savant17

The dark side of the force (new 3 series) is beginning to draw me away. It is becoming difficult to be patient with lack of official information regarding pricing, specs, colors, and reviews on the new IS.

The urge to drive a new car is growing, and without anything to compare to, I fear that I may give in to this temptation.

More info from Lexus will keep me and possibly others from turning to the dark side.

Ratman009

I reallly wanted to have my new car by August/September at the latest. The wait is killing me as well. I just bugged the sales guys at DeFeo Lexus and they are not expecting any more solid information for 6-8 weeks.

Complicating the issue is the opportunity to snag my father's '02 BMW 330i (sport/premium/cold weather/step) off his 39 month lease in August. He's only got 19K on the car right now and did a 12k/year lease. So his buyout is like $24500. Plus, he took such good care of the car and already has a nice set of Mille Miglia rims and Blizzak LM22s for the car for the winter. And, he got one of the "good" BMWs without a single issue in three years with the car. But the body style is "old" already.

What to do, what to do.

rominl

iTrader: (4)

haha me on the other hand i feel good about this, coz' you know they have something good, to me that's well worth the wait. it used to be the case where you dont' even know anything about lexus cars until very shortly before the release, now it's a lot "better" already

iatacs19

I would go for the BMW, it's a no brainer.

flipside909

It's worth the wait. If you're in SoCal...you might be invited to a special preview exclusive to CL members a few months before it's actual release in August. But you didn't hear that from me.

LexFather

PAtience young Jedi........

Impatience, the Dark Side way it is....

Ratman009

I know it should be an easy decision, but this was supposed to be my first new car and I really didn't want to buy something that has already been replaced by a newer body style. Financially, it is the best decision hands down, but I'm letting emotion rule over common sense. Of course, my wife wants me to take my dad's old 3 to save money, even though she thinks his car is too damn small and absolutely LOVED the IS at the NY auto show. Plus, the Lexus is made so much better and all that practical stuff (though they say the new IS will NOT have a fold down rear seat, which helps alot in cars with small trunks like this.

And there are just so many damned 3's on the road (though not many 330i Sports, and I did get my dad to add on the M lip spoiler to his car). Judging from the looks of the new IS, I think we'll be seeing a LOT of 250s on the road as well.

If he had a 330 Performance package car, I wouldn't been in such a predicament right now. Damn, I should have bought one of those a month or two ago when I could have gotten one for 34-35K.

encore888

I live in SoCal...do I have to sign up or something?

BTW, I signed up for 'more IS info' on the Lexus.com website, but I haven't received anything...has anyone gotten any info from Lexus?

flipside909

I will pass the info along shortly. Just stay tuned. We're doing this directly with Lexus Marketing.

RohithT

Actually, I did a brief test drive of the new 330i yesterday, and it's quite impressive. The version I drove didn't have the sports pack on it and it still handled really well. I've driven pretty much all of the competitors in the class that are out, save for the 9-3 and I haven't driven a G35 since they upgrade the engine, and I'd have to say that with my limited time behind the wheel, to me a non-sports pack 330i is almost as good as a sports pack equipped A4. They really did a great job with it, and while looks are obviously subjective, it looks much better in real life than in photos. AND, there's a standard auxillary audio in jack under the front arm rest, which is quite sweet. Oh yeah, and the 330i's mileage is 21/29 with the auto. Sweet. The A4 3.2's mileage is 19/26, for comparison. I did get to sit in a sports pack car, and the sports seats are typical of all other BMW sports seats– abso-freaking-lutely great.

There's only one problem with it–*the interior. I don't think the materials are even as good as the E46's (my folks have a 2000 323i, so I have a valid basis of comparison). The A4's interior is so much better than the E90's in my eyes (hell, the X-Type's is better). I test drove the A3 and the E90 back-to-back, and I prefer the A3's by far. The worst is the really hard upper dash (the black part). There's this hard crease where it changes from horizontal to vertical, and it's just really hard and the grain is rough. I don't like it at all. In fact combine that with iDrive, and I dislike the interior enough for the E90 to have fallen out of contention for me.

I used to be in the same boat as you, savant17, but I've pushed back my timeframe to sometime next year. Right now, though, the A4 avant looks to be my next car . However, if the IS350 wows me like it could very possibly do, I may just forget about the whole wagon thing and go for that.

Ratman009

RohithT:

Have you taken a drive in the new Legacy GT limited yet? If you are considering a wagon, you really should check the car out. Subaru has made some vast strides in the overall quality of the new legacy, never mind how fun the car is to drive. It may be missing some of the more "lux" features of an audi or bmw (memory seating/mirrors, good stereo) come to mind, but other than that, the car has a fantastic motor (really, the freakin' thing is quick) really nice auto tranny (the stick is faster), but I didn't really care for the feel of the stick - I hear the short throw kit from subie really helps). I'd defintely check one out, as well as a Volvo V70R if you can find one on a lot somewhere. You defnitely need the stick in the volvo though, as their auto kills the performance.

RohithT

Ratman, no, I haven't driven it yet. I looked at it really closely at the Chicago Auto Show, and while it's nice, the interior didn't do much for me and the seats didn't fit me all that well. Plus, it's not available with a nav, which is important to me (there's space in the dash for one, so maybe by the time I get around to buying, it may be available, but right now it's not). Also, the Legacy is too big for my tastes. I like smaller cars. Really, if the A3 3.2 quattro is available at buying time and it drives nearly as sharply as the A4 does (the new A4 really drives much better than last year's model) that might be my car.

As for the V70R, no, I haven't driven it either; I've driven the S40 AWD and the S60 T5, but neither impressed me much, largely because of what you said about Volvo's autos being poorly mated to their engines (and yes, I know it's a completely different car than those two). I have to worry about other people driving my car fairly regularly, so a stick is out of the question. Plus, it has the same size issue as the Legacy.

vwong

I'll make sure to check here as often as possible.

mmarshall

Young Jedi has a point....it IS becoming difficult to be paitient. Lexus has not done a good job getting verified info out about the new IS.................and the clock is ticking. Without flip and Longo we would probably know even less.

encore888

My brother saw the new 3-series yesterday...too bad no new IS to compare it with....

...that said, Lexus is taking its good sweet time to make sure the 2nd gen IS is the best it can be...