felt like if there was a switch to turn the AWD into RWD momentarily, I'd press that button and swing the back around and shut him up.

 

Quite honestly, the turning radius is not too bad once you get used to it. I've never once had an issue with making k-turns or u-turns.