When you click on links to various merchants on this site and make a purchase, this can result in this site earning a commission. Affiliate programs and affiliations include, but are not limited to, the eBay Partner Network.
As a previous BMW enthusiast i will say this ... until i drove the new IS350 ,i felt as tough bmw is god gift to car buyers !and mind you i came from an e46 zsp that is still considered the best so far( Cadillac was aiming to get that magic while giving birth to the new ATS) and i test drove the new F30 .anywho... bmw is still a phenomenal car .looks great for DD and for going out with the lady .however bmw is less forgiving than the new Lexus and its way more bumpy and stiff . while the new lexus looks so so ( it has grown on me A LOT) i know there's a big moiety regarding that. when it comes to driving its a great handling machine and much more forgiving on bad roads yet sporty and responsive.
Now lets address the 600 pound gorilla in the room. BMW has over than 20hp on the lexus plus 40+ more pound feet of tourqe and it does it with a twin TURBO! thats not apples to apples compression .
Of course you will get more quicker response with the bmw and achieve better mpg .lets put few hp on the lexus and the game changes quite a few . both cars aiming to be luxury sport sedans and Lexus in that segment does it BETTER. again the main keyword is luxury sport sedan. otherwise get stang 5.0 and throw few mods to make the bimmer catch your fumes.
I would say bmw is the ultimate driving machine when it drives ,with no issues. and thats the truth lease or no lease . you will visit the dealership for unknowing noises and sensors lights .as for the new lexus all i have to say great job so far and cant wait to make mods on that engine .
I was down to the 335i Xdrive and the IS350... if the BMW had the reliability I would be driving that right now, both were $41k, I had friends that had BMW's and the maintenance and issues are ridiculous so I went with reliability even though I really wanted a manual trans the reliability still trumped that desire.
The 3 series is out of the game for those of you who doesn't know, it's the 2 and 4 series that's getting heated up. Unfortunately the M2 is faster than the ISF lol. I have doubts on Lexus reliability because my 2014 IS350 F Sport has battery drainage problems atm along with many owners of the car. Also the navigation issues is damaging Lexus' reliable reputation. BIG PROBLEM IS I do not want to not be able to start an engine when I need to go somewhere asap. Lexus still has not found a solution to this defect on the 2014 IS battery problem, where the battery would died out of unknown reasons. I don't know if you guys know of this yet, but there is a few threads on this forum talking about it.
To be fair, the M235i is also faster than the previous generation M3, which was the ISF's direct competitor. Also the comparison was done at high altitude which was where the turbo of the M235i had an advantage over the NA V8 of the ISF/M3.
Conduct the test at sea level and the results would be very different.
The battery problem is simple, get a new battery. The 2IS had the exact same problem. The battery would die early but once they replaced the battery it was great. Didn't need another battery after that.
Lexus dealerships perform battery diagnostics on the battery even on routine visits. So they caught the battery in my 2IS before it went out on its own.
I looked at a BMW. Part of me wishes I would have given it more thought, but a new one was significantly more. A lightly used one was in the cards, but is was about the same price as a new IS350 and it only had 2.5 years of warranty left plus BMW doesn't have a longer powertrain warranty like Lexus does.
I do like the BMW interior/exterior styling. It's just clean and simple. The Lexus won me over for sure in that regard, but with more time, I find a bit more to nit pick in the Lexus with some hard plastics, lack of options and of course, it being a much slower car. I think BMW does a better job overall on materials. Lexus hits the touch points, but some pretty cheap plastic shows up throughout.
Also, living in Canada, I like having a remote starter. BMW won't install one and they were adament that it would void the electrical warranty where as Lexus does dealer installs of aftermarket units and they threw that in for free with my car purchase.
I think you just have to drive them and make a decision. BMW reliability to tough to peg down. Surveys, Consumer Reports and the odd first hand information I got seemed to tell me there were pretty reliable, but there are a lot of people out there who have stories of repeated issues, gremlins, random things so who knows.
The 335i is great from a performance/handling standpoint. I miss my 2013 335i. But thinking back on it you could say it doesn't feel as luxurious as the Lexus. If Lexus put in a turbo engine in the IS, I think it would change the game. Seems like that will be happenin soon...
I'm the OP and since this thread was started (18 months ago) I got myself the IS350. My wife drives the F30 335 M Sport but I drove both extensively.
