JCtx

Just open the latest 'AutoWeek', and guess where you can find our instrument cluster: Yep, the Toyota Tacoma (X-Runner, at least).
Honestly, it goes perfectly on a Toyota, but after Lexus decided to give us the ugliest cluster (ALL other Lexus instruments had been nice so far, with electroluminescent or optitron lighting, and a nice design), I sure didn't expect to see it shared with a Tacoma. And this after a not-so-flattering resemblance to the redesigned Camry Solara. Well, at least the rest of the dash is still unique to our car

Good day guys. I don't really care, to be honest; just wanted to post something different.

LeslieRC

I happen to like minimalism and I think Lexus followed a minimalist philosophy in designing the SC430 instrument cluster - keeping it simple yet elegant. My take on this observation is from a different perspective - if a design works exploit it.

tfischer

When did the instrument cluster on the SC430 get ugly?

I've always liked it, find it at least as nice as if not nicer than the one in my SC400, and do not recall, from here or elsewhere, that it was considered unattractive. I agree with Leslie that it is both elegant and distinctive.

You must be thinking of the pie plate wheel covers.

JCtx

Ugly or not ugly, that wasn't the point; it's on the Tacoma now
Later.

Redemption

While the gauges on the SC isn't ugly, it is a bit plain. I was kinda surprised, and a bit disappointed when I first saw it. Most other Lexus have nice gauges, like the GS. Oh well, it's not a big deal.

LeslieRC

I'm all for sharing nice things. Lucky Tacoma owners, they have something we SC430 owners have!

1NICESC430

Before the SC430 came out, I was considering a used SC300 (I wanted a manual transmission), so I spent some time going through the SC forums. It seems that there were problems with the dial illuminating method on the guages, ie, the needle lights would burn out and there was no way to replace just the lighting device (whatever *that* was), but much more had to be replaced. There were a lot of owner complaints about this.

Sorry for the vagueness of my description, it's been a long time since I read all those posts. I sure hope the SC430 doesn't use the same technology.