Ya, I came from a Tacoma and insurance went up a bit. But that is expected. I would stay away from German i.e. BMW, Merc...I had both and love their cars, just sucks owning one in terms of maintenance. What someone said above is true, mpg varies on style of driving. I do like to accelerate quickly, not regularly but just enough to put a smile on my face on any daily commute and I avg 20-21 mpg city. I really am amazed for how potent the is350 is it does get decent gas mileage.

 

Hoping this will be the same case for me. I will have to look into it starting monday. Yeah I didnt think that the MPG difference would be too big... either car has the 6 speed, is light, and has DI so they get pretty decent mileage.

Yeah definitely I would like the power to blow some of these idiots away every once in a while. Also as far as slow pokes go its true I have been frustrated at times when I know I could get around someone safely with more power than my gs300, and the is250 is actually a downgrade :/. Also even though im not out to prove myself or my car… I cant have Honda SI's beating me ))))

 

I have a 250 myself and I find the vehicle a nice commuter car. One main reason I choose this one is because I wanted a comparable car to the 99 Camry Solara I had which was a 3.0L V6 200 HP. It did well for about 10 years, with over 236K miles before it was time to get another vehicle as maintenance costs started rising up. Overall power wise, the Solara was a bit more powerful as it had slightly more torque and weight was lighter, but one thing is that on the IS, is that it had better fuel economy, so I went with this route.

350 was not in my mind since I knew there would have been a significant jump in power than Solara. Even thou I have not personally test drove a 350, I did get a chance to test drive a 2011 Carmry (during my car search before deciding with 250) which had a 3.5L V6 268 HP and I surprised the power it produced when flooring. It was nice to have that kind of HP but it was not something I needed since I was fine Solara's power.

Ultimately it is up to you to test drive to see what suits your driving needs and driving style.

 

If you care about performance, at all get the 350. It's 50% more power for about a 10% mileage hit and, even new, only a 10% cost hit.

If you don't, then get the 250.


And I say that as someone who went into a 350 as a considerable downgrade in speed and horsepower.
(but a considerable upgrade in mileage and luxury)

The 350 is "quick enough" to satisfy most folks in a daily driver who are performance minded at all... the 250 is a great car for those who don't care in the slightest about speed (and can still be made to handle quite well).

Test drive both obviously, but bear in mind how quick it is on the test drive is pretty much it- there's nothing reasonable you can do to make either car significantly faster.

 

Kurtz: Precisely, I know that whatever the car that I test drive is the car I will have I know these cars dont respond to reasonable mods, and frankly I dont even want to mess with it. I have been looking at prices and the 350 isnt much more expensive used (surprisingly).

 

+1 IS350 LOL I was lookin for an S2000 btw