Long story short and to summarize very briefly : the F30 feels like a boat, even in Sport Mode. IS350 is agile, feels better on highway driving and handles much better. The interior on the F30 is too conservative to my liking. The F30 has a better straight line acceleration without downshifting but my 8-speed IS is pretty impressive when you downshift a few gears.
Thanks for starting the comparison thread.I had not seen it before,but some very similar feelings expressed that I had with my 535ix that I just traded in.Loving my 14 USB and happy to see there is one nearby in the great city of Montreal
Hi guys! I see this topic has gotten really heated so I thought I would add my share to it
my close friend has a Nova white 328i M sport package and I have an obsidian IS250 Fsport so believe me when I say we have a conversation over which is better 10 times a week.
In my honest humble opinion:
BMW >> Lexus
- Blows out my car in acceleration ( almost on par with 350 RWD)
- Rear leg room and boot space is a little better on the bimmer
- The iDrive not only is smoother and more elegantly design but only massively bigger in full models than lexus humble 7 inch screen with laggy menus.
- engine mode selector is more refined to and when you select comfort for example (something like eco in IS) you see the changes that car goes through on the big screen while on the IS all I get is a green ugly text on the tachometer saying eco
- I'm sure some of you guys can relate to this one, in the city that I live in which is located at a very high altitude above sea level (over 1500 meters) the turbo engine is a big plus since you don't loose that much power due to high altitude
- he has the optional 5 camera surround view which is extremely helpful in tight urban driving / parking.
-better MPG
Lexus >> BMW
- Lexus is def the bigger head turner the BMWs just look too much alike these days. (my gf cant figure out the 4 series from 3 series)
- ML sound system is better than my friends Harman / Kardon
- interior is much much more eye catching that the ever boring BMWs.
- Cheaper! and not by a little especially where I live.
- more reliable ( he has dealt with 3 error checks so far this past year while I enjoyed cruising along )
- more gizmo on the base car
- much better engine sound compared to the always under pressure turbo i4.
- the tires and ride quality is much more comfortable with the non run flat tires while it has the same handling when it comes to cornering as the bimmer in my opinion.
and also wanted to say that the maintenance schedule costs are almost the same here for both.
here is a pic of us in the car wash.
Hi guys! I see this topic has gotten really heated so I thought I would add my share to it
my close friend has a Nova white 328i M sport package and I have an obsidian IS250 Fsport so believe me when I say we have a conversation over which is better 10 times a week.
In my honest humble opinion:
BMW >> Lexus
- Blows out my car in acceleration ( almost on par with 350 RWD)
- Rear leg room and boot space is a little better on the bimmer
- The iDrive not only is smoother and more elegantly design but only massively bigger in full models than lexus humble 7 inch screen with laggy menus.
- engine mode selector is more refined to and when you select comfort for example (something like eco in IS) you see the changes that car goes through on the big screen while on the IS all I get is a green ugly text on the tachometer saying eco
- I'm sure some of you guys can relate to this one, in the city that I live in which is located at a very high altitude above sea level (over 1500 meters) the turbo engine is a big plus since you don't loose that much power due to high altitude
- he has the optional 5 camera surround view which is extremely helpful in tight urban driving / parking.
-better MPG
Lexus >> BMW
- Lexus is def the bigger head turner the BMWs just look too much alike these days. (my gf cant figure out the 4 series from 3 series)
- ML sound system is better than my friends Harman / Kardon
- interior is much much more eye catching that the ever boring BMWs.
- Cheaper! and not by a little especially where I live.
- more reliable ( he has dealt with 3 error checks so far this past year while I enjoyed cruising along )
- more gizmo on the base car
- much better engine sound compared to the always under pressure turbo i4.
- the tires and ride quality is much more comfortable with the non run flat tires while it has the same handling when it comes to cornering as the bimmer in my opinion.
and also wanted to say that the maintenance schedule costs are almost the same here for both.
here is a pic of us in the car wash.
I agree with you about 95% of what you listed above. What i dont agree is that ML in 3IS sounds better than HK in F10. By now it is well known that ML in 3IS sounds mediocre. I compared several times and HK sounds richer with deeper more premium base and sound evenly encapsules the cabin, unlike the front baised IS.
05-06-14, 04:39 AM
2014 lexus IS350 vs BMW 335i
)
