MattMaroon.com

So I’ve been looking for a new car for a while. My current car is an RX300 that I picked up used almost two years ago. It’s getting up there in miles. There are a number of little things wrong with it (seatbelt pretensioners need replaced, scratches in the leather, I hate both the interior and exterior colors, etc.) but nothing major. It was Lexus’s first shot at the SUV market, and while it was great for a first attempt, anyone who has been in both that car and a newer one will tell you that they’ve come a long way.

I wanted to stay with an SUV. I like riding up high, so it’s either that or a truck, and since I’ve no intention of doing any sort of manual labor in the next five years I figured I might as well go with the more practical of the two options. I also need all wheel drive for the Ohio winters, assuming we ever have one again. We never even had to have our driveway plowed in the 2005/2006 season. Thank you global warming! I knew all that time and money I spent using rubber-bands to hold the nozzle down on hairspray cans that I placed on my patio before I drove my Hummer 40 miles to the nearest landfill to burn tires and dump spent batteries would pay off one day.

So anyway, my candidates were the Infiniti FX35, the Acura MDX, and a more current model of my car, of which Lexus, in less than a year, has produced three, the RX330, the RX350, and the RX400h.

The Infiniti died on the drawing board, only because the nearest dealership is 45 minutes from me. It’s a shame really, I’ve met a couple people who own them and they’ve gotten rave reviews. They’re typically not as reliable as Lexus or Acura, but don’t have enough mechanical problems, from what I’ve read, to warrant concern. But still, I’m not making multiple 1.5 hour round trips to the dealership to look at and maybe buy the car, and then every few months for maintenance. Sorry Nissan. Put a store in the Akron/Canton area (and judging by the number of Lexuses I see on the road, you’d be insane not to) and maybe I’ll stop by in four or five years.

I had looked at the Lexus RX400h (the hybrid variant) shortly after it debuted sometime in the fall of last year. It seemed like a great car, but every review I read said that it was only getting 2-3 more miles per gallon than the RX330. It costs significantly more than the other RXes, even after you factor in the hybrid tax credit, and it seemed like the dealerships were anticipating Prius-like demand so they weren’t exactly bargaining at the time. Of course word of the poor gas mileage spread and now they are all still sitting on the lot, so I could probably have gotten a better deal on one now but it would still be more expensive than either of the other RX variants for no good reason. It accelerates a little faster I guess, but I only run from the cops maybe once a year so it isn’t really worth it. Therefore I decided a few months ago not to buy that one.

About one month ago I test drove the Acura MDX. At first glance I thought that car might be the winner. It has an optional iPod link, which, even though I despise iPods, is a huge winner as far as I’m concerned. I’m a music lover and being able to have 60 gb (which my music collection is rapidly approaching) rather than 6 measly CDs is very, very appealing to me.

But I quickly found a number of flaws in that car. For one the dealership was off-putting. It took me a while to get someone to help me, but I’m kind of used to that. I don’t get angry over that stuff like a lot of people do. I imagine that luxury car salesmen are used to people window shopping and test driving cars they have absolutely no intention of buying. Salesmen work on commission, so while they’re out riding in a car with someone who is just daydreaming they could miss a potential customer. And given my age, even though I’m always fairly well dressed, I can’t blame them if they choose to help someone else first. If I were a salesman and saw one guy who looked 25 and another who looked 45 both waiting for help, I’d not pick the kid either. So I generally give them a chance and the good ones usually figure out I’m serious rather quickly. And the bad ones lose a sale.

Also my salesman, when I finally did get one, was truly annoying. She kept using the old “what can I do to get you in this car today” line. Not just once, but at least five times, even though every time I told her rather bluntly that I had no intention of buying a car for at least two weeks. I expect that sort of behavior at a Ford dealership, but please, when you’re trying to sell a $45,000 car, don’t beg.

After that she also proceeded to “courtesy call” me about fifty times. She’s still calling me now, though I haven’t been in that store or returned a call in over a month. So I realized pretty quickly that if I was going to buy an Acura, it wouldn’t have been from her. Shortly thereafter I realized I wasn’t going to buy an Acura at all.

