situman

Apparently the refreshed GS, while had more power, was less responsive due to it being more FE focused. Did you notice that? Nice to hear or not hear that road noise seems to have been improved since my '15 GS was a bit on the loud side in terms of road noise. My lease was up as well but decided a GX was more to my liking. I do miss driving the little guy sometimes and if someone hadnt T-boned (though fixed) the car, I may have kept it.

JDR76

I haven't noticed any real difference in engine performance or responsiveness. But with that said, in the nearly 2 weeks I've had it I have only driven it twice in normal conditions. We are currently in a snow event here - the worst in 70 years, so the car has mostly sat in the garage or been driven quite gingerly through snow and ice... I am really, really looking forward to getting it out there and playing with it some more. The drive modes feel different, so I would like to explore that some more.

For those of you who routinely deal with long, snowy winters, I simply do not know how you do it...

charley95

It's pure torture as time goes on. For those of us that like to keep their GS out of the salt it really sucks.

situman

Well one of the other major reason why I switched to a GX. Had a lot of white knuckle moments in the GS during snow storms simply because its rear drive based so the rear can get a bit squirrely until the front kicks in. Plus the fact that I can't see past the vehicle infront of me makes me nervous because I can't anticipate what might happen ahead.

JDR76

Thankfully I haven't had any snow traction issues with the GS, but man is it dirty now... I've got over a foot of snow all turning to melting slush. I hate this part.

charley95

Is your snow gone yet? Any more seat time in your GS?

peasodos

iTrader: (1)

Last year I drove through a snowstorm with my rwd 450h from Georgia to Virginia handles great if you know how to drive in snow and ice. This is what the front end looked like when I got to my destination. The weight of the battery pack over the rear axel helps.

baconRx

Is the electric to the rear too? I thought it was basically AWD with electric up front. Regardless, I've never had issues driving in winter weather down here in the south in rwd/fwd, I'm more concerned about the other idiots on the road who don't respect the weather and drive like its dry and sunny, or those who just don't know how to adapt at all.

peasodos

iTrader: (1)

The gs 450h is rwd. the electric motor connected to the CVT transmission.

the ls 500h is awd with electric motor powering front wheels.

JDR76

chinee

What part of the car is this?

bclexus

C'mon man - visualize!

chinee

LOL..better that way!. In it's original orientation, all I was see is some funky looking brake caliper. LOL!

JDR76

Okay, after about 200 miles, I have some more impressions and discoveries. Sorry if this gets long. I won't be offended if you do the "tl;dr" thing... I'll break it up by sections so you can skip ahead to any parts that may interest you.

2GR-FSE vs 2GR-FKS

• These two engines do not sound alike at all. The FSE had much more of the direct injection ticking at idle and more of an aggressive growl under acceleration. The FKS has a quieter idle and more of a subdued note when accelerating. I'm guessing a lot of this has to do with the new exhaust manifold.
• I notice no difference (thus far) in responsiveness, power, etc. as I had expected. They basically feel the same.
• I don't have enough miles on the new one to draw firm conclusions on mileage, but as one would expect, the FKS is pretty much drinking the same amount of fuel as the FSE did in my daily commute. I'll be interested to see if there's a difference on a long trip, where the FKS may be able to tap into the Atkinson cycle more.
• I always felt that the FSE needed a little warm up time to really smooth out. The FKS seems smooth right from cold start.

Exterior Styling

• I love the front styling of both of them. The 19 has more of a sinister look, especially in this dark color and with the triple-LED headlights, but I still love the look of the pre-refresh models.
• At the rear, I am still not crazy about the new tail lights. I like that the reverse lights and the turn signals are LED, but I am not a huge fan of the clear lenses or the huge empty space at the bottom of them.
• Love the F Sport wheels on the 19, though I loved the 15's wheels as well, so I guess this is a wash.
• My 15 was Atomic Silver which I thought was the best color ever. The 19 is Smokey Granite Mica. I'm kind of missing the Atomic Silver, which always looked clean. SGM is going to be a much bigger challenge to keep looking nice. I'll be applying a ceramic coating this spring.

