I'm interested in the performance pckg. for the air suspension, but the dealer told me something disturbing about the transmission. He indicated that manually shifting the automatic is MANDATORY, rather than optional like on virtually all other "tiptronic" systems I've seen.

I've got another tiptronic car, and the choice to shift or not shift is critical to it being desirable in my opinion.

As this is going to be my wife's car, forcing her to shift manually is not going to work, as she'll be distracted by 2 kids.

I'm hoping the dealer was wrong, but when I look at the shifter, I fear he isn't.

Why would Lexus do something this stupid and out of step with other luxury cars?

Sorry if others think this is a good idea, but it will sink the performance pckg. for me, and most of the new innovations that Lexus is promoting the 330 around are tied to this package.

It's bad enough that to get the 330 configured the same as my 2000 rx330 ($38k) is going to cost me $41k, but to put all the sexy new stuff into a package with a fatal flaw like this would really aggravate me.

 

Your dealer needs to go to the training session for the RX 330. I have the performance package and the sequential mode is NOT mandatory. As a matter of fact, I haven't used it yet since I haven't put many kilometres on it yet and I'm afraid I may do something wrong early on. Both you and your wife don't have to worry about it anymore. You can choose between both whenever you like. Just switch it to D when you don't feel like shifting manually.

 

Thanks a million! I was hoping he was wrong, seemed like an insane "feature"...

With this out of the way, I'm pretty interested in the Performance Pkg... are you happy with it overall?

 

Very happy with it. The headlights are great at night time and the 18in wheels with the chrome rims was another contributing reason for getting the package. I personally don't like the look of the six spoke rims and you can only get the 18 in with the sport package in Canada so that sets my car apart from many of the other 330s here.