thegrey

Hi Fellow Lexus enthusiasts

I am in the process of leasing an IS 350 F sport RWD and I find in hard to get the colours I would like because there is not much choice in RWD vehicles in Ontario, Canada.

I am thinking about the RWD because I would love the 8 speed transmission and the RWD dynamics and, well, the slightly lower fuel consumption. I would mitigate winter risk by careful driving (that will take exceptional self restraint in an F sport with over 300 horses on the tap) and putting on good quality winter tires.

On the other hand, living in snowy Northern Ontario (Sault Ste. Marie), I am concerned about winter driving, and every now and then keep thinking that I should perhaps get the AWD. It is a very hard choice, because of the reasons above. Also, I would probably have a much better choice in terms of cars/colours available if I went AWD.

What do you think? I'd appreciate if you guys could give me some sane advice - especially those of you who have driven both versions and IS owners living in the snow belt with a RWD IS.

Thank you in advance.

WWM

I live in Mississauga and I've had zero issues with RWD + winter tires during the winter. With that being said, Mississauga tends to keep their roads well-plowed compared to other places in the area, and SSM probably gets way more snow than we do. With RWD you run the risk of getting stuck if the snow is heavy enough and this is probably the only time AWD is worth the added costs and other associated penalties. You have to ask yourself how often you'll be driving in very heavy show, because this is about the only time the AWD will be necessary.

You might also keep in mind that the AWD F-Sport with executive package has more options than the top level RWD F-Sport package, including the ML sound system. An AWD car will also hold its value much better than a RWD in Canada, but if you're leasing that is fairly irrelevant. And finally, the AWD cars come with all-season tires, which is a waste because you'll probably want a set of summer and winter tires anyway. I went with the RWD, but I would have taken AWD if they wouldn't have been able to get an acceptable RWD colour combo in a reasonable amount of time.

Im2bz2p345

Hi thegray. I would suggest you discuss this with the club lexus user "carderoni." Due to a bit of misfortune, he's actually one of the only people on CL who had the opportunity to "own" (lease in his case) the AWD version of the IS350 AND the RWD version of the IS350.

This topic that he started went into detail about each version of the car; it should help you out immensely: https://www.clublexus.com/forums/is-...sport-rwd.html

~ Im2bz2p345

Aeromotive

Yup carderoni helped me a lot. OP, I was in the same exact situation as you (Quebec) and I chose RWD. Winter tires are mandatory here. General consensus is tires have a lot more to do than drivetrain.

The only downside to this is the wait... not only they have mostly IS250's, but RWD are almost impossible to find!

thegrey

Thank you, guys, very much for the advice. To add insult to injury, the dealership promised me the stars in the sky when I signed the lease application, now they tell me that it is unlikely that they will be able to find what I wanted and the Lexus incentives for March (2 complimentary lease payments) will be over on 31 March, so I will have to pay more for my lease if things slide over into April. I am not liking it one bit.

Aeromotive

thegrey, forget about Lexus incentives. A serious dealer who wants your business will give you the price you want. Read the fine print at Lexus.ca...

So in reality you're getting $1200. Such a discount is easy to get. I know corporate incentives have nothing to do with dealership rebates, but usually a salesman offering you corporate incentives will say "Hey I just gave you $1200 off, can't do more than that". So yeah, even though dealership rebates are supposed to be added to incentives, they aren't necessarily, because that's where the salesman would lose commission.

I e-mailed six dealers around me and got them to fight to give me the best price. Unhaggle.com helps a lot. PM me if you need invoice.

Slust

Sounds like you have a crappy dealer there. I had to wait for my car to come in. I made the price negotiations in December and my car came here in January. Long story short they had to make up a Rebate for me just to honor their price quote so its definitely doable if the owner of the dealership cares about their customers. I was even without a car so it's not like I could dump a good deal on the floor, and they knew this since I was in their loaner for over a month waiting for my car to come in.

In response to your other thread, I wish we had Atomic Silver F-Sports here in the US. That with red seats would be the color combo I'd want if I could pick anything. You also have access to USB. Are there any other dealers nearby you can check with to see if they are more willing to work with you, especially on orders?

thegrey

The whole deal is the following: the dealership gave me $1500 off MSRP and another $1700 would have come from Lexus ($500 incentive for getting an F sport package and 2 complimentary lease payments). I had also agreed to pay a $7500 security deposit because that brought the lease rate down from 2.9% to 1.4%, saving me about $2400 in interest over the term of the lease (48 months). The status is now that they could not get the only RWD available - it sold - so the March deals are off and have to wait for a couple of days to see what the April deals are going to be. I had already told them that I am not going to pay anything more than what I had already agreed ($631.20/month for 48 month). Trouble is, I had paid $2500 last week as a deposit for ordering the car and now there is no car and I can already tell that it will take a fight to get my deposit back if I do not like their offer based on the April Lexus incentives (if any). The present status is that I would have to order a car from Japan and I am looking at 10-12 weeks.