Interior

• The seats. I'm pretty sure they're the same, and maybe it's just because they're new, but for whatever reason the side bolstering seems to be more aggressive on the 19, in all seating positions.
• New interior rearview mirror has a more upscale look to it.
• Like the Naguri aluminum trim. I liked the striated aluminum as well, though at times the sun would hit it just right and provide an awful glare. I don't expect that issue on the 19.
• I like that the 19's clock is synced with the clock in the nav.
• I really like the updated remote touch. The back button in particular, along with the side enter buttons, are a nice addition. The new stitched wrist wrest looks nice as well.
• On my 15, the bottom of the door map pockets had a nice rubber pad to keep things from sliding around. I liked that, and it's missing from the 19.
• The 19 is also missing the grocery bag hook in the trunk that my 15 had and that I found very useful.
• The new nav system is a nice improvement. The ability to go full screen map is pretty nice, though it doesn't really add functionality over the 15's system. Other changes to the system seem minor, though I do not like how you can't "pull" the right hand side display over to the full sized portion as you could on the '15. In the 15, if I were listening to Slacker, and wanted to change the station, I could have it up on the right hand side and click to pull it over to the full screen. I haven't found a good way to do this on the 19. If I select "Media" or "Radio" through the hard buttons or through the menu, it'll pull up the full screen, but change the source, so then I have to change the source back and then change the station. I am still hopeful that I am missing something obvious here.
• Because it's an F Sport, I have the digital instrument panel. I think it looks great and I love the larger TFT display on the left. I will admit, in a surprise to me, that I am having some trouble adjusting to the digital speed display. I guess 26+ years of looking at analog gauges will do that to you. I know I'll get used to it, it just feels a bit unnatural right now.
• No complaints about the new steering wheel. Had no complaints about the 15 wheel either.
• The power trunk is something that I did not have on my 15 and I quite like on the 19, even if I think it's a bit silly.
• The heated steering wheel on my 19 does not get as warm as it did on my 15.

Ride/Drive

• As one would expect, no major differences here. They are clearly the same car. However, I do find the 19 to be substantially quieter. I am not sure if there is better sound proofing here, or if it's just that the 19 has fresh seals and tires. Note that both my 15 and my 19 have the dual pane front door glass.
• The drive modes between the 15 and the 19 are not the same. Sport S+ on the 15 felt more aggressive. It's a much more subtle difference on the 19. I do not notice much difference in the steering effort in Sport S+, whereas I found it to be very heavy in the 15. Overall the steering feels much different in all modes and I haven't quite pinpointed what's different. Because of our winter weather, I haven't been able to toss it around corners much, so I am looking for more seat time to evaluate the suspensions changes by mode. More to come on that this spring.

Safety Sense

• My 15 had BSM with RCTA, but otherwise was lacking in the latest safety features. It had regular cruise control. The 19, of course, has the full suite.
• The all-speed radar cruise is incredible, especially in stop/go traffic. I have radar cruise in my Highlander, but it's not all speed. I absolutely love it.
• Lane Departure Alert with Steering Assist. Meh. Jury is still out on this one. The lane centering is nice on the freeway, but it only takes a few seconds of hands-off before it starts beeping at you to put your hands back on the wheel. I'm perfectly happy steering for myself, but then I kind of wonder what the point of the lane centering is if you still have to do it yourself. I also do not like that when you have LDA/LKA on, it takes over the HUD. It displays the side lines in place of the tachometer, which I would rather have displayed. Oh well. But speaking of the HUD, it's freaking awesome and I would be very unlikely to buy another car without it.

@signdetres, I am curious if you have the same observations or different, as you also have experience with both the pre and post facelift models.

signdetres

@JDR76 Thanks for sharing your thoughts so far! I'd agree with pretty much everything you've mentioned. Nothing I'd disagree about! Couple areas that stuck out to me that I never mentioned because I wasn't sure if it was in my head or not but now seem to be true:

-engine sound is definitely different! Most notably at start-up & idle. Sitting in the '15 at a stop vs the '18 is much quieter in the '18. You almost don't hear the engine running whereas you can always tell the '15 is on. It also sounds much more airy & whiny, IMO. But yes, I think the FSE engine has more of an aggressive sound during acceleration. Overall I feel like they tried to make the facelift GS a more luxurious experience whereas the pre-facelift models were trying to be a sportier experience.
-I've always found both to be quite smooth but I do think I'd give the '18 the edge on smoothness, but I also think you experience much colder start-ups than I ever do, so you may be noticing more of a difference.
-Fuel economy until you get a couple thousand miles on it is going to be awful. My '18 guzzled fuel when it was new, similarly to the '15. I think once you get ~5,000 miles on it, you'll start to notice it's a touch less thirsty, but still thirsty. But Eco mode really does work well at sipping on the fuel, better than the '15 in Eco mode, IMO. Driving the '15 in Eco mode is also not nearly as pleasant as it is in the '18. It's livable in the '18, kind of a pain in the '15.

