Goodnight all,

Yesterday, I took ownership of a 2016 Lexus IS350 AWD F Sport Series 3, Nebula Grey, and have driven it about 300kms since.

I'm in love with the car. From the interior, exterior, ride quality, handling, and speed... it has everything that I was looking for. I traded in my 2007 BMW 335xi, which was wonderful while it lasted, but it was time to go. I can honestly say I am more than pleased with my decision.

The ML sound system... WOW. I had the BMW premium sound system (not sure which model... maybe Logic 7), but the ML sound is better.

Just wanted to share my first impressions.

Cheers!

 

Congrats to you!

 

Congrats. Yea I get into my car everyday with an excited feeling to drive it and always sad when I walk away from her. I have the ML sound system also and I think it sounds great. It made me go WOW too the first time I heard the ML system.

 

Congrats, I'm sure you will continue to enjoy your IS.

 

Congratulations!

 

Congrats and welcome to the forum!

Really good to hear someone be so excited about their new IS.

 

Thanks everyone!

One thing I won't miss about my 335XI, is that every time I had to visit the mechanic, it was a minimum of $1,000.

 

Best of luck with your new IS, enjoy!!

 

Congrats and welcome to the club!

Our RX was recently rear ended so it's in the shop. While it's getting repaired, I am driving a rental Explorer while my wife is driving my IS. I'm hoping our RX will be done today so I can get back to driving my IS! It's really a fun car!

 

Thank you! Sorry to hear about your RX! Out of curiosity, how do you like the explorer?

From around August until Tuesday, October 27th, I was dead set on an SUV, specifically, a 2015 Toyota 4Runner. I'm glad I had an epiphany and went with the IS though

The Explorer was a truck I considered as well.

 

The Explorer I have is a 2016 Limited trim level with the NA 3.5 V6. It's quite well equipped, with the panoramic sunroof, leather, etc.

Overall, I'm pretty impressed with it. Here are what I see as the positives and the negatives:

Positives:

- The engine is quite smooth - not as smooth as the 3.5 in my RX, but totally livable.

- The ride is very composed and it handles corners surprisingly well.

- I like the 3rd row (it's actually fairly decent) and overall, there is just a lot of room in this thing. It's quite large.

- I like the panoramic roof and the front view camera for parking.

- I find the seats to be quite comfortable with good quality leather and very responsive heating and cooling.

Negatives:

- The driver's side footwell is a mess. The dead pedal is worthless and cants my foot at an odd angle. I find that part very uncomfortable and a potential deal breaker if I were shopping for one.

- The gas mileage is nothing fantastic, at about 15-16 mpg in mixed driving, where my RX gets around 20, though granted this is a much bigger and heavier vehicle than my RX.

- The steering is way too light.

- The dash, while well laid out and padded, has a very cheap looking grain pattern on it. It makes it look like cheap, shiny hard plastic, so you're actually surprised when you touch it and realize it's padded.

- The driving position is quite low, even with the seat positioned up. I feel tiny - like I'm about a foot shorter than I actually am. It just makes the car feel huge.

- The exterior panel gaps are amazingly bad. Note that this is a rental (with 8k miles on it) so I don't know if it's been in an accident or what kind of abuse it has suffered, but the doors don't line up quite right, the hood gaps are uneven, and some of the rubber trim around the windows seems off.

So I don't think I would buy one, but I do find it to be much nicer than I had expected.