I would stay away from cars that are in their first 3 years of manufacture.. Like it or not the manufacturing process always takes a while to get to the best level. No matter it is a Lexus or an Audi.

my mom has an RX350... i mean its a nice car and all, but damn is it boring... and there are annoying quirks that it has to go to the deealership for pretty opften as well... like last month the TPMS sensors in two wheels started malfunctioninng for no reason which meant they all had to be replaced and the system reset, then the remote entry stopped working, so again it had to go abck to the dealership and get the key re-programmed.i guess it depends on what you're looking for... btw the stock tires on the RX are garbage, last winter she could not even get out of her driveway

guess u are the lucky one

3 friends had 2001 style A4 and S4, had numerous problems until they were forced to sell since they had no choice. Dad's friend had a 05 A6, oil pan leaked and went back to the dealership 7 times still not fixed. Sold it after


RX350 overall toyota reliablity, regular maintenance and MOST of the stuff shouldnt go wrong.
wonna consider MDX? probably the cheapest out of ur choice. 300hp 280 pounds of torque SH-AWD , very nice interior. $40-50 g dependn on package and sales
Q5 germany engineering, most feedback on the steering wheel, stiffer sportier suspension. but more small problems, higher costs for parts as well as labor if it goes wrong

im surprised, all wheel drive even with all season cant be that bad?

last year with all the large amount of snow, my tenant had a CRV with all season and was able to climb up our outdoor parkade ramp (never been shoveled and the snow was roughly 22-28cm high) 35% degree ramp

lol she drove it up a hill and stopped and the thing started sliding backwards...

pretty damn scary!


terrible all season?

yeah. i think OEM for the 350 was was the Michelin MV4 S8, which are a usless tire other than having low rolling resistance for better fuel econ.

Toyota has a manual key built into the Prius key fob in case the battery runs out, so it'll get you into the car. There's also a place in the dash to insert the fob in case of dead battery. I would expect the Lexus to have something like that too.. or maybe it doesn't.

Lol about the key fob, it was in my pocket while my dad was driving the GL in downtown seattle, I got off the car as he circled the block and 10 minutes later I freak out and i'm like oh shit! worrying cause of that TG episode were clarkson drives the challenger into the middle of the street, and i thought the same thing might happen since they're probably the same system or similar,
I guess not, worked fine, lol car didn't give a shit

I find mercedes to have all the electrical problems and people will hold that and generalize against german cars, we've had a few vw/audis/bmws and they've been fairly reliable (besides the first MY Z3 :rolleyes), but every recent mercedes was trouble

i'm not sure it was a service loaner. u had to push a button to start, and push again to shut the engine off. except it wouldn't start, even with the fob out of the pocket and against the steering column, dash, everywhere.

here's a recent article on the Q5:

http://www.autoblog.com/2009/09/23/r...gic-at-a-cost/

The problem with German cars isn't the engine, its the electrical systems. It seems that after 4-5 years, lots of electrical problems happen here and there. Now I've had lots of friends with such cars who say they haven't had problems, but if you read the reliability statistics on Consumer Reports, the graphs that show least problems after 3 years, 5 years, and 7 years, the top 5 are all Japanese cars.

Can you get the S-Line package with the Premium Package in Canada? In the United States you have to get the Premium Plus trim level in order to get the S-Line.