Anyone do a brake upgrade?
 

I consider the RX brakes good, not great. Appropriate for price of rig. But much inferior to the LX, which is 1200 lbs heavier.
Has anyone who tows a lot, or travels hills, ever upgraded brakes? If so, what brakes did you install? How much improvement in braking did you notice?

I agree w/ above post; but at least brakes on RX do not produce so much brake dust euro vehicles produce, and it is difficult to remove too...

Agreed on the brake dust...but, its hard to fathom how a similar sized / weight Crossovers such as Hyundai deliver 112 ft stopping distances vs. 131 ft for the RX... (60-0 stoping distance) this is VERY significant difference...specially considering price differential. Finding a higher friction pad might help, but I have been unable to find any for the RX350.

There were (are still) some 4-Piston caliper upgrades for the 2nd Generation RX, however, nothing I have seen for the 3rd Generation RX. These kits were fronts only for the ones I saw and came with slotted or drilled rotors. They were also quite pricey, with prices ranging from $2K to $3K and then some.

In addition, I have FWD, making new rotors and brake kits possibly a rough fit, as its a very crowded area on FWD rigs. Hence why the best bet is high performance brake pads, to squeeze what little extra I can from the brakes, but remarkably, as you mentioned above, there seems to be nothing for the 3rd gen. RX....

btw, how significant do you feel the 4 pistons are vs. the factory calipers?

Which Hyundai? Looking at Car & Driver for numbers I could compare I see the current Santa Fe Sport with a 177ft 70-0 MPH stopping distance. The current RX looks like it is some 600 to 700lbs heavier than the Santa Fe and braking numbers for a 2010 RX350 (the only one I could locate) being 175ft for the same 70-0 MPH. Not too shabby considering the extra weight it is dragging around.

Most of the recent reviews for the RX I could find are of the F Sport, so it makes it hard for a direct comparison.

Not something I personally have tried and would not spend the money on such for an RX. Have other vehicles better equipped for track related rigors including one with 6 piston Brembos. Yes, they can be an advantage when needed. Again, just do not see the need for a standard RX and do not feel it excels when driven hard in that manner.

Besides, this is why they made the F Sport.

If you are looking for just a pad replacement to improve your situation you might want to take a look at the EBC Yellow pads for truck and SUV use. A full set for front and rear might run you somewhere between $200 and $250. Word of note, these pads can be temperamental, noisy, and dusty. They have others which are more user friendly without as much stopping power.

It was my understanding, the F Sport has the identical brakes as the Non F. If this is not correct, can you find some information relating to this? hmmmm... maybe a good lead.

as for finding the Goggled articles, arggg...it takes forever to retrace your steps...here is a link to Caddie vs. 2010 RX, as you can see, the Caddie is 119ft vs. 131ft for RX. From the tests that did surface via Google, RX brakes are mid tier at best, Jeep being the worst.

http://www.motortrend.com/roadtests/...t/viewall.html

I have another vehicle that I use for towing. The Toyota version of the LX, the Landcruiser. I would recommend looking at trailer brakes before you start modifying your RX. I've always had trailer brakes on all of boat trailers and they work very well. Get your trailer right and you won't even know it is back there. I've towed my large boat from my San Francisco Bay Area home to another home I have at Keystone resort in CO ... through the Rockies. Trailer setup is the key. I don't use the brakes on my 450h very often (regenerative braking most of the time), but the few times I have leaned into them they seemed very good.

Thought they might have provided a brake system upgrade, however, when I go to the Lexus site and compare the spec information for a stock RX350 and an F-Sport you can see the dimensions are the same and the verbiage used to describe the two systems is also identical. So, looks like there is nothing you can pull off an F-Sport to use as an upgrade.