thegrey

I am in a kind of bad spot - live in Northern Ontario and there isn't even a Lexus dealer in town, only a Toyota dealer. I think it would be Toronto and area to find other Lexus dealers, and that is about 700 km away. Had there been other local dealers around, I would have definitely cross shopped them.

carderoni

AWD vs RWD really depends on your driving habits and requirements. If you're going to drive through packed snow and slush on unplowed/untreated roads on any kind of regular basis the AWD model is probably what you want. It'll handle 2-3 inches with the stock all season tires like a champ. Once the roads have been plowed, salted, or sanded I feel like the RWD model with all season or winter tires would be fine. Standard disclaimer here that you shouldn't do this, but I've run the stock summer tires on a few 20-30 degree days after the streets were treated and didn't have any problems. I feel like the traction control system in this car works really well.

On the other hand, if you plan to track it (not rally it) you probably want the RWD car for a number of reasons. If you plan to mod the car - I'm thinking of cat back kits specifically here - know that most companies are probably developing things like this based on the RWD model.

There's a lot more detail in the thread that Im2bz2p345 linked and I need to post another update about some transmission behavior (in a nutshell, the 6 speed tranny seems more refined, the 8 speed has the upper hand in some areas but also has its quirks). If you can, drive any IS 350 AWD and RWD cars back to back, whether F-Sport or not, since all AWD models have the same 6 speed and all RWD models have the same 8 speed. You might like the punchy lower gears in the RWD car better or you might find that it doesn't make enough of a difference to sway you. There's really no wrong choice here.

markb3

I live in Mississauga and I ended up going with a 350 f sport AWD. This is what I considered:
1. I came from having an audi. I never thought I could possibly NOT own an AWD again.
2. Sure the streets get plowed quickly. However, the street where my house is doesn't. I wouldn't want to be getting stuck 1 and a half to two days after a snow storm on my street. Thats not convenient. I see how my dads RWD truck with winters has issues pulling up our driveway after it barley made it down the street...to my next point.
3. I have a very long driveway with a garage behind the house. Who has time to use the snowblower for 30 mins in the morning when your rushing for work?

Experience from this year that made me feel better about getting AWD:
1. When I'm finishing work in the middle of a snow storm, with snow higher than my front bumper (we had a couple of those days this year, and its not surprising, the car is pretty low stock - also considering snow plows pushing snow towards your car) and I see about 30 cars stuck, spinning out, trying to pull out, and I effortlessly pull out with the stock all season tires with little effort, it feels good. Sure you cant be going 60 on turns without winters and without sliding, but it prevents you from getting stuck at least.

Saying that, I do plan on getting a new set of wheels and having the stock ones for winters when they wear out. I'm sure the 8 speed is amazing, and I'm sure I could have lived through the winter with the RWD + winters. It all came down to my personal preference and what made me feel safer. Also, I've never driven a RWD car before in the winter as a daily driver (not that it really matters much..just saying, it was something I still considered).

Sure, those winter storms are only a few days of driving a year. I agree. However, what about when there is rain / heavy rain throughout the year? Everyone seems to ignore this. Now I'm not sure on this, but my guess is AWD + summer tire would be better than RWD + summer tire in rainy conditions. At least that seems logical to me.

Other factors I considered:
1. I will probably never take my car to a track
2. Its my daily driver

In terms of mods, I still am putting on the f sport exhaust and greddy intake. Sure, RWD will have much more options for sure.

Anyways thats my take. If anyone has comments about what I said about RWD, maybe I just have an old way of thinking about it, please let me know. Because honestly, I'm hoping 8 to 10 years down the road, toyota will finally make that Supra come back and I'd love to get one, and thats a car that would probably be worth getting RWD and struggling in the winter with.

Aeromotive

@markb3 : I have a hard time believing AWD would be superior in rainy conditions... unless we're talking about aquaplaning. Even under heavy rain, if there's no water accumulation in a part of the road, IMO they're both equal. I could be wrong though... never owned a RWD.

WWM

AWD can help in rain insofar as you can gun it around corners without easily spinning out. I'm not so sure that's a benefit, because you shouldn't really be doing that regardless of the drive-train. In bad weather, it's best to drive cautiously and I can see AWD giving people a false sense of security in that respect.

carderoni

Having previously owned exclusively AWD vehicles for about 8 years I can say it can give you a false sense of security even on dry pavement. The grip can be phenomenal - right up until it all goes away at once.

Aeromotive

That's what I thought... under normal driving conditions AWD in rainy conditions isn't superior to RWD. Snow and ice are a different story...