Woodsman

Hi, We are pondering the purchase of a lovely Nebula Grey/Black leather 2013 RX 450H AWD with 69000 km, all receipts, no accidents and one owner. It is well optioned with Premium 2 package, rear dvd, Mark Levinson 15-speaker Premium Surround Sound Audio System // Heads-up Display // Wood- and leather-trimmed steering wheel and shift **** // Heated and ventilated front seats, etc. or a newer 2016 RX 350 Luxury or Executive package SUV.
We normally keep our vehicles at least 10 years and I am currently 69.
The 2013 450h is available for $39000 Canadian vs the 2016 RX 350 Executive with 15000km is approximately $60000 Canadian.
Cash deal for either but which may be a more suitable SUV for us?

Freds430

IMO this is a no brainer. Most my friends are my wife's and my age. All have been blessed to have been prudent financially and made wise investment decisions. Funny how when we were younger, we all bought new cars. Now that we are old farts and hopefully wiser, none of us have purchased a new car in many many years. Save your $21,000 and invest it. Invest it in the S&P 500 index fund and in 21 years it could grow to $150,000. In 21 years, your 2016 Lexus will be long gone. If you read post from owners of 2016 and 2017 RX's many complain about poor mileage. We had a 2010 RX350 and averaged 21 mpg's. We bought both a 2013 ES300h and a 2015 RX450h two years ago and of course used. There has never been a better time to buy a used hybrid with gas at $2.15 a gallon. You don't go in and try to bargain for one when gas is $4.00 a gallon. Our 13 ES was about the same price as the gas models at our local Lexus dealer and the RX was about $1,500 more. HUD is great. We rented a car while in Florida last winter and it had HUD. We both said it will be in our next used car.

MikeInOr

I would think twice about the 450h... your wife is going to want to sit in the back seat and watch movies while you drive her araound!

In all seriousness I would definitely go for the 450h!

Airbalance

One thing to think of , is finding an used RX-350
we just got a 2013 RX-350 Fsport,and notice the insurance is a couple hundred cheaper than our 2010 Prius
any money saved in gas saving could be eaten up by the increased cost of insurance

vlad_a

And yet back in the day, our brand new RX450h cost far less to insure than the 10-year-old IS300 that was worth only a fraction of the RX at the time.
That's not how insurance works. There's no premium for owning a Prius.

vlad_a

OP, spend a little time driving the 4RX350. I really disliked the automatic in it when I had one as a loaner.
It was constantly downshifting and upshifting while driving on the freeway. Any little pass would result in an annoying downshift.
That's one thing I really appreciate about the 450h, it being conceptually transmission-free, it does not suffer from modern Eco transmission tuning running a hundred overdrive gears.

MellonC00

I'm with Vlad on this point. I'm sick and tired of all these 9 speed or gazillion speed tranny downshifting in the middle of a rain slicked highway entrance ramp just when you want steady power. I think 6 speed is enough. 7 speed if the shifting logical, and was truly intelligent where it knows the nav info, g sensors, torque applied and all that good stuff.

another point: The electric motors help out in acceleration. Off the line, not so much. But it does come in handy during passing maneuvers. I've passed a number of unsuspecting "fast cars" on the road. The instant torque really helps.

sirtiger

I have the 4RX in my stable. After the dealer reprogrammed the ECU, it was WAY better. For over 8 months, it was awful.

vlad_a

That's good to know. Tacoma is stuck with the same engine and their transmission programming is so horrible, someone had created a custom controller to do the auto shifting in the manual mode.

Airbalance

remember the OP is from Canada