There were some things I liked about the MDX. For one it had a sportier feel to it than my Lexus, which feels more like floating on a cloud. You get a little more road feel (mostly in a good sort of way) in the Acura, and I thought that was great at first but maybe it’s just a case of the grass being greener on the other side. It also has the folding third-row seating, which I’d be unlikely to ever use, but is a nice feature nonetheless. And, out the door, it costs about $5,000 less than a comparably equipped Lexus, which means my choice is really between an RX and an MDX, a really nice laptop, and that Jacuzzi I’ve been wanting to install.

So it looked like the Acura was going to be the winner until I went back for a test drive with Vicki. I wanted her opinion, and I also wanted to test out their navigation system, since that’s one of the key selling points for me. Vicki was underwhelmed with the car, to say the least. She pointed out that the seats weren’t as comfortable as mine, which I had to agree with. Lexus does make the perfect seats, and they’ve been smart enough not to change them. Acura’s were nice, and my discomfort may only have been because they aren’t what I’m used to so I’m willing to admit that in time I may have come to like them as much as or more than my current ones. But I might not, and the car is pretty expensive so it’s a big gamble, and you all know how I hate gambling.

Vicki being in the passenger’s seat also made me notice the lack of dual zone climate control, which is standard on the RX, and a number of other small things that just weren’t as nice. The MDX just can’t stack up to the Lexuses when it comes to luxury, and what else do you really buy a luxury car for?

Even if Vicki had not been there on the second test drive, I still would have vetoed that car as soon as the navigation system crashed. That’s right, I crashed a computer in a car. I am the god of computer troubles. I can even crash a nav system. The funniest part is, there is no power button on the console, so I had to turn the car off and restart it to reboot. Nice one Acura.

When it happened the annoying dealer lady kept trying to tell me there was nothing wrong with it. But I’ve crashed just about everything with a transistor in it at some point, from cell phones and graphing calculators to $5,000 PCs, and I knew instantly what that frozen screen meant. I watched her push buttons and swear in a feeble attempt to revive it for a few minutes and then finally just powered her off. The car, that is, not the dealer. Unfortunately. Better luck next time Acura, or, as we say in poker chat boxes, nh Lexus.

After the navigations system debacle I went to the Lexus dealership and tested the RX350. I had first thought to try a 330, since dealers still have a few on the lot and they were a couple grand cheaper, but I found out that, in addition to a faster and more fuel-efficient engine, the 350 has the newest generation Lexus DVD Navigation System, which has been widely praised as the best in existence. Let me tell you, it is. As near as I could tell, it was flawless. I get mine in about eight hours so I’ll be sure to post my thoughts on it once I’ve had some time to put it through its paces. And yeah, I spoiled the ending. Deal with it.

The RX350 accelerated like a bat out of hell. My RX300 never seemed sluggish to me, until I drove the 350. That’s what an extra 60 horsepower will do I guess. Somehow, in the time since they made my 300, they’ve made the engine stronger and more efficient (it actually gets a couple MPG more than mine) and made the car an Ultra Low Emissions Vehicle-II, meaning the WWF won’t revoke my membership if they find out what I’m driving.

It also had some other nice touches that the MDX didn’t. I already mentioned the dual zone climate control, which is essential since my girlfriend is always cold and I’m always hot. We’re kinda like these guys. The RX’s seat warmers are fully adjustable (the MDX just has high and low). And the rain sensing wipers, which seemed more than a tad overzealous on the MDX (from now on I’ll always test drive in the rain) were a bit more to my liking on the RX350.

The Lexus salesmen were also in a different league altogether. The moment I walked in the door someone was helping me. The next day I got one courtesy call, and that was it. I was asked “what’s your time frame” once and didn’t have to suffer through any corny Chevy dealer tactics. Unlike the lady at Acura, they didn’t act like they were trying to push me into impulse buying some crappy Expedition before I came to my senses. They acted like they were selling a great product (which is easy to do since they are) and let the car speak for itself. I didn’t get the “let’s try to pressure him into buying this product before he sees the competition” vibe I got from Acura, which I wonder if I would have gotten if I hadn’t declared my intention to test drive the RX. Lexus is currently the 500 lb. gorilla of the luxury car market and they know it. And their salesmen know it too. I can really appreciate that.

