5PM

Six months and 8300 miles into GS 350 F Sport ownership, here are all the things I can think to ***** about:

1) Mother Toyota nav system lockouts (what else is new? But this is by far the most annoying thing about this car…or any Toyota product).

2) Flimsy trunk lid springs (going to have them changed out at the next service).

3) Ridiculous self-cancelling seat heaters; if I want them at all, I want them HOT. Thank you, lawyers.

4) Lexus Obsidian paint is so soft it develops hairline scratches when you look at it hard. The car is still gorgeous, though and worth the effort to keep clean.

5) Memory seats that sometimes fold me into a pretzel before assuming the correct position (this is because I have the memories linked to the keys…and my wife is way smaller than me. Still, they could fix it if they tried).

6) Weak detents in the vanity mirror covers, they always open by themselves (do you get the sense that I'm reaching here?)

7) I wish the paddle shifter thing would just go away on cars that don't have true sequential manual gearboxes. Like **** on a bull, but I just ignore them.

That. Is. It.

The list of things I like would be MUCH longer. Let's just say I'm still getting a slightly evil grin on my face every time I walk up to the car. I don't believe there is a better all-around sports sedan anywhere near this price point. A keeper, no question about it.

Rexus300

iTrader: (1)

Great to hear! I am almost at 2 years with my GS F-sport and it still gives me that smile and excitement. This is a rarity among the cars I have owned. To answer the nitpicks, I did get my seat heater reprogramed my dealer under one of the customizations to keep heated seats on at the max whenever its on and never to go down to mid or lower heat level. It does turn off however when you turn off the car but you can turn it back on when you get back in and it will stay at max till you turn it off. As for number 2, I did get the springs replaced under the TSB bulletin and it helped the trunk from bouncing up and down when opening/closing it.

SW17LS

It really is a great car isn't it? My favorite car I've had, and I've had some nice cars. I'll give you some inputs on your concerns too:

Don't get too excited, the trunk still feels flimsy after the fix. Better, but not great.

Like Rexus said, the dealer can defeat this.

This is one of the reasons I have opted not to link the seats to the keys...

Keep on enjoying it!

LexFather

Literally hit 20k miles tonight and I absolutely LOVE this car!!

Nice post!

5PM

Thanks for the heads up on the seat heaters; I'll add that change to the list. Has anybody here had the dealer change the auto turn signal flash count? I tried to get that done at the 5K service and despite it being listed in the manual, they couldn't find a service reference for it.

Afrosheen

Yeah, I got the 3 to 5 flash done. Took Park Place about an hour and a half to google it and figure it out, but they did it. I prefer the 5 flash for safer passes on the highway. I don't expect everyone to pay enough attention to catch the 3 flashes.

Oh and I had it done at the 5k service also. Evidently in the manual you're supposed to have a 60 day or so window to get these modifications changed but since the dealer doesn't remind you, it doesn't matter when they do it I guess.

5PM

I found the lane change customization procedure in this thread:

https://www.clublexus.com/forums/gs-...e-blinker.html

It works but is not intuitive; took me about 15 minutes to get it right.

Trek

Six months for me too, but only 4100 miles. I did drive it today, a 150 mile round trip. Soooo comfortable. Perfect seating/driving position. Heated steering wheel (I live in snow country) and heated seats are a delight. Power when you need it or simply want it. I was so comfortable I almost fell asleep at 80 mph!

Nismo

I agree with most of your points, but about those paddle shifters... I've used them at the track and they worked well. The GS may not have a sequential manual gearbox, sure, but for a regular old automatic transmission it has the best 'manumatic' mode of any car I've driven. At the track, I tried both Sport/Sport+ Drive mode as well as manumatic mode. The Sport/Sport+ Drive mode, while ok on the street, leaves a lot to be desired at the track--it upshifts mid-corner!!! The manumatic mode, on the other hand, works pretty much as expected. It may be 10's of milliseconds off the shift speed of a DSG or a sequential manual, but it's still quite good at getting to the called-for gear in a minimal amount of time. Kudos to Lexus on this one!

Now for the downside. I use the paddle shifter frequently to downshift while in Drive during street driving and find it useful. However, when you use it to put the car in, for example, D3, it will only stay in D3 for a few seconds before reverting back to regular old D! If I put it in D3 in my Honda, it stays in D3. I am baffled as to why Lexus thinks it knows better than the driver when it comes to what Drive mode I want to be in.

Guess I'm just a contrarian here, but I love that feature on my Honda. When I open the door, the seat & mirrors adjusts to me; likewise, when my wife opens the door, the seat & mirrors adjust to her.

Now how do I get this feature you describe to work on my GS? Did you have to go to the dealer?

Anybody know how to change this option without a trip to the dealer? For the life of me, I don't understand why Lexus makes it so difficult for shade-tree mechanics to work on their own cars! I'm coming from a series of Honda, so it's been a bit of an adjustment for me. For example, all of my properly purchased Honda Factory Service Manuals were around $100-200 per vehicle, while Toyota/Lexus charges $400 PER YEAR!!!

yardie876

Isn't that what manual mode is for though? I love the fact that when I want to increase the revs while trying to pass someone, instead of mashing the pedal I can drop the gears via the paddle shifters. And when all is said and done, the car reverts back to standard drive. If I want to stay in a particular gear, I just push it over into manual mode.

Nismo

I guess that's what Lexus' engineers were thinking too. Me, personally, I'd rather have the option to put the transmission in D3, D4, etc. and it stays there until I put it in regular old Drive mode.

5PM

It's a dealer-only setting and it DOES work, it's just that if we both get into the car and we both have our key, the seat will often first go to my wife's preset position before mine. This is more amusing than alarming.

Afrosheen

With a name like Nismo I bet you know that's how the "gear limiter" works in Nissan/Infiniti already. I miss that style a little bit, but with the shifter flipped over to + / - position, I think it holds gears and won't upshift until you hit a paddle or shove the shifter. I'll test it tomorrow.

Neogenic

I have such feel of hate and love here its not funny,

zicogold

Perhaps the no. 1 gripe with the car. The centre screen crash or lockup. It would be interesting to hear if there has been a fix implemented in the 2014 models.

My wife is considerably shorter than I. With fob in pocket I would say the seats self-adjust 40% of the time, most times I have to manually hit my setting button. On occasion the seats adjust to my wife's setting, sending me into a vertebrae displacing collision course into the roof and I desperately hitting my button.

Finally, I have a squawking sound coming from the passenger side suspension over bumps and turns. It is definitely related to cold temperatures, becoming more persistent the colder it gets.

Otherwise, love the car.