I was going to say the same thing. I remember the first few weeks of driving RX back in April, I felt sudden surges when starting from the stop. 7 months later, the tranny is silky smooth. I do have the tendency to 'gun it', so it definitely learned the 'heavy foot' routine. Except from driving for the first 10-20 minutes from the cold start, I feel the throttle response is more than adequate most of the time, although there is often a slight hesitation when going from 50 to 70, with high revs. Still learning, I guess...

 

Interesting topic. I actually find our pedal not as responsive. If I want to get going I really have to push it down. I'm used to driving a bit more of a spirited auto so it may just be the comparison of going from one car to the other, but we definitely don't have a touchy gas pedal at all.

Probably the 'learning' as other posts have mentioned but didn't expect as much feedback that others were noticing this as well. Interesting . . .

Jay

 

Yes, I realize about the "memory reset" and the "learning tranny" - what I do not understand is why my ES went into this "performance mode" with just being casually driven and why it won't go back out of it. Apparently it's not just me either if the loaner RX was in this same mode.

I have an email into Lexus corporate to try and understand the reasoning behind this and if this is supposed to be working this way.

I haven't changed my style of driving, but for some reason after this recalibration update, it just gets stuck in "performance mode". After the last reset, I was trying to gently drive it to prevent it from doing this, which didn't work.

 

compared to most other vehicles these days, toyota/lexus have pretty responsivly tuned drive-by-wire systems.

in most other cars, DBW is very sluggish to achieve better MPG ratings.

so i would think it is an plus :-).


also, does the 350 have SNOW mode? should be less responsive there

 

I have to say the opposite of what most people are saying here. I find the gas pedal a bit sluggish. I've been driving the RX 350 for a month now and my impressioin is still the same. The steering wheel also feel a bit hard. It gives me a feeling of the car being solid.

 

I can't say I agree either, then again I think many of the thoughts on this are colored by perspective. My DD is a 135i, and that thing makes so much torque off idle that it's very hard to modulate from a dead stop even with the transmission set to start off in 2nd gear. The RX is a piece of cake to drive smoothly in comparison.

 

Indeed, all a matter of perspective...unlike Obsidian RX with a fancy DD, mine is a Chevy truck, 8 yrs old. No drive by wire, and it's throttle response profile is very different from the 10RX. Since I only drive the RX once a month at most, I get jackrabbit starts when I do, because I'm accustomed to the Chevy. Same with the brakes...passengers lurch forward a bit when I tap on the brake as it grabs a bit harder than my beast. Then again, the RX is a full ton or more lighter than what I'm used to.

 

Wow, I thought it was me. I'm glad I stopped to check into the RX forum.
And everyone is saying, nothing can be done? Sometimes it's a little embarrassing pulling out and it looks like your lunging at passangers walking in front of you. Well, maybe sometimes.

 

too sensitive???? Really????? I thought it felt a little numb to me. Lexus sets up the trans and ECU for minimal possibility of wheels spin or torque steer. Is this your first SUV??? I wonder if the new seating position is affecting how you apply the gas and brakes

 

This has been about my 6th SUV. None of them jerked out like that when it's cold. I was going to take it in to Lexus but if other people have that problem..maybe we should meet and and check out who is reporting problems and who isn't. Maybe we are just wearing heavy shoes!

 

I've had my RX350 about 2 weeks now and have not noticed the accelerator being sensitive. My G35 is hair trigger, but the RX is about right, maybe just a bit sluggish.
Steve

 

Another vote for hair trigger. I noticed that and now am very careful so I don't torque steer into a wall. Once I really hammered it on a left turn to avoid traffic and I was all over the road, people looked at me like I was a crazy speedster!

 

maybe all of us w/ the hair trigger throttles had the RX-F pedal installed by mistake

 

The old DBW Lexus and Toyota had some accelaration lag issues, the new RX throttle map may be Lexus' attempt to try to fix that, maybe they just over did it.