RX450H Bucking Around 60-70MPH

Hi there,

We are on our second RX450H (the first was a 2011 and this one is a 2015) with about 62k miles.

One thing I have noticed on both is that when trying to control speed at around 60-70MPH the car seems to buck or lurch a bit if I try and regulate speed with small adjustments to the accelerator. It almost seems like it is the gas engine turning on and off or engaging and disengaging.

Both of my RX450H's have done this but neither of my Prius models (2007 and 2013) behaved the same way. Has anyone else experienced this and is it a bad sign?

Thanks,
-Matt

 

Thanks for the replies, drash and Raytheeagle. FWIW, the issue was the same on the 2011 as on the 2015 so it seems they hadn't improved whatever the cause was during that generation. I think they switched to the new generation in 2016 so maybe that's why Ray isn't experiencing it.

There's no tachometer on the 2015, even in sport mode, there is just the ECO/POWER indicator and the speedometer. I've tried watching the energy screen to see if there is a visible change between the gas engine kicking on and off but I think the data refresh isn't fast enough to capture anything.

That's what it seems like to me, though, is that as the car decelerates from letting off the gas a little the gas engine gets confused about what to do and "false starts" a few times until you accelerate again. As a product designer, though, it would surprise me that the design or validation team would have let something like that make it through the design cycle for that many years without addressing it.