machmike

I've been going back and forth for weeks on the F sport package. I started out wanting an IS250 F sport (until I drove one, that thing is a dog, embarrassingly slow IMO). Following that test drive, I immediately came to the conclusion: if you are going to spend this kind of money on a car, you HAVE to go IS350 F Sport. The IS250 frankly sucks (outside of all the awesome-ness of the cosmetics). I can't think of a single rational argument that makes it worth the money. Go IS350 or buy a focus (its faster) LOL.

I will start by saying I LOVE the F Sport. The badging, The grill is amazing (in person), seats are devine, the wheels... and of course the LFA gauge is the hook, it's like the 20th wonder of the world.
The hook..... Lexus marketing mind shrinkers are total geniuses, how many people will buy a car just for that amazing gauge cluster? I was nearly one of them (and still may be).

Back to the point...
After driving the ***** off of a 2014 IS350 regular last week, I don't see the 'real' value of the F sport package beyond the looks. I couldn't make the IS350 disappoint me from a performance standpoint.

I live in Colorado, love mountain driving and all the fun that comes with it. Anyway, me and a buddy took his 2014 IS350 (with the 5 spokes) up Buffalo Bill near Golden. We went full break neck up and down 3 times each. That car stuck like velcro, we couldn't get it to behave poorly. The brakes held up great, I didn't slide around in the seats, the steering felt controlled and i thought it was nothing short of amazing. The car was flat out great. We couldn't have driven this car harder outside of a racing course atmosphere. Certain death would have been the next notch up. Anyone who has taken a motorcycle up/down that climb understands.

......Which is what lead me to the point I am at now. I think I have done a 180. There is absolutely nothing short of racing the car on a track that would really utilize much of the features the IS350 F Sport package has to offer. I didn't need sport + suspension, at all. The only reason to get it would be:

A) If, in fact you actually ARE going to race the car on a course.
B) You can't get past the cosmetic awesome-ness of the F Sport (I am kind of stuck here)
C) It fits your 'style' and you have the money to blow. And the luxury\color options just wouldn't be used.

Certainly any commuters or suburbanites are gaining nothing with the F Sport package. It becomes a $3500 Peni$ extension. And its totally worth if if that badge means that much to you.

It seems like less of a value when you look at many of the things you are throwing away such as pretty much 60% of the luxury technology stuff, the cooled seats, smart technology items, not to mention some of the best paint colors. The regular IS350 is plenty good and sporty looking and has more exterior/interior color diversity. And considering 5% of drivers will actually use the cars actual F Sport advantage on any sort of racing course, the F Sport package is really just for looks. The IS350 with luxury options is undoubtedly the best value for the IS cars Period. You dollar is fully maximized without sacrificing anything off of a race track in the performance areas. Lexus really needs to make the F Sport something more than it currently is to draw a clear line.

The worst part is i'm still thinking of getting and F Sport it for that damn LFA gauge..........someone please tell me the moving gauge parlor trick gets old....

John510

I used to think my lfa gauge was cool and high tech until I saw a Tesla. The Tesla technology makes the Lexus look very outdated.

JerryWest

It's what -- another $30K(before rebates) for the Tesla and a few hours to fill the tank (if you can find a charging station) - There's number of them in OC and one of them looked at my 2014 IS as I looked at his ride.

saferisk

Noted that we still get all those things on the is350 fsport downunder

natnut

Looks like Lexus is a victim of its own success : the basic engineering on the IS chassis/suspension is so good that even a base IS chassis without the F-Sport AVS and VGRS is more than enough for almost all spirited driving outside the track.

Call me OCD but when I buy a car, I just NEED to get the sportiest version possible.

kabgolf1

IN my opinion, I feel the F-Sport package is worth every penny and trade off. The styling alone is what makes the car amazing. Granted, I would like to have it all and keep all of the luxury options in the F-Sport, but that is not to happen right now and I would not get the Luxury version as I find it to be too conservative for my taste. As far as the performance, it will not be totally utilized but it is nice to know it is there.

bigtang1

machmike - You are not alone - although a 350 with the Lux. package is actually a bit more expensive than the FSport package - I'm trying to tell myself that the FSport is cheaper !

GrandSedanFan

iTrader: (1)

If it were me, I'd get the Luxury Package instead. Ergonomically, it's just harder for me to clear the bottom of the steering wheel in the manual tilt cars, even with the wheel all the way up. The power tilt and telescope cars have a much bigger range of tilt.

Also, fans on my butt.

jhs82

A fully equiped F-sport costs more than the Luxury (in Sweden Executive).
The seats in the F-sport are nice, and i like the grill. The rest of the F-sport package is... meh.

No need for the S+ mode, and i don't like the single gauge that much. Looks cool now, but in 5 years?
And the F-sport front bumper is a bit to much, considering the rest of the car is sharply designed. The non F-sport front bumber suits it better.

Glashub

Granted the regular IS is more than enough for most people and would be the preference for people with heavy commutes. Here's why I chose an Fsport:

1. The design language inside and out screams Fsport to me rather than luxury. The Q50 and BMW look more like the traditional luxury cars.
2. The rush! The Fsport serves much the same purpose that a motorcycle served when I had one. It makes me want to get out early on the weekends and drive through the canyons as hard as I can. Me and the machine testing boundaries. BUT with the reasonable certainty that I'll get back home safe for my family.
3. It's just a fun car to drive and I do use Sport+ when I can. The settings allow me to turn my commute into more than the humdrum whenever I hit a bit of open road or a curve.
4. The settings change everything -- not just the suspension but the steering and accelerator response. In Sport+ the gas pedal feels and responds like it is part of my foot.

enoren

I'm not sure I understand the bang-for-the-buck arguments against spending the money for the F-Sport package. Lexus holds its value, so if you spend the money now on the package, it will hold its resale value and you'll get more later when you resell it.

