People need to realize that populations in statistics matter. What CR tells you is what the population of their subscribers who bother to reply who own a certain car experience. Thats not a representative sample of owners of a particular vehicle in general.

I am a CR subscriber but I never bother to fill out the surveys because I don't have the time, energy or interest. So, that skews the sample even there.

 

my only gripe with the 430 (other than my view that it's kind of tall and frumpy looking) is that it set the precedent of the LS not getting any significant performance/drivability upgrades throughout its entire lifecycle... a 430 from 2006 is effectively no different than one from 2001, which was already no different than the car from 1998 as far as acceleration goes (and it's actually slower overall due to it being shipped with H rated tires)... the 400 got 3 appreciably different engine upgrades over it's 10 year run which never happened again with the LS

the 430 was the first time toyota started to get complacent and allow the germans to comfortably regain supremacy in the 'luxobarge' segment, the last time they really stepped up to the plate with the LS was the 600h which is a properly thorough flagship car... and since then i feel they've gone back to only being about economy and making things 'just good enough' instead of as good as they really can

 

Even worse, the LS430 had no significant performance/drivability upgrades from the LS400 in 1998. LS430 did get the 6 speed automatic in 2004.

I was at a hanukkah party one of my agents threw Saturday night, he's a young guy (30 or so) and he's a car guy, he has a GS460. One of his friends had a 2001 LS430 with 317,000 miles on it, it was clearly worn but he said it still drove great

 

Looks wise there's a HUGGGGGE difference. 2004 LS430 definitely a contender for best facelift of all time.

The 4.0 was enlarged to 4.3 which significantly helped midrange torque, and it was mentioned several times by testers. It was no S600 slayer but it was plenty enough. LS430 also had chassis revisions to make it a little bit less isolated. They sold 25-30k of these a year, they had the formula down pat.

 

I saw it in earlier years. It’s not shown in the sept 2022 magazine. You have to go back about 5 or 6 years ago if memory serves me right. I remember seeing the worse than average and much worse than average circles for those areas. In fact the ls460 engine had a much worse than average circle in its first 2 years. And I even remember the 2004 ls430 having a much worse than average for transmission in its first year. Both instances were addressed by Lexus with recalls.

 

The transmission recall was for a parking prawl issue, unrelated to performance and operation.

Performance and reliability-wise, they were fine. I drive an 04, shifts perfectly.

 

correct. And I’m ok with recalls because they get fixed (in most cases) and usually don’t compromise long term reliability.

 

None of the LS460 issues I have mentioned have been addressed by Lexus with recalls. They extended the warranty coverage on the brake actuator, but as we have told you none of these things were addressed during the 460s run, they remained issues until the last 460 rolled off the line.

Thats not to say that the LS460 is an unreliable car, it is not, its just a complex car and is costlier to own than an LS430 or LS400 which were much less complex.

 

uhh well "yes" but idk if i'm willing to have a complimentary tone here when the facelift was needed just to make it look good in the first place lol... had the 2004 looks come out in 2001 i'd say that's a fine way to further evolve the LS styling, but the initial version of the 430 i don't think looked great new nor has it aged great

that's my point... the ES is for plenty enough, the LS is for look what our best people can do when we let them off the leash

 

see now there's the upside of the 430's slow evolution, what made it lose appeal as a new car makes it easily the smartest used buy of the group

also a GS 460 that's awesome! another reminder of what lexus used to care about

 

while mercedes and bmw have had some off models/engines, i think that's not quite fair because they also tend to just be more complex with fancier features than toyota/lexus. so you've got to pay to play.

only an anecdote but my neighbor has had a LOAD of mercedes vehicles he tends to keep until he HAS to buy something else (but typically at least 10 years) and he absolutely loves them and doesn't seem to have big problems despite driving huge miles (very successful commercial realtor).

this is the best post here...

i'd bet the subscriber responses typically fall into two camps...
1) virtue-signalers very proud of their cars and want to tell the world how great their decision was in buying something like a camry.
2) people wanting to rant about their problems (either nit picking every little thing or reporting actual big problems) who want to let the world know they should never buy a jeep compass.

and i bet there's a lot in this category (don't respond). i also bet the quantity of responses for most models are very small.

 

This statement is misleading. CR sends out questionnaires for owners of those vehicles to fill out. Yes, those owners are among their subscribers.....but they are usually in a position to know what went wrong with their vehicles and what did not. I myself have received them numerous times.

Of course, we all know that not every complaint on the questionaire is a real complaint.....some owners, for example, will pan a video-screen system just because they don't like the way it operates, or the way a brake pedal responds, or because the heater/AC system doesn't respond quick enough for their tastes. But conditions like that are factors that are outside of CR's control...and the way the vehicles are designed. CR's data is accurate to the extent of what is actually put down on the questionnaires.

 

Right, and it constantly won comparison tests and the build quality and reliability speak for themselves.

It's like with AMG, 90% of people don't need nor want it. It's cool that it's there for sure. I desire it but I wouldn't pay extra. Nobody test drove LS430s and said "Nah this needs to be a blown V8..." I believe 430 was most popular LS, they sold 25-30k a year here.

And wait, CR data is from owners???? Not dealers or whatever? What the hell do they know about engines, etc. etc.

 

You say that yet you didn't buy an SC400/430 but instead a SL500.....

That's the whole issue, the LS was never more than a very very good car. They never hit that tier of the AMGs/V12s/other overkill products, I'm wanting to get rid of my LS460 and get an LS600 instead so I have the top of the top that Lexus ever made.

However the LS600 vs the Germans top tier is just not a contest, and I'm struggling to justify owning the massive reliability risk (hybrid battery, brake actuator, drive shaft bearing, control arms, engine oil consumption, valley plate, delaminating interior, air suspension failure) over buying a D3 W12 that only has air suspension and control arm risks.....all while totally outclassing the LS600 in every way features wise yet alone power/driving ability

 

I'll take a LFA over any other overkill product.