Test drive Lexus RX 1998 - 2003 SUV

Five years ahead

Toyota engineers have clearly shown what Lux is a luxury parquet in the coming years.
 
Not from our area
E-heh, Hali Gali! Cob, cob-t-ba! Nemizakally, I hummed in the veneered window of the cheerful aria of Balbes from the Caucasian captive. And the light brown woolen lake of frightened sheep obediently parted in front of the mighty silver hood of Lexus. A shaggy shepherd dog spent a car with a skeptical look. With a look that reminded me of a phrase from another immortal Gaidaev comedy: our people by taxi
 
How reasonable the distrust of the dogs is, I understood already at the next turn. The laundry, dotted with small, sharp and large, properly with the lamb head with stones, climbed upwardly upwards. Here and there he plowed the rains left by rains. By golly, I feel sorry for the car! This is Lexus, in the end, and not some shabby army goat!
 
However, my RX300, almost inaudibly rumbling with a motor, assertedly rose higher and higher. This master's shepherd looped like a crazy snake, the stones from under the wheels gently and silently broke down the steep, overgrown with a rare shrub of the slope. I could only press the gas pedal, twist the light, covered with black leather and enjoy music from 11 speakers of the audio system Mark Levinson.
 
  Gold and platinum for quality
All RX300 has been produced since December 1997 at the Toyota Supernome Assembly Plant in the city of Miata at the southern most large Japanese Kyusu Islands. The enterprise, opened in 1992, is directly fanatically related to product quality. Moreover, it is provided not only by traditionally conscious Japanese workers, creating quality circles and inventing various devices and equipment that are useful for business. This notorious this consciousness is supported in Miath with remarkable working conditions. Just imagine all the factory workshops are equipped with air conditioning systems. Or another example: a 4000-ton press on which body panels (in the picture) are stamped, covered with a huge soundproof casing and installed on mighty springs 372 mm thick to reduce vibration.
 
The result was not slow to affect. In 2001, the American research organization Jay Di Power awarded the plant in Miata a world platinum award for product quality. And a year later, a gold medal as the best enterprise in Asia.
 
Who is he really?
Just three hours ago, meticulously looking at the car with which I had to spend two days on the roads of Sardinia, I seemed to guess his character at first glance. This is, of course, not a jeep. Large wheels and a rather high road clearance will not deceive me. There was no trace of the deliberate seriousness of a real alternate in the RX300. On the contrary, swift, aggressive lines spoke of speed, dynamics, but not at all about gigiper qualities. The predatory (eagle, as the creator of the machine says, the chief engineer of the Takumi Ichikava project) The gaze of slanting headlights, a steep inclination of the front racks, a bully antenna, an energetic drawing of the rear racks, a fashionable sport-universal, not otherwise. Only for some reason is too high and impressively formidable.
 
The first road impressions only strengthened this opinion. Not at all the most powerful motor for a large SUV, a steamed engine with a 5-speed automatic accelerated heavy Lexus easily and confidently. An independent suspension made it possible to pass the turns clearly, without frightening rolls. The cabin is wonderful quietly, the interior breathes with comfort and is permeated with expensive comfort. Dials on the dashboard are deeply drowned in three wells. Soft to the touch textured plastic in combination with aluminum and skin, even without wooden inserts, looks very solid and at the same time stylish.
 
However, a high landing created a unique feeling of commanding confidence, inherent only in large jeeps, but not sports universals and not even prestigious expensive sedans. If you add to it the comfort of a real luxury class, we get an amazing and perhaps irresistible combination for fans of all-terrain cars.
 
How to conquer Europe?
The Japanese, we need to pay tribute to them, this is exactly what they achieved. For five years, more than half a million RX300 has been produced. However, their lion's share (almost 70 percent) was sold in the United States. Since 2000, in Europe, only a little more than 15 thousand managed to implement. That is why, creating the heir of the three hundredth, the Japanese from the very beginning sought to give him the features that would attract a spoiled European buyer.
 
Firstly, unlike the American version, they opted for a three-liter engine (in the states of Lexus it is sold with a 3.3 l engine). Having conjured with inlet and exhaust pipelines, they slightly increased the capacity by only 3 liters. With. But this unit is already satisfying the requirements of Euro IV for harmful emissions, entering into force only in 2005. In addition, by modernizing the injection system and having worked out with transfer numbers, fuel consumption was reduced by 0.8 liters.
  
Europeans are still skeptical of automatic gearboxes. So, secondly, the new RX300 received a 5-speed machine with the possibility of manual sequential gear shifts. Do you definitely want to wield a lever yourself? Please transfer the selector to the sport position and have fun for health.
  
Manageability is another fetish that is blindly worshiped in Europe. In order to improve it in every way, Japanese engineers developed a new supporting body of high -strength steel, which provides greater rigidity for twisting. We revised the geometry of the front and rear suspension, improved the steering. Finally, they developed a new pneumatic suspension, which can be installed on order.
 
