Hello From New Member

[TRC]

Hi, good to be saying hello here, after admiring Lexus cars for so long, and finally a new owner myself. Picked up a new RC350 a few weeks ago. Wonderful car. Considered a 4 series, but this looks and feels more special IMO; even if the 4 has some advantages over. Looking forward to enjoyable motoring ahead.

[I CU2]

Welcome - Pictures please!

[Lexus Nerd]

Welcome - you may well be our first RC owner! Looking forward to hearing about your experiences with it.

[TRC]

Thanks - have attached a photo of the car, at time of delivery. Will post more when work out how to paste within text.

Titanium with Dark Rose interior. Had the choice of either this or in White Nova for pre-Christmas delivery, but felt that the coloring and styling of both the F sport wheels and spindle grille treatment work better with the silver exterior; whereas both stand out more starkly against the white. But is purely personal preference. Clear impressions so far are of the supreme comfort, smoothness and quietness. Some of the best car seats I've experienced (and not so firm as the German seats), very smooth ride for 19's, best coarse chip road noise suppression I've experienced (the GS and LS must be supreme), and using the IS-C chassis for the mid section clearly pays off in a super solid feel to the whole car (and worth the consequences of the resultant weight penalty, IMO). Better driving position than the Germans (pedals not offset to the right), great steering, and the rear wheel steering is a U turn boon so far. Touchpad screen control works well and is fun to use, but not as intuitive as IDRIVE, and more eyes off the road is required. Mark Levinson audio also the best I've experienced, as is the tactile quality of how everything works in the cabin. Engine is a beauty, but does lack the urban speed responsiveness and economy of the turbo Germans. Miss the programmable preset buttons of the BMW. Needs a suspension drop (why is the front tyre clearance more than the rear clearance?), but that would compromise the lovely ride, no doubt. Could talk about a lot more. Cheers.....

[Lexus Nerd]

Really appreciate the informative comparison, TRC. One question:

Touchpad screen control works well and is fun to use, but not as intuitive as IDRIVE, and more eyes off the road is required.

You've obviously driven a Bimmer before. A lot of journos like banging on about the iDrive's intuitive interface, and how Lexus Remote Touch is so awful to use by comparison. Lexus has actually developed an iDrive-like interface: it's called Lexus Display Audio, and it's fitted to every new Lexus around the world that *doesn't* have sat nav.

When you have to enter in an address consisting of, say, two digits and a street name consisting of at least 8 characters before auto-complete works, surely a dial interface such as iDrive's must be more painful to use than a touchpad or mouse? What's your experience?

[TRC]

Thanks LN. Yes, I have a Bimmer as well (1 series). Many of the Oz motoring journos are to be taken with a grain of salt, IMO. One wrote of the RC cockpit - "it is tremendously busy.....there are so many buttons to work out (not), and their placement is at odds with today's needs" (whatever that means...). The same journo then wrote - "the huge emphasis on the CD player (whatever that means) is just downright out of date" (perhaps it's prominent, because there is no excess of buttons surrounding it....?). But just as easily they can then complain when there are not enough buttons, claiming there are "too many nested menus" to navigate via screen interfaces to reach frequent functions....

I have tried the touchpad input for destination input, and it may be a bit quicker than dial twirling for that - but that's a task you have to more clearly focus on in the first instance, regardless of input method (the Lexus won't let you enter on the go, which I can understand). With IDRIVE I have found you quickly learn to "feel" your way through the number of clicks and presses to bring up frequently visited radio stations or other frequently used functions, whilst barely looking at the screen - whereas with Remote Touch, I find you need to visually check on screen a bit more often, to be sure where the pointer highlight is going. And IDRIVE has 7 quick access buttons grouped round the controller, whereas the Lexus has only the 2. The Bimmers also continue with preset buttons (which are programmable for many functions, not just radio frequencies), to further aid cabin control. There's other things too, like how on the Bimmer you can group radio frequencies together from any of AM/FM/DAB rather than having to change B/W AM/FM/DAB first. But I may not have found that yet? But all splitting hairs a bit - both are great. Cheers

[3ha0046]

Thanks LN. Yes, I have a Bimmer as well (1 series). Many of the Oz motoring journos are to be taken with a grain of salt, IMO. One wrote of the RC cockpit - "it is tremendously busy.....there are so many buttons to work out (not), and their placement is at odds with today's needs" (whatever that means...). The same journo then wrote - "the huge emphasis on the CD player (whatever that means) is just downright out of date" (perhaps it's prominent, because there is no excess of buttons surrounding it....?). But just as easily they can then complain when there are not enough buttons, claiming there are "too many nested menus" to navigate via screen interfaces to reach frequent functions....

I have tried the touchpad input for destination input, and it may be a bit quicker than dial twirling for that - but that's a task you have to more clearly focus on in the first instance, regardless of input method (the Lexus won't let you enter on the go, which I can understand). With IDRIVE I have found you quickly learn to "feel" your way through the number of clicks and presses to bring up frequently visited radio stations or other frequently used functions, whilst barely looking at the screen - whereas with Remote Touch, I find you need to visually check on screen a bit more often, to be sure where the pointer highlight is going. And IDRIVE has 7 quick access buttons grouped round the controller, whereas the Lexus has only the 2. The Bimmers also continue with preset buttons (which are programmable for many functions, not just radio frequencies), to further aid cabin control. There's other things too, like how on the Bimmer you can group radio frequencies together from any of AM/FM/DAB rather than having to change B/W AM/FM/DAB first. But I may not have found that yet? But all splitting hairs a bit - both are great. Cheers

Thanks for sharing the experience on iDrive and I totally agree. However, compare with my 1st and 2nd gen idrive experience, I much prefer Merc's Command system. Although the 3rd gen idrive may out performance command but I haven't used it. For the Merc's Command system, and compare with the touch pad on lexus when I used during the test drive. I find the same thing is that German's system is easy to use when you are driving, especially the command system, push the knob upward give you the main menu to choose and most of function can done with the turn the knob. compare with the idrive, the click fell on command make me feel easier to operate it.

For the Lexus, I'd rather use steering wheel remote buttons to control the music, and trip computer, and it actually easier than the idrive, but i still prefer command's way, maybe just because i am more familiar with it. But for Lexus, while cars are moving, the small screen is much helpful than the large one.

So, that's my experience so far. do you think is that because I haven't get used to the system in the short time, or that's really about this system?

The other thing I find Japanese car maker one step behind the German is multi language support. As a Japanese car, it suppose support Japanese file name as I listen lots of J pop music, however, What I have found is, all German car make's system can display Japanese Hiragana and Katakana Chinese Kanji Characters, but Lexus can't, and I know Toyota and Honda can't. And even aftermarket player like alpine doesn't support Japanese. So, the German car support a language that not broadly use here and their original place, but Japanese car maker just simply doesn't support their own language, really shame on them. They just cant react quick enough for the globalization like their smart phone industry!

[TRC]

Thanks 3ha0046. One of the other cars I seriously considered was the new C class. It's COMMAND worked well and, like IDRIVE, thought it a better than Lexus touch whilst actually on the move, in terms of eyes on the road. The only thing I noticed that could be improved was the screen response time to touchpad activity - a bit slow.

No doubt time and familiarity improves the experience of. Already I'm learning to use peripheral vision to judge the position of the pointer highlight...