flipside909

That would be a first for Lexus or Toyota as a whole for that matter.

LexFather

That guy is full of crap. Since its the same engine, that is impossbile. All Lexus engines from my understanding are at leat tier 1 emessions compliant and the new one are the cleanest gas engines you can buy. Lexus CLEARLY stated themselves, they will be offering different drivetrains and updated engines instead of going 5+ years with the same engine ala BMW and Benz.

Looking at BMW and Benz resale values, updated engines do not hurt resale value. What does hurt resale value is lowering your price when you update the car. No one wants a more expensive car with the worse engine.

Bottom line, the 3.5 will be brought to update the GS lineup like the E320 just got a 4 year update to ES 350 and the BMW 5 got a 3 year update with a brand new engine.

Mark

Lexus new strategy is to change the car model every 5 years as opposed to the current update every 7 years. They said that customer wants a new & fresh design every 5 years. The new LS450 will be out in September 2006. During that time the GS450 will be delivered.

The reason the 2005 GS430 did not have e-shift was because Lexus have difficulties complying with emission with the e-shift and the 430 engine. Thus the story with the 3.5 engine in the GS might hold true.

flipside909

Lexus' strategy for their passenger car line is 5 years. That's nothing new, that's been a Toyota philosophy for the longest time. The 2nd Gen GS going for 7 years is beyond me.

1st year = introduction
2nd year = generally unchanged
3rd year = Powertrain upgrade/revision
4th year = Exterior/Interior updates
5th year = unchanged/special limited edition package.

This is nothing new.