Hi, Did you do anything further after replacing speakers? Robin
Nope. I have just fiddled with the bass and treble controls and found some settings I can live with. The longer I am away from the old Avalon, the less I notice the difference, and the better the XG sounds. It seems not so shabby now. So I think I will just hang with this for the forseeable future. If this were the car I was the main driver of, I would probably go the next step, whatever that might be. But I'm just the weekend driver of it, and any further step I might take would probably involve changing the look of the dash, and that would be met with a lot of squawking from the first mate. It's not worth the hassle. If you ever do something to yours that thrills you, let me know. Nuts to it, there's my email address. How much more spam could I get?
It's funny, the more time goes on, I'm less dissatisfied also. I will probably do something eventually, but it doesn't feel so urgent now. Yes, I'll let you know.
Robin, anything to report on your purchase? Treating you well? ElantraStan http://www.stanarseneaux.com/elantra/
The car drives like a dream, no problems to report. I still marvel at how beautiful it is, and like very much that I don't see a lot of them on the road, it makes it more interesting. In southern Calif, where I live, the cars I see most are Accords, Altima, Focus, and Taurus. When I do see an XG350L, curiously, it's always a white one, like mine. I was so proud a few days ago when a woman approached me in a parking lot and said simply "beautiful car". I was disappointed when she didn't ask "what is it?" I'm still waiting for that so I can watch their face when I tell them. I will have a lot of fun with that, hope it happens, and more than once. Robin
Our XG350L has got 2,200 miles on it now. So far so good. My only points of contention with the design engineers are: Stereo could be better (the initial point of this thread). Auto Lights On/Off feature needs to have a delay mechanism. If I drive under a bridge at dusk or during a cloudy period, the lights come on and go right off as I exit from under the bridge. The driver in front of me thinks I'm flashing him. I like the feature, as I have had it before, but this sensor needs tweaking. Memory seats need to be changed to work without key in ignition. The current setup where you have to set the emergency brake to activate the seat retraction so that us tall guys can get in after the short wife exits is poorly thought out. Back seat not as roomy as my old Avalon, but then again, the car is $8,500 cheaper. Much has already been written about the sensitive fly-by-wire gas pedal accelerating from a dead stop. It takes some getting use to. Then again, it's nice to complain about too much acceleration. Other than that, it drives and rides fine. Gas mileage is around 21 in mixed driving. Not regretting the purchase one bit. I happened to share a five-hour ride with a fellow at work who recently acquired a Jaguar (be sure to say Jag-U-ar) X-type, the $30K-ish all wheel drive model. Beautiful car, no question, maybe the nicest one in the lot at work. But if we ever take that long drive again, I'll offer to drive. The front seat of the Jag is way less roomy than the XG, and the back seat is ridiculous. The ride was nothing special, certainly no better than the Hyundai's. And when he had to fill up with premium gas, I'm politely keeping my mouth shut and thinking, keep your status, and give me my XG.
I have to admit that I haven't taken the time to learn the features very well yet. I was under the impression that Auto Lights On/off is a setting that can be chosen. I have not changed it from whatever it was set to when I drove it home from the dealer and have had to manually turn on the lights so I assumed Auto lights was off. Curiously, the other day when I drove into my garage, the lights turned on. That hasn't happened before nor since. I always assume when something odd happens, that I caused it somehow. I haven't experienced that with my car. I've only checked my mileage twice, right after I got the car. With mixed driving, it was 17.5/mpg. I intend to check it again to see if I can do better now that the car has "broken in". Am I calculating this correctly? This is what I'm doing: 1) I calculate how many miles I've driven since the car was last full until now, as close to empty as I dare to get (just a hair to the left of the Empty line). 2. I divide the number of miles the car ran on a full tank by 18.5 gallons, the number of gallons the car holds. I really find the ride of the XG to be special. And when he had to fill up with premium gas, I'm politely LOL. I could not be more proud of my XG if it were any other car, I'm serious. I experience it to have the look and drive of a luxury class car. I'm having a problem though, one I've never experienced before. I want to also buy a Sonata (especially before the body style changes from the current Jaguar-ish look) and an Elantra GT for the different kind of drive and experience they each offer. Unless I win the lottery, I won't be following thru on this, but the desire to do so is strong. You're the only one I've admitted this to, so keep it between us, ok? Robin
LOL on your last 'secret' point. Use your trip odometer to compute your gas mileage. You have two odomoters, one that is unchangeable, and one that you can reset back to zero to determine the length of a trip, hence the name. To compute your gas mileage: Fill up your tank. Before you pull off, reset your trip odometer to zero by pushing in on the black stem located by the odometer, right under the speedometer. Then, next time to stop for gas (doesn't mmater if you're still half full, whatever), fill up the tank and note the gallons on the pump that it took to fill it all the way up. Check your trip odometer. Divide the miles you drove since the last fillup by the gallons you just pumped in. That's your MPG. Don't forget to reset the trip odo if you want to check again next time. The Headlight Auto On/Off is a setting on your light stalk. Is it one click past On. If you leave it there, your lights will come on when they sense sufficient darkness (or you go under a bridge ;>) and they will go off if you turn off the ignition or if daylight returns.
**That's what I do. Also, I don't try to fill up the tank beyond the first 'pop' when it's finished filling. It pops out and then I note the amount and then reset the tripometer. kaboomie
Well, now that makes more sense than what I was doing. Thanks, I'm looking forward to my next fill up, probably tommorrow.
To all: One of my reservations about the '02 XG was that it did NOT have a mpg computation function - either current or average. This is something that I solely miss from my '89 Legend. I was under the impression that the later models had this. Am I not correct? -B