-Bolstering in all seating positions... Something definitely had to have changed here. I completely agree. No idea what it is, but something is different. The '15 I can drive with the driver's side bolsters all the way extended & love it, feels like I'm in a race car The '18, I drive with the side bolsters just barely extended. Any tighter and I get major back pain. When I first got the '18, I tried setting my seat like I did in the '15 and this is when I started experiencing major back & side pain. Something is definitely different. I have no issues finding a comfortable seating position in the '15. It took me a year to get comfortable in the '18. Really really bizarre.

-Digital instrument cluster. HUGE YES on this one. When you're so used to analog dials, going from those to a digital speedometer is SO weird. I know exactly what you mean. It will take some time to get used to this! I found myself speeding all the time because I didn't have the needle in my peripheral vision and the newer GS seems to mask speeds so well. I would feel like I'm doing 30 but I'd look down and see a big "48" LOL. Really weird disconnect with the feeling of speed and just a digital number displayed. That said, now that I'm used to it, I love it. A quick glance always reveals your exact speed. Pretty straightforward.

-Quietness... this is a harder comparison for me to make. Our '18 does not have dual-panes up front but our '15 does so in my case, I'd say that overall, our 2018 seems quieter from passing cars and things going on around the car, especially with the quieter FKS motor since you don't always hear it in the background like you do in the '15. I think the '18 is more isolated from bumps, so less suspension noise makes its way into the car, making the '15 feel harsher. But our '15 is definitely better when it comes to wind noise at higher speeds & is much more hushed up front, no doubt due to the dual panes. Since you're going from a car with dual panes to a car with the same dual panes, I'd bet you're right about your '19 being quieter.

-Drive mode comparison... definitely different between the facelift & pre-facelift, but again, harder comparison to make. Our '15 has rear-wheel steering and VGRS & our '18 does not have rear-wheel steering, only VGRS. I actually feel like our '15 has lighter steering effort overall compared to our '18, but it's just a really different experience between the two. I'd really like to drive a facelift model with rear-wheel steering to see what impact this has on these characteristics, how the drives modes differ, etc etc. In the '15, it's harder for me to tell what the difference is between each drive mode. These differences feel much more noticeable/clearer to me in our '18. In my experience, the biggest difference I notice seems to come from the VGRS system more than anything else, from Eco to Normal to Sport S to Sport S+. Drastic difference in character of the car in each mode. In Eco mode, the steering feels like I'm in an LS, makes the car feel very luxurious & boat-like. Extremely unresponsive to inputs, which is good for that LS-vibe. Very easy to drive smoothly in this mode, very relaxing as well. It almost feels like in Eco-mode, it locks into the slowest steering speed available like no ratio changes are happening (unless you make aggressive maneuvers, high-speed turns, etc.) Normal makes the car feel a fair amount smaller and more agile. You can feel the ratio overall is quicker as the car is much more "darty" and doesn't just float down the road the same way Eco does. Minor steering inputs are actually taken into account and the car responds to them much more eagerly. In tight parking situations, you can tell you're not turning the wheel nearly as much. This is amplified in Sport S mode. The weighting stays the same but the car feels much more agile, responds much more quickly to steering inputs & turn-in response seems greatly enhanced. If you're ever in a 2-turning lane situation and you're in the inside lane, this is where you notice a big difference between the steering when you're in Sport S or S+ mode vs being in Eco or Normal. Much more confidence inspiring.

Have you noticed in crawling stop & go traffic between like 1-25mph, the All-Speed Cruise Control & Steering Assist take over full control of everything & doesn't even nag you to put your hands on the wheel? I love this feature & I love watching it steer itself around corners. Very Tesla-esque. Had no idea these cars were capable of this kind of stuff until after I got the '18. Was a very nice surprise as I didn't think they were that advanced.