 
The most difficult system of the climate control of the climate control for the driver and passenger of the Climate Control modestly called the electronic nervous system
 
Audiosystem control keys on the steering wheel Standard equipment RX300
 

 
The nine airbags include the knee and side of the volume increased by 6 liters of volume
 

Pneumatics, unlike traditional springs, can change the clearance. In the normal position, it is 185 mm, and on a bad road by pressing the button on the dashboard increases by 30 mm. Moreover, the road clearance can be reduced by 15 mm. On the highways, at speeds over 100 km/h, this reduces the coefficient of air resistance CC with 0.34 (the best indicator in the class, by the way) to 0.33. And even if the speed of the machine exceeded a hundred, the electronics will independently reduce the road clearance from a normal level by 7.5 mm. In the same case, when you forgot to switch from high to normal, the same electronics will do it for you after reaching 50 km/h. And finally, for the convenience of planting or loading luggage, there is a mode in which the body will drop 25 mm to 160.
 
Is it worth the tricky pneumatics of the money that needs to be paid for it (in Russia the difference is $ 5,000)? Undoubtedly. Not only because of the abundance of modes, although it is difficult to overestimate an increase in clearance on our roads. Among other things, the air suspension, as I was convinced on the winding mountain roads of the Mediterranean island, makes the car much more collected, allowing you to more confidently pass, and at the same time it is noticeably more comfortable.
  
So let's drink for electronics!
It is easy to guess that without controlling electronics, such a suspension could not work reliably and efficiently. If you recall everything to a single sophisticated systems with which the Toyota engineers equipped their car for an outdoor activities of the highest class, then calculating the number of all kinds of sensors and control blocks will be as difficult as the number of stars in the sky and grains of sand in the desert.
 
In addition to the suspension and gearboxes, this is acis, which changes the length of the intake pipeline depending on the loading of the motor, EVD, distributing brakes along the axes, VSC, monitoring the stability of the machine on the road, anti -wings TRC, AFS, which turns the nearby headlights in vihi.
Automatic inclusion of external and internal lighting, rain sensor and a supercrespissing air conditioning system everything is in this machine. And besides, alas, the super -submarine display of the navigation system and, most importantly, the color camera of the rear view is not yet supplied to Russia.
 
And finally, electronics leads in the new Lexus a drive for all wheels. In the transmission of the RX300 of the first generation, the role of the center differential played WISKOFT, redistributing the craving for those wheels that have a better clutch. Now the Japanese, leaving a constant all -wheel drive, dividing the craving equally between the front and rear axle, replaced the mechanics more complex and effective, according to the chief designer of Yukiiro Okan, an electronic system. It is a combination of TRC and VSC, which, as they say, is written in the family to brake one or another wheel.
 
How exactly all this works, the Japanese did not find it necessary to clarify. In principle, in such systems there is nothing revolutionary. And is it so important for the owner of Lexus? Agree, few, having bought this machine, will be interested, say, the design of the active engine suspension. It is much more important that this wonderful thing extinguishes the engine fluctuations, reducing noise and vibration. That is why the cabin is brimly quiet.
 
 
Smart lighting of the cabin when planting and landing is included in the equipment of R2
 
The rear lights on LEDs contribution to the active safety of the car. They light up earlier than ordinary stop-signals at a speed of 100 km/h, this gives an advantage of 6 meters
 
The rear door is first used on all -rounds. You can control it with a button (in the picture) or from the alarm remote control
 

And with an electronic differential. Who cares, how exactly he is arranged, Toyota engineers believe. Although I admit, it was curious. Especially after in search of spectacular frames, we drove the RX300 on a sandy beach. We sit down, sit down, I whispered to myself. You can’t mock the car like that. Not for beach walks, it was created. If the day was cursed when ... And with longing looked around the desert coast plus 22, in such cold weather, the inhabitants of Sardinia are in no hurry to plunge into the sea, so that almost two -ton forator will have to pull out on their own. But nothing, dyeing in front of the camera in the rays of the setting sun, slowly, a heap, carefully RX300 got out on a solid soil. And I once again remembered the Caucasian captive. So let's drink for electronics! Student Shurik would definitely appreciate this toast.
 
Everything you want and something else in addition
In Russia, Lexus-RX300 in the basic equipment R1 will cost $ 54,900. For this money you will receive a wonderful convenient car with xenon headlights with washing and foglights, 17-inch light alloy wheels, leather salon, audio center with 8 speakers and control keys On the steering wheel, immobilizer, alarm, central locking, heated windshield, heating and electric drive of the front seats with memory for two drivers, separate climate control, cruise control and 9 pillows, electric windows and heated mirrors, folding in parts and regulated in The longitudinal direction of the rear seats.
 
If you want RX300 with a pneumatic suspension, then for $ 59,900 you will also receive 18-inch discs with tires 235/55 R18, rain sensor, the rear door door and the salon lighting system when planting. By paying another $ 3500, you can equip the RX300 with adaptive light, roof religions, an electric drive and an audio system Mark Levinson with 11 speakers.
 
Alexander Melnik, photo Lexus
 
 

Source: Magazine "Limousine" [07/03]