Rx300, Good And Bad

Morton · March 22, 2015

I bought a 2006 RX300 SE-L in December 2014 and so far I'm pleased with the car. I love the interior, the engine is a beauty and it handles very well for a 2 tonns SUV. But I must say I'm not very impressed with the noise isolation on this car. When going over 80 km/h the road noise is very bad i think. A lot of rumbling. A Mark Levinson sound system is somewhat silly on these conditions.

My two previous Avensis were very quiet compared to the RX300. Especially my 2006 T25 Executive. I thought maybe it was the tires so I switched to Michelins which on paper was the most quiet tires, but it didn't improve much. I guess the RX300 just dont like the Norwegian highways with their special grainy asphalt. I'll try to get used to it :-)

plastic orange · March 22, 2015

I bought a 2005 RX 300SE for my wife a few weeks ago and I've found it to be almost as quiet as my LS400 with very little road noise - on Bridgestone potenzas. It may be that the air suspension models suffer in this department. I went for the model I did as I didn't want air or Battery probs.

Pete

ChrisKaye · March 23, 2015

Hi Morton,

Welcome!

My RX is the quietest car I've owned, and even if I get spoilt, I just need to hop back in our other cars to realise how refined it is!

Wasn't the 2006 model supposed to have a slightly different windscreen to further reduce noise?

Maybe it is something other than the tyres like roof bars?

Different roads can make a heck of a lot of difference for noise tho.

Thanks,

Chris

Morton · March 23, 2015

Thanks for the replies guys.

Pete, yes, it should have been interesting to testdrive a SE just to compare. But Chris got a SE-L which is very quiet so I wonder.

Also in a couple of weeks I'll be changing to the summertires that came with the car, Goodyear Efficientgrip. That will maybe tell me something more..