My wife's 2018 RX has been great except for one thing. The transmissions shifts are horrendous.

When accelerating it holds on the high gears but then suddenly drops like 3 gears and the car suddenly accelerates forward so you have to ease off the gas. If you don't press the gas the engine or transmission kinda go into this quite dip in power and sound. It's really weird. Sometimes it feels like it's jerking back and forth. The only time it works well is in sports mode or when I manually shift then things are ok.

Has anyone else had similar experiences? The transmission in this thing really annoys the hell out of me.

 

I have a 2018 F Sport with the 8 speed transmission, but they may have similar issues. I get a really hard downshift at 30 mph when decelerating, and sometimes there's a weird shift clunk when accelerating from about 55mph. I tend to leave it in Sport mode, which helps with the 55mph shift issue. I've read there is a way to manually reset the transmission so that it relearns the shift points, but I haven't gotten there yet. I bought mine at 60k miles a year ago and am still working through some other maintenance efforts first. You should be able to search for how to DIY reset the transmission. You can also pay the dealer to do it too.

 

my 2020, same gen, 65k miles, is seamless shifting. no such issues as u describe, even when towing.

 

I would first change the transmission fluid and see if it helps.

 

Have Lexus dealer install this software update. It is only about an hour labor charge, and will make a huge difference. I still have an occasional rough shift, mostly under cruise control, but this update made it a different car:

https://static.nhtsa.gov/odi/tsbs/20...66041-9999.pdf