DrivenSoul

First of all the appearance it has in real life... It's very aggressive and eye catching! The headlights kind of worried me in photos but pull off well in real life. The swooping line across the hips of the car are MUCH more pronounced in the new IS and make the car look very muscular. The tail-lights also worried me in photos due to the way it swoops so low into the sides, but it pulls of nicely. The only things I SORT-OF dislike is the FR-S style trunk, bulky side view mirrors and the rear bumper black trim is sorta.. large.

Interior wise... The Nu-Luxe seats look really nice but I honestly miss the feel of leather riding in them. The rear seats seem Much more roomy and I could see myself going on a 1 hour trip without feeling too claustrophobic in the rear seats. The center console is not for me, I prefer the older gen's touch screen as the menus are a little difficult to follow. The computer also seems to lag sometimes which is annoying. The Mark Levinson stereo somehow seems worse than the outgoing IS despite a brand new location on the dashboard that I thought would make it much better to listen to... Imaging, Stage, and tonality all seemed pretty badly off with all tone settings set to (0). The AC controls is touch/slide which seems unnecessary to me. Besides the seats and the way they designed the seat fabric which is appealing and comfortable. The design of the center dash just looks too modern and "hip". I don't feel coddled in luxury riding in this car, I feel like I'm riding in a futuristic supercomputer or a spaceship. Some may enjoy this but I prefer simplicity and function. Little thing too, the rear map lights are halogen now not LEDs anymore.

Driving-wise: I did not get to drive it but I tried to soak in as much info as I could in the passenger seat. First of all I sat in the driver's seat with the engine on and felt the steering wheel, it seems a lot more comfortable than the older one, I had an issue with the older IS because I felt that the column of the wheel comes out of the dash too low, which makes my leg smash into it and also makes the steering wheel angle awkward if you move the steering wheel up too far (think school bus steering wheels!). The LF-A style gauges are cool but I don't really care much for them. But the wheel itself feels really solid and looks great! Turning the wheel from a dead stop though, I get the impression that the steering wheel might feel a little more electric and dead than the older IS.
I had the driver who was a Lexus salesman switch between sport and normal modes to feel the suspension. On "normal", it felt like the shocks were too weak and the car had a tendancy to bob around a little. On "sport", the shocks were too strong and the car kind of felt awkward negotiating bumps... He threw it into manual mode and I watched closely at the gear ratios, I thought that 8 speeds meant that the gears would seem very short and sporty, but from gears 1-4 I thought the ratios felt identical to an older IS350. The downshifts were pretty impressive and smooth, but the car seems to not want to downshift when you're trying to force a downshift to say 4500rpm or higher.

Overall... I don't think I would trade in my (My mom's LOL) 2007 IS350 for a new IS. She had a 2003 BMW 330i until this year when we got the IS due to the bimmer having too many mechanical problems. I told my parents just to get a used IS since there didn't seem to be too many changes besides aesthetic ones and a similarly equipped new IS (2013 at the time) was 40k+ vs 26k. If I were to look at a new IS for myself though (I do like to daydream)... I'd have a hard time deciding between the 250 or 350. The IS doesn't really feel like a sporty car, when I drive her car I RARELY get on the gas and when I do, it feels out of place but fast and fun. It's more of a cruising car and the new ones feels even more like a cruising car from what I gathered. I wouldn't have a care in the world and would enjoy having a non F 250 and just enjoy it. So if you're looking at a new IS and don't want to spend too much for the 350... The 250 honestly should be fine and if you want power, ride in someone's M3!

I just totally threw this together cuz I'm trying to hurry cuz I'm about to eat dinner... But those are my confusing but candid thoughts

corradoMR2

Thanks for the detailed review. One area where I have yet to find feedback is on NVH. How does this compare to the 2IS? And suspension comfort comparison?

1sWt2GS

iTrader: (6)

I noticed the same in the seats. The F-Sport seats in particular in the new IS looks so nice but doesn't compare to the leather IS

DrivenSoul

From what I can tell the cabin noise is very similar to the previous IS, it's very quiet even at highway speed. I have noticed the old IS has some wind noise but forgot to pay attention when I was riding in the new one. The engine can definitely be heard under hard acceleration but it's not loud or annoying. During cruising it was very quiet.

Suspension... I think I like the 07' IS more. I havent rode in a non-F new IS but the Sport and Normal modes didn't match up well to me. The shocks were either too soft in normal or too stiff in sport, it never felt perfectly matched with the springs. I think with some subtle lowering springs like Swift on sport mode it would ride really nice. But it seemed like Normal rode too mushy and bouncy and Sport made the shocks too firm and the car didn't feel right over bumps

DrivenSoul

btw, the thing that left me a little indifferent about the new IS is that it feels so similar to the old IS if you were to just close your eyes and ride in it. That's why I feel like if you already have an IS, it's not really enough to change to the new one, unless you REALLY wanted the updated appearance and features. I guess you could say the same for a lot of new cars though.