For a comparison from the same source, the most recent test for the 2013 Santa Fe Sport shows a stopping distance of 122ft from 60MPH. It also shows a fully loaded Sport being at least 400lbs lighter than an RX350. So, will stick with my thought that the extra weight will affect stopping distances. One also needs to consider when they did each of the tests, what were the weather conditions, as any difference could explain the numbers. Also, which tires were being used? The Sport may have a more aggressive tire.

http://www.motortrend.com/roadtests/...rt_first_test/

I spent a few hours Googling these braking tests, and unfortunately, could never find a single test that showed many vehicles all laid out in a matrix. However, there were many tests like I linked above, that showed similar vehicles side by side. In the above test, the heavier Caddy outperformed the RX by a significant amount. The RX brakes are not the worst from what I gathered, maybe mid tier in the pack. However, the pack included many lower priced cars. Had I known I would be starting a thread on this topic, I would have been more judicious saving every link, etc.
UCSB, I agree with your comments FULLY, however, I pull trailers mostly that I do not own, including U Haul's, so I can't install trailer brakes on them. Hence why I am trying to improve on the factory RX brakes a bit. The RX brakes IMO are "acceptable" under normal driving conditions.... however, "acceptable" = poor to mediocre when pulling a load and going downhill, hence my desire for an upgrade. Its clear, the RX is not really a "tower"..... fully understood, and I don't tow often, only a handful of times per year, usually one way. If I was a regular tower, I would have not purchased an RX. As the adage goes, Horses for Courses. The RX is more than adequate for pulling small trailers, specially with the tow upgrade package...the brakes being the weakest link in the tow chain.
Also, I don't haul heavy loads, rarely would I hit 2k lbs. But it is amazing how brake performance changes with the added load, at high speeds (50, not 80 :-), and downhill, even slight declines. Too bad the F Sport did not offer a brake upgrade, would have been the most logical swap out.
Since the LX has a tow rating of 8k lbs, and weighs 1200+ lbs more than the RX...the brakes with no load are truly superb... a good example of "over designed" brakes, with no tow load, and that sure is sweet. I only found one 60-0 brake test of the 09 LX, 119ft, which is quite impressive considering its added weight and height. And when you drive this LX, the improved brakes are VERY NOTICEABLE improvement over the RX with no load. To put things in perspective, high performance brakes on low weight sports cars in the $80k+ price range can stop in 80-100 ft distance. This demonstrates the value of very small % improvements in braking performance.
http://www.edmunds.com/lexus/lx-570/...est-specs.html

The LX has an advantage of having more weight in the back. During braking, weight transfer from back to front occurs, making front brakes do most of the work. On FWD vehicle, which has more weight in the front to begin with, rear brakes get less of a workout.

If I'm not mistaken, most if not all U-Haul trailers come with hydraulic brakes. Any big trailer rated over certain weight will have brakes.

I find brakes in the 450h AWD to b adequate for this vehicle class. I tried EBC green stuff rotor and brake pads upgrade on my IS, but reverted back to OEM, as there was little benefit and I did not like the chattering noise it made while cruising.

If you can engage ABS while braking, then you have exceeded tire grip. At that point, I would try tires with better traction, something wider than stock.

Vlad, no small UHaul trailers I have ever towed have brakes. As you suggest, they are often on large, heavy trailers only. The small trailers rely on vehicle brakes. If I hauled a single dedicated trailer, I would surely add the trailer brakes and wire accordingly.

thx for contribution on pad upgrade / downgrade :-) Interesting.
And yes, if you are engaging ABS, the weak link is traction... I am far from that point. More braking force, added pad surface area, higher friction pads would surely improve braking, but as mentioned, these are not after market components for the RX. Lexus could offer these refinements with the car, but for obvious reason, they don't.... it creates added friction, which increases heat gain, a braking systems worst nemesis.... then, slotted rotors, higher cost rotors (metal type), more powerful calipers, etc. , a slippery slope. Lexus's hallmark is reliability, so.... fully understood.
I once added a $5k water-cooled driveline brake to my motorhome, and it was truly remarkably the improvement in stopping distance. The 13k lb motorhome prob. had stopping distances on par to the RX. Having 4 large rear tires offered a lot of "braking traction potential" which surely allowed the system to work optimally.... never once locked-up the ABS. When you have lots of space to work with, it opens up braking options not possible on cars. The maker of this system had a design that could be integrated into pick-up trucks and large SUV's, using an upgraded engine cooling system to rid the added brake heat gain. Braking force is the easier end of increased braking performance equation... ridding the heat gain is the complex part. Of course getting the GIANTS to buy into something like this would take 50+ years :-)

The most cost-efficient brake upgrade in the IS300 world is to get larger (Supra) OEM rotors and using a custom bracket to relocate the brake calipers. Being further away from the center of the wheel, there's more leverage when the brakes are applied. If anyone made a kit like that, that would help.
So, it would be interesting if OEM brake calipers and rotors from other (heavier) models could be modified to fit the RX.