I should point out that I don’t take that experience to be indicative of Acura as a company. Your mileage may (and most likely will) vary. It’s possible the salesperson I got was just hard up for cash, nearing some record and needing one or two more sales for a serious pay bump, or just one bad apple from an otherwise good bunch. And it’s possible that the Lexus salesman was just unusually good, or at least what I consider unusually good. So please don’t take this as a scathing indictment of Acura in general or even the particular Acura dealership I visited. I only have a negative opinion of that one saleswoman in particular.

The Lexus salesman started off by showing me how the navigation system worked. He pushed a button and said “Chinese restaurants” and the system immediately found over 20 of them in a 7 mile radius. Going through the menu I even found a Vietnamese restaurant, which I never knew we had around here.

Then he did the coolest demo I’ve ever seen with the backup camera. That is one of those features I always thought I wouldn’t even use before I saw it in action. With the exception of one minor little scuffle I got into in a parking lot a couple weeks back (which probably would have been prevented if I had the camera) I’ve never had any trouble driving in reverse. But avoiding minor accidents isn’t all the backup cam is good for.

The Lexus dealership is in the same complex as the Acura one, some restaurants, a Lowe’s, and a movie theater. By the theater there is this strange little parking space whose existence doesn’t make any sense. It’s just one little space, cut out of an otherwise straight curb, and why it’s there I can’t possibly determine. If it hadn’t obviously been there for years I might have thought Lexus put it there just to demo backup cameras.

At the end of the spot are a couple trees whose branches hang over the curb. The salesman drove over to the space and began backing into it slowly. He told me to look out the rear window and tell him when to stop. After I said “when” he started moving again. He told me to look at the backup camera and then tell him when to stop again. He must have gone an extra ten feet further back than I would have without the camera. On a future test drive I did the same thing with Vicki, just to make sure it wasn’t my faulty vision. It wasn’t, the backup camera is just that cool.

After that he handed me the keys and went back to his office, and I took the car for a spin on my own. I was impressed. In addition to it being much faster than the 300, the turning radius is greatly improved. It’s more like driving a Camry than the boat I’m used to. That will come in handy when parking, though it may cause me to knock down my mailbox before I get used to it.

The sound system was about the same as my current car, and the radio now has its own small screen, so it won’t interfere with the nav system. It doesn’t have an iPod link unfortunately, but it does have a six disc inline changer (no more loading CDs into a cartridge in the glove box) that can play mp3 and wma files. That will allow me to fit somewhere around 500 songs at good audio quality (160kbps wma is probably what I’ll use for most stuff) into the player at any one time. No more using my mp3 player with one of those crappy cassette tape adapters. And if the 6 discs of compressed audio aren’t enough the Toyota Nav Systems are so easy to work with that multiple companies have made aftermarket iPod links that can be installed or removed with nothing but a screwdriver, which is great for me as I’m not comfortable splicing wires in car that expensive.

Lot’s of little things have improved in the newer version as well. The cup holder wells are deeper. In the 300 the cup holders were so small that normal sized bottles of water would often fall out of them. That doesn’t appear to be a problem anymore. The Homelink built-in garage door opener was moved from the visor to the center above the windshield, which makes more sense. And there is more storage space in the center console and a nice new button that opens and closes it.

The 350 also has Bluetooth support, which is very nice since my Treo 650 is Bluetooth compatible. Now when I’m in my car I can answer my phone just by pushing a button on the steering wheel. I can dial that way too, by pushing a button and saying the name of who I want to call. Digging a cell phone out of my pocket is such a chore (not to mention a road hazard) that I usually don’t answer while driving, now I won’t have to miss calls. Now if I could only connect my Bluetooth mouse and keyboard and use them to drive and play Party Poker, I’d be set.

So I ordered me a Lexus. They didn’t have my color preference (Flint Mica exterior with black interior) in stock, so I had to wait about a week. It’s worth it, as I really don’t like the grey interior they had. It would be fine if not for the dark dashboard, which really clashes.

I pick the car up this morning. I’ll be sure to post pics and first impressions before I head out to Napa. I think this time I’m going to be a complete douche bag and buy vanity plates. What should they say? I wanted to get JJJ88 in honor of the misprint in my book, but it appears that that and all permutations don’t meet Ohio’s requirements. So please hit me with any ideas for a 6-8 character alphanumeric sequence that would be fitting.