SW17LS

To be fair...thats riding. When you drive the car theres a pretty marked difference. The new car is significantly more agile and much more rigid...

DrivenSoul

Yeah I do understand that, I regularly drive/ride around with my friends in many cars to play around with our adjustable shocks and simply try to feel as many different suspensions as possible. We got pretty decent at guessing how the car handles or how it's different from another car even from the passenger side of things. The driver didn't take any particularly hard corners, but it really didn't feel much different to me. I know in some review I've read that they claimed the new IS felt a lot more planted to the ground, but I think minor tweaks to the old one could gain similar results like better springs/shocks or bigger sways

I'm just talking about cruising down the road, something just feels off about the way they calibrated the shocks on the F-Sport. BUT again it was a relatively short ride about 10-15 minutes. I was hard at work though trying to gather any thoughts or impressions and imprinting them into my mind for later! lol

SW17LS

You can't tell anything about driving dynamics from riding in the passenger seat...thats like saying you know what something tastes like by looking at it.

I've driven both cars, and the 3IS is significantly stiffer and nimbler than the 2IS. I didn't feel anything "weird" or "off" about the suspension...nor have any of the journalists who have tested the car on the road or on the track...universal praise for the car's chassis compared to other cars in its class and certainly the outgoing car.

DrivenSoul

To me if the driver is provoking the car enough and you have a general grasp at what's going on, it could tell you a lot. In fact riding shotgun allows you to take your concentration away from driving the car and just concentrate on how the car is responding to bumps or how it reacts to cornering

SW17LS

Sorry...but thats ridiculous.

DrivenSoul

The thing about "stiffer and nimbler" is it could be hugely affected by just changing out shocks or trying out new springs. So all I'm saying is that if you already have an older IS and were leaning towards a new one, just doing some suspension mods you could bring your car closer to how the new one feels without actually getting a brand new car.

The shocks aren't WAY off to the point where the car is bouncing and bobbing away constantly, but I just felt that the older non-F IS that I drive often has the shocks and springs tuned in more precisely. I am a bit OCD when it comes to the way a car rides, and I just happened to notice that the new IS350 F never really felt perfectly matched. I could never fully take my mind off the way the car rode because it rode kinda oddly

Actually I kinda felt the same way when I test drove the new BMW 550i Twin Turbo when it came out that had a similar suspension setting. It makes sense to me though.. It's almost like aligning two things together. When the shocks and springs are in harmony, everything about the way the car rides just feels "right", So if you deviate from that "rightness" and make the shocks softer or stiffer from that ideal setting.. Of course you will feel something is off. It's not hugely off but I could notice it

SW17LS

A bit more precisely than the car you haven't driven?

I'm sorry to be hard on you, I realize that you are likely a kid...but people are looking at these threads trying to make up their minds about which model to buy, etc and we have to call a spade a spade. You can't be taken seriously commenting on the driving dynamics of two cars when you have not driven one of them. Riding in a car is a completely different experience than driving it.

No. Replacing shocks and springs does not make a car "stiffer". The difference is in the rigidity of the 3IS' body vs that in the 2IS and its resistance to flex. There's nothing you can do to a 2IS to get that rigidity.

DrivenSoul

I wouldn't call myself any type of professional driver but I think I'm passionate about driving enough to least know a thing or two... I just have my own way of looking at things and I do believe that I got a good amount of info out of how the car rides just by... Riding in it. When I'm not at home sitting at the computer I try to be out doing things like this, and I spend a great deal trying to learn about my car and seeing how the suspension/handling changes when I start tweaking or changing out parts b/c I want the car to be safe when I'm out doing this!


And this isn't my car but I still enjoyed learning how different the FR-S feels to the BRZ!

SW17LS

You...need....to....drive.....the....car. I don't care if you are Mario Andretti, you can't know how a car handles and drives unless you drive it.

DrivenSoul

lol well you can say whatever you want, but at the end of the day I know what I'm thinking and it doesn't take a genius to ride in a car and get an idea of how it rides. The passenger seat is just as involving of a seat as the driver's. It doesn't somehow insulate you from the driving experience. If you watch the driver and feel the car's reaction you can in a way drive the car through the other person. I'm sorry my imagination may be too wild for you but it's not like what I said is misleading. I clearly said that I rode in the car and "from what I could tell it felt like this", and honestly I wouldn't take the time to say it and write a huge review about it if I didn't believe it.

Obviously new is always going to be "better" and have all sorts of improvements, but I just wanted to give my personal opinion and just show that the old IS isn't too far off, at least in my humble opinion. That's simply it