MWIS350

I wonder why Lexus won best reliable and luxury for the past 10 year??

cotswold

I have had 2011 is250 for 4 years, and I still love the car. I have owned both E36 328is and a E46 323 BMW's. Also I have owned a 2000 VW turbo Beetle and a 2007 GTI. The one thing I have learned about German cars, is they are a lot of fun to drive, fast, handle well with a ton of aftermarket parts that allow you to modify as much as your wallet will let you.The only problem is they great cars if you only keep them for about 3 to 4 years with less than 50,000 miles. After that you are driving a "time bomb ". Things start breaking no matter how much you baby them. And that gets expensive very quickly. If you have plenty of money and don't mind having your pride and joy in the repair shop go for it. If you want something that looks good, drive well and very dependable stick with the Lexus. Hope this helps.

Tro209

Don't worry too much about it pattatted4 and MWIS350. BrownPride is just mad because someone said something bad about his presumably favorite brand. No need to get defensive lol. Let the stats speak for themselves.

Tro209

If your still reading this MrKayP ^^^

This guy has it basically spot on and in line with what everyone else is basically trying to say. German cars are fantastic cars , they truly are. They're just not meant to last very long... Not saying that there isn't high mileage examples out there, but that the road to getting the car to that point was AT LEAST 3x more expensive. Take it from us who have experienced both sides of the story.

MWIS350

Honesty is the best policy especially when it come to car. Same with IS250 direct injector and carbon buildup issue. If someone give me advise about it I would've not purchase it.

Nixcision

iTrader: (3)

I have an is250 awd, which has become a daily driver as I hunt for an E46 M3. Power wise the 250 is obviously down, and even after modifying and having fun with it, it still wasn't what I wanted, which was a power oriented build.
Even toyed around with the idea of building an is300 (gte swap etc), but why not start with something that already has power? haha

DVS

I believed I read the carbon issue was fixed for 2011 models and up - can someone confirm this?

MWIS350

IS350 and IS-F have direct and port feel injector. Which don't have issue with carbon build up. All direct fuel injector engine have carbon build up. Even some BMW car. But I have friends who had IS250 with 180k miles and still run ok.

MrKayP

Yea It really helps to get peoples experienced opinions i always read this thread. I like Tro209 response, it was good to read. Thank you for commenting

Nixcision

iTrader: (3)

And of course with any car, you can save a lot of coin by doing preventative maintenance, and as much as you can yourself.

Tro209

Only issue with this is how much of a pain it was to work on the car. For whatever reason (I'm guessing for weight distribution or something) the engine bay room in the E46 is terrible. I kid you not.. We had to remove the fan in the front for just about anything that wasn't an oil change , which in turn also requires you to buy a special fan clutch tool. It's great when you can do the work yourself and I and my brother tried to tackle what we could but in the end there are just some things that are better left to professionals. And professionals are expensive...

Kinman

I came from a 2005 BMW 330CI with the M-Package (ZHP) and was looking to upgrade my car. I looked specifically at e90 or the newer f80 BMWs. The standard BMW look like crap, M-Package is a must IMO. After much research, I decide buy an Lexus IS350. The deciding factor for me was reliability and maintenance cost of a Turbo'd BMW.

BMWs are a much better driver's car than Lexus. In my Lexus with F-Sport Swaybars, I feel disconnected from the car and that I am just telling it what to do and it just does it. In a BMW because of the superior steering and road feedback and the option for manual transmission (the Steptronic transmission is also better than Lexus) it feels like you much more connected to the car, and working together. But this comes at a cost, you got to pay to play!

Bottom line, if you enjoy driving and got the cash and time, BMW all the way!

Tro209

Yeah but if you just spend the money that would have gone on one repair bill of a BMW you can get rid of that numbness of the Lexus. All you need is an ISF steering ecu and the f sport sway bars. Problem solved. Or even get Coilovers, I've noticed a huge drop in body roll from that. Although if steering feel is the goal then the ecu is the way to go. At least according to the members who have done the ecu swap.

Kinman

Thanks for the suggestion @Tro209 I had the F-Sport swaybars installed before I took it off the lot. I'll probably do the ECU next.

Kannabis

I'm in the same boat man. I currently have a 2010 IS250, bought it in 2011 with 9k miles currently have 55k miles but i'm SO bored with it now... I didn't read the entire thread, what did you decide to do? I test drove a 2011 335is with nav, 48k miles for 25.5k and another 2011, 47k miles, no nav for 26.7k. i'm still on the fence, wondering if i should jump or not. My biggest concern is buying it out of warranty, so i'll have to add about 3k more to the cost for an extended warranty but holy crap, they were a blast to drive!