I think the F-Sport looks amazing, and the non-F-Sport is just about as boring as the second generation IS. If you want the looks, buy the F-Sport; if you want the amenities, buy the non-F-Sport with the Luxury package. Until they offer everything in one package, you have to choose.

I wouldn't worry so much about the cost of the packages or whether the add-ons are worth the money. In the end, your car will hold its value and you'll get back what you pay for now. In my opinion, the F-Sport will hold its resale value better than the non-F-Sport in the long run.

yycdave

I agree with 1 & 3. 2 I have to test drive both to see.

But for 4 - the throttle response is identical with Sport & Sport+ - Sport+ just gives you the AVS.

Glashub

^^^^

I'm sure you're right. I probably got it confused as to when I 1st noticed the throttle response change or didn't note if it changed with Sport +. But there is an exhilarating and quite astonishing change there in one of the settings.

Ramon

I agree it's a bummer that Lexus makes you choose between F-Sport and options the F-Sport should have. I'm still hopefull Lexus will fix this mistake on future model years.

KeyserS

This question is purely subjective, more so even than most any other question that anyone asks about this car vs. that car, or this motorcycle vs. that motorcycle, etc. It can only be answered from a purely personal point of view.

In my personal view, the F Sport takes a car that is already somewhat questionable from a value perspective, and pushes it over the top, to where there is no longer any pretense of it being a good value. Again, this is just my personal perspective. I just do not think that what you get is worth the money. Moreover, there is a lot that you get that I don't even like. I definitely do like that gauge display. In fact, I think it is sexy as hell, and if I could buy it as a standalone accessory at a reasonable cost, I would definitely consider it. In all the pictures, I really, really liked the grill. And in person I liked it the first several times I saw it. I still like it, but reaction to it vs. the plainer grill is not the strong reaction that it was at first, when I did not like the plain grill in comparison. A few days ago I saw a white one with the plain grill, and actually thought it was better looking with that grill than with the fancy grill.

Part of what I don't like about the F Sport is that you get NuLuxe, which is not leather. Now, I know that the salespeople will all tell you that it is better, and they are saying this because they are told to and they know that this is what they are supposed to do anyway. But I test drove a regular model with the NuLuxe, which is what 90% of them (or more) seem to have, and it did not seem to me that it breathed, at all. Of course it breathes in the middle section where it is perforated. But the panels on the edges, both for the bottom of the seat and the back, are not perforated, and my experience told me that it does not breathe, at all. Someone will correct me if I am wrong on this, but unless someone does, then for me this is a non-starter, because I would rather have some cheap-looking fabric that breathes than a synthetic pseudo-leather that does not breathe.

I also do not like that the fog lights are deleted, evidently for the purpose of cooling the brakes (I assume this is the reason). I have had fog lights on every car I've owned since the early 1980s, and I find them useful. Partly for fog and snow, but when I really like them is when it rains. When the road is covered with a thin layer of water, the amount of light diffracted off the road surface is reduced to a fraction of what it ordinarily is. Sometimes it is difficult to even know if your headlights are even on. You can't make out the curbs or the edges of the roads, and in these fairly common conditions, fog lights are a very real advantage. So you give this up, in favor or better cooling for the brakes. This begs an question so obvious that I don't need to put it expressly. But it just seems to be that when it comes to certain things that you get with sport packages, that you give up a LOT of practicality in favor of things that would only really make sense if you spent more time driving the car on the track than on the street. What percentage of buyers who buy these packages with any sport sedan actually spend more than a few percent of the time on the track? I don't know, but my guess is that the vast majority of them do not spend any time at all on the track, ever. Why, then, do they want suspensions that are so firm that the car just isn't ever very comfortable? To me, it makes no sense. I recall a few years ago an acquaintance of mine bought a used M5, and brought it over, and we went for a short ride, with me in the back seat. The suspension in that car was unbelievably stiff. The shocks were so stiff that the springs accomplished next to nothing. Every time the rear wheels went over a speed bump at even a crawl, the car practically bounced. I could not help but think to myself, why does this guy want this kind of suspension in a car that he is going to be driving on a routine, almost daily basis? The car that I have been driving for the past 13 years, that I am preparing to sell when I buy either an IS350 or Q50 in the foreseeable future, also has a suspension that I have come to realize just is not practical. It is an Audi S4, and its suspension is not as stiff as the suspensions on many sports sedans with the optional sports setup, and it is fun occasionally for short distances, but it just isn't practical for longer drives. In fact, if I take a drive longer than about fifteen minutes, I already am wishing that the suspension wasn't so stiff. And for a real road trip of several hundred miles, it is just a pain in the you-know-what.

Again, this is all entirely subjective. But what I do believe is that when the typical person goes to buy a car, emotions take over and they make decisions that are not for practical reasons. It is best, I believe, to force yourself to try as hard as you can to make decisions that are practical. Then again, if we really did that, we would all buy station wagons with wimpy engines that get 30 mpg and keep them for twenty or thirty years.

But I definitely do like that grill, and I especially like that gauge. If the F Sport package were available with real leather and if you could still have fog lights and if it was not nearly as expensive as it is, I would probably buy it. Just too many "ifs" there, in my personal, subjective opinion. But if you really, really like it, and you don't object to the cost, then that is what you should do.