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These upgrades were “all new” engines and designs. Toyota Tundra and Sequoia went from 4.7 to 4.6 mid cycle as well. Most recent, Tacoma went 4.0 to 3.5
It very well might be possible Toyota will no change the engines but will instead upgrade transmissions and awd...maybe we see torque vectoring
Interior looks to be the same as before with mild changes.
My Guess is that the 350 will get the 10 speed already used by Lexus outside of the US in the current LS350. (Yes there is such a model)
This refresh is not only purely cosmetic but the interior was not even revised in any way.
The front grill is just atrocious and looks same as all the Toyotas. Its only going to be worse with a front plate.
The rear is poorly designed with the Bangle butt, light bar, and huge fake black diffuser. Its like they copied 10 design elements from various cars and stuck it on the rear of the IS.
The advertising short film seems to hint at significant upgrades to the steering, suspension and chassis, going so far as to claim Lexus built an all new track to test and fine tune the driving characteristics of the major face-lift.
That's good news. What will not be good news is if the 3.5L NA remains the range topping engine. I don't mind if it stays as the midrange engine but either the 5L NA or the 3.5L TT should be the new range topper. The already great chassis deserves a more powerful engine IMHO.
Since the GS is phased out, they should position an IS500 or equivalent to take the GS' place in the market in terms of price and features ie an IS500 should be similar in price to a fully loaded GS350.
The advertising short film seems to hint at significant upgrades to the steering, suspension and chassis, going so far as to claim Lexus built an all new track to test and fine tune the driving characteristics of the major face-lift.
That's good news. What will not be good news is if the 3.5L NA remains the range topping engine. I don't mind if it stays as the midrange engine but either the 5L NA or the 3.5L TT should be the new range topper. The already great chassis deserves a more powerful engine IMHO.
Since the GS is phased out, they should position an IS500 or equivalent to take the GS' place in the market in terms of price and features ie an IS500 should be similar in price to a fully loaded GS350.
Ye they built a new race track but not a new platform, engine, interior and everything else.....
^
Side profile looks GREAT - they really cleaned up the design.
If powertrains are the same, unfortunately I don’t think it will do well in sales. Way too much strong competition- 3Series, A5, Cclass, G70, Stinger, Gulia, upcoming TLX...and obviously Model 3
I am at least glad that the '14-16 pre-MMC still holds up very well. I like what they did with the styling generally, but just disappointed that this car was phoned in by toyota again, and then they will complain in 3 years that no one is buying it, and finally give it the axe and give us a mini ES for cost savings.
but question for all... how much do you think this will help IS sales, especially since the interior seems to be unchanged?
Have either of you saying “no changes to the interior” actually compared them before the negative posting, lol?
Surely isn’t a totally new interior and I am no expert in the 3IS not having owned one, but it CLEARLY has changes that are easy to spot by even the most casual comparison. If you bothered to look you could spot right off the top a very different tablet style nav screen showing CarPlay vs embedded nav in the earlier model design.
Also spotted by members who own one “The door panels are completely different, cupholders changed, new air vents, new infotainment, gauge cluster upgraded and I believe they added piano gloss to the center stack“, slight changes to the steering wheel, etc.
Have either of you saying “no changes to the interior” actually compared them before the negative posting, lol?
Surely isn’t a totally new interior and I am no expert in the 3IS not having owned one, but it CLEARLY has changes that are easy to spot by even the most casual comparison. If you bothered to look you could spot right off the top a very different tablet style nav screen showing CarPlay vs embedded nav in the earlier model design.
Also spotted by members who own one “The door panels are completely different, cupholders changed, new air vents, new infotainment, gauge cluster upgraded and I believe they added piano gloss to the center stack“, slight changes to the steering wheel, etc.
Those are small updates expected with regular mid-cycle refresh. Since this is Another refresh, you would expect for more radical change this time around, at least to mimic the interior design of new ES, LS and LC. The center stack and area around the shifter are identical, so is the steering wheel and seats. Those are the main interior items that jump out as dated.
New 2021
They did a great job with the refresh, certainly as much as they really could have done without it being a clean sheet design, more than they did to the exterior of the 13 LS refresh (actually stamping changes here in the unibody). I think it looks great. Interior like Dave said there are way more changes than you see at first glance, I like the callback round vents like you saw in the original IS and the 2IS, materials look like a big upgrade. Screen is much better.
Like I said, as good a job as is possible with a refresh, powertrains are again obviously a huge dissapointment.
