Cars, Lexus | featured news

Lexus, Porsche and Lincoln are the best performers in an annual survey of vehicle dependability.

The driver’s seat cushion on the Dodge Charger kept squeaking as the car hit bumps in the road. It was starting to get annoying. Like a pesky mosquito, the problem came and went a few times during a week-long test-drive recently. Fortunately, no other obnoxious sounds disturbed the car’s quiet, comfortable interior. The only other glaring fault was its finicky Garmin navigation system.

Toyota is recalling 1.53 million Lexus, Avalon and other models, mostly in the U.S. and Japan, for brake fluid and fuel pump problems, the latest in a string of quality problems for the world's No. 1 automaker.

Among the Toyota recalls are 373,000 2000-4 Avalon models for a steering problem that could cause a crash, and 39,000 2003-7 Lexus LX 470 S.U.V.'s for a steering defect.

Toyota started recalling more than 90,000 luxury Lexus and Crown vehicles Monday in Japan over defective engines - the latest setback for the automaker beset with quality problems.

Consumer Reports is telling its readers to avoid buying the 2010 Lexus GX 460 because of a handling problem that could lead to a rollover.