Don't have to heat the steering wheel but the FAKE wood look does feel cold and hard. When holding it for 10 hours on a long trip it doesn't feel pleasant like a luxury steering wheel should. It may look semi expensive but it feels like crap.

 

Someone told me I think it may have been here that the Wood and Leather in the Lexus RX is real; Is it? The leather feels real, but the wood I am not sure about

ps. Leather in some other cars are fake for sure C class synthetic leather except for the steering wheel and shift ****. E Class synthetic leather with genuine leather inserts. Both are perforated. The wood is real in both cars as one of them is cracking. For the Toyota cars no idea, the wood when taped sounds plastic and I believe it is and if the leather is real it probably of a poor grade, because Mercedes synthetic feels softer, but the fake because the grain looks to perfect.


TIP OF THE DAY: How to tell if you have real leather?
Oh this is a tip if you put a hot pot on synthetic leather it can cause the leather to mold (melt); like what you will see on the backseat of my sisters. car, so who wants to be first to try this on our RX ? Potluck part anyone

 

All the wood in Lexus are real.

 

Not sure but not ALL is not leather in Lexus.
My guess
Seat surfaces yes
Steering and Shift **** (leather or wood)
seat backs maybe
Door sides unlikely
Dash unlikely

Can some one confirm?

Salim

 

even on the portion of center console that slides. the front part that reveals the cup holder?

 

Seats YES
Steering YES
Shift YES with aluminum
Seat backs YES
Door sides YES
Dash YES
ALAS I got aluminum but wold rather have wood

 

So wold I.

 

Since inception, all Lexus have had real wood for wood trims and steering wheels. Basically, if it looks like wood, it's wood. As for leather, seating surfaces are leather (except when it's cloth, base ES), but seat back are usually not (pleather), along with door trims are pleather. Not sure, but the "leather" on the LS430 dash bottom, glove box, door, etc. feel kind of non leather.

 

The trim around the transmission selector on my RX350 is definitely injection-molded plastic. I've had it off, and there are mold marks.

 

What do you mean by mold marks? A thin wood veneer on a plastic base will not take-up much space.

 

All the panels on the Lexus are thin wood veneer clue onto a plastic molded panel.

 

Ah, that explains why I saw the mold marks on the back side. (Mold marks are anything that shows that a piece has been injection molded, such as little raised bumps where the plastic is injected into the mold or, as in this case, identifying marks stamped into the mold that show up as raised lettering or other symbols.)

 

The sad part is that the Lexus wood have been getting cheaper and cheaper. When Lexus 1st came out years ago, all their wood panel were simply beautiful, a work of art. Now a days, you cant even tell if they are real on some of the models.

 

My 99 RX didn't even have wood. I ended up buying a wood kit on the Internet.