jyg es3

brakes superb, steering is very good, much better then I expected. Ride for my 60 year oldback horrible. Tire noise, very very loud. Power is good, but not as great as I expected, lot of sound & fury on down shift, not as much as i expected. Problem is my bench mark m45 , that baby really goes. Ye s I know times very close, but seat of pants reaction to m45 is whoa boy does this go. reaction to
350. it goes good. Nothing that 6MT wouold not fix. The real downer is the traction conrol (vdm) . You disengage it, get down on the car, one time, then after that is engages itself again. Lots of vibration through doors, seats and brake pedal. That is with out radio. With radio(standard , not levinson) speakers vibrate doors way too much. Tone controls set on FLAT. Guess it is a boy racer . I'm no longer a boy.

XeroK00L

Just a thought. Did you try it with the ECT PWR mode on? I haven't myself but everyone who's tried it said it made a big difference in that "power feel". The NVH issues are a bit unusual, given that the car's quality has been generally praised and that objective instrumented tests have shown that the IS350's interior noise level is among the lowest if not the lowest in the class. How many miles did your test car have? Try finding one with a lower mileage and test drive again, I'd say.

Also, if the ride is "horrible" for your "60 year oldback" perhaps you might want to try a non-sport IS350 instead.

05RollaXRS

IS350 is actually faster than the M45, but M45s V8 massive torque makes one feel speed and not horsepower. Torque makes you feel going faster than you actually are while a car with more horsepower needs to be looked at the speedometer to see how fast you are going. The power button is another thing that makes a difference. Car and Driver tested both of the cars:

IS350
0-60:5.1 secs
Quartermile:13.7 secs

M45
0-60:5.6secs
Quartermile: 14.2 secs

jyg es3

did not notice any difference, you are probably correct about the "torque" real problem about m45 is its fugly. More important v-8 seems to have a engine problem that develops later in life, where engine makes strange noises. It first surfaced in q 45, later in fx 45 and now in new m45. So its not in the cards for me,,Yes non sport 350, is next car i want to test drive, but dealer says they are rare. I have driven is 250, find the ride is much more to my liking, but grossly under-powered..

dmz

These figure don't really mean anything on a day to day driving. The IS350 does better on a standing start because of the lighter weight. On a rolling acceleration like merging on the freeway or any speed over 80 MPH the M45 will walk on the IS350. Never underestimate the torque of a big V8