Has anyone had a cold air intake installed on their 7th generation es 350 f sport ? If so, how is your experience ? Do you recommend? Any drawbacks ?

Thanks in advance

 

My personal opinion, backed by precisely zero evidence, is that all this stuff is useless snake oil. In the '60s on carbureted engines, sure. Today, carmakers have every aspect of the fuel/air mixture dialed in with such precision that aftermarket tinkering with it is useless at best and disrupts the balance built into all the sensors and injectors at worst. Unless your goal is simply to enjoy more engine noise, I wouldn't do any of that stuff for any perfornance reason.

 

Performance gains from CAI are negligible, if there really are any. You will change the sound which is what most desire. Cars today, especially an engine as old and refined as what's in the ES350, pretty much come from factory with CAI.

 

You might want to read the AEM Cold Air Intake in Hot Weather thread. In a nutshell, Texas heat + Cold Air Intake = Problems.

Also, if you examine the factory configuration for air intake you'll see the intake is already from the coolest air source practical - it is from the grill side of the radiator area. Whereas most, if not all, of the after market cold air intakes are sucking air from the hot engine compartment area so they are in reality hot air intake systems.

 

Not worth it on this car/application.

Save your money.

 

Not worth it on any application. lol. i used to hammer the bmw forums 10 years ago on this... wouldn't believe all the hate i got. then slowly... one by one... i turned the entire forum around. and then today if someone posts about an intake, they are the ones who get the heat. i wrote up a lot of detailed posts and articles on why "intakez" are a terrible idea. it's low hanging fruit for kids/men to install cause they can do it with simple hand tools. so a little bit of cash + hand tools + little time and of course their car is "faster" ... it has to be. in the 1990s when cars were designed with pen and paper and a dream sure intakez might help. but nah not today.

So yeah for no other reason alone than the ES is an adult classy car.. don't.

For some reason 2022 seems like it's the year where kids are doing all sorts of kid stuff to the ES here. luckily i haven't seen any of it in the real world so i think we're still safe LOL

 

The ES still gets the reputation of an old man's car. With the introduction of the new design and F sport line, that's definitely helped attracted younger buyers. I mean shoot, I'm in my early 30s and this would've never been a choice until this 7th generation. The ES is a good looking car now, I'm happy Lexus went this design language for it. Also, I'm old enough to appreciate a quiet smooth ride and reliability. However the idea of adding any performance mods, stance, and so on....I don't understand that part. Get a car that'll really get its potential woken up out of your mods such as a Supra, BRZ, hell even last generation Civics.

 

I'm also thinking about getting a cold air intake that draws in hot air from the engine bay.

 

Yep that's exactly why I bought it and moved on from the IS. I did NOT ant to be associated with that crowd after seeing those cars dumped on the floor with wheels facing the sky. I wanted a platform no kid would touch. Welcome to oldmanville. population: 1. PERFECT!!!!!!

this is why i low-key want a LIFT kit for my ES. To make it ride slightly higher than stock. No luck.