anniversar

I have owned my 2010 LS460L AWD for about 18 months after previously owning a LS430 for 3 years. Even though I appreciate the improved NAV, Bluetooth and other features, I have never been completely satisfied with the LS460. The main irritations are the tapping sound at idle (LS430 was much quieter) and suspension rattles on rough pavement even with new air struts all round. In addition I would really like something a bit more up to date with the modern safety features such as blind spot monitoring, cross path detection and lane depart warning. To get a long wheel base Lexus with these features in the long wheel base variety is cost prohibitive as I would also want to retain the options I have which are Alcantara trim, Mark Levinson, Nav and rear and side shades. From what I have seen on line I would be looking at $70,000 for a used 2013.

Anyway, I decided to test drive some alternative luxury makes last weekend as with Good Friday, I had two full days. I thought it might be useful to give a short report on my findings

1. 2013 3.0 Liter Supercharged Jaguar XJ L Porfolio AWD. Price $60,500

Did not like this at all, although it handled well, I found the suspension rough and the drivetrain noisier than the Lexus. Also the interior was not well laid out and other than nice seats, I found the general trim to be of poor quality. Acceleration was comparable to the LS.

2. 2012 BMW 750Li X drive - Price $48900

Very nice interior with high quality materials. Leather dash and door trim, excellent seats. Acceleration felt similar to the Lexus, ride quality a little firmer and noise levels a little higher. Overall I liked this car. Concerns are reliability and the use of run flat tires which are expensive and very prone to damage by all accounts.

3.New Infiniti Q70L 5.6 AWD Price with discounts $64,560

Not in the same class at all. Noisy, rough riding and a lot of wind noise

4. New 2014 Hyundai Equus Ultimate - Price with discounts $53,400

Firmer riding, poor quality interior. Seemed like a cheap knock off of the Lexus

5. 2013 Audi A8L AWD 3.0 Supercharged - Price $53750

This was the surprise. Very quick for its engine size, very quiet, excellent ride and beautiful interior quality. The Audi was the best by a long way and very tempting to consider replacing my Lexus with.

In the end I decided to take some more time to research further as non of these cars felt like a significant upgrade from the lexus, although all of them had a quieter engine at idle with no evidence of the tapping noise that the LS460 series suffers from. Also all of them road more quietly over poor pavement even though my LS460 has excellent ride comfort. I am making the distinction here between suspension noise and suspension comfort.

The only make I could not find was a Mercedes S Class, but I did take a test drive of a 2012 Mercedes CLS 550 4 Matic which was an absolute blast. Zero to 60 in the mid 4's, incredible handling, massaging front seats, active side bolsters, night vision, all of the safety tech and laser cruise control. As a daily driver though it was too small to replace my LS and my wife said it looked like a pimp's car.

Overall a fun weekend and going into it, I was sure I would be driving something new home, but in the end it was not the case. Maybe I should wait 12 months and wait for a bunch of 2013 LS models to come off lease?

roadfrog

You have NO idea. LOL

The Audi will not be much better. The German brands are drama-filled nightmares.

As for the Jaguar (other than the notoriously bad reliability), you found the same conclusions I did regarding the cheap-feeling interior. I was shocked. I laughed when I opened the door of a brand new one and the door handle jammed in the open position, requiring the salesman to pound it back down with his fist. Then when I grabbed the turn signal stock and saw how it rattled and moved around like a mid 70's Olds Cutlass......

Tec80

+1 on German reliability (or lack thereof). They suck you in with well-designed, good-driving cars, then let you down with repeated expensive failures on components that even American makes learned how to make reliable long ago. They make great 2-3 year lease cars, but are nightmares after that.

Doublebase

The A8 is a sharp car...love the looks and performance, but if you're looking for reliability, you might want to look elsewhere.

The 2015 Mercedes S class is probably the only car I was impressed with at an auto show I attended two months ago. Just a fantastic looking car, but again, it's not going to be as reliable as the LS.

I've driven many BMW's and Audi's - and yes - they drive nice, but I've also seen what they can do to your wallet...and it's not pretty. I want to say an alternator for an A8 is over $1200 bucks, and there is nothing like seeing a tech take the nose off your car to replace a water pump...not pretty. And the direct injection on an Audi can be very loud. I'll also add that both the BMW and Audi are sludge and carbon monsters....you will burn oil...and you will need to have your intake valves cleaned every 30k miles, to the tune of $1000 dollars and up.

Doublebase

Lol! I'm just trying to picture that guy trying to convince you to buy that car after that!

Devh

The only good European car maker was Volvo and Saab but once the Germans influenced their car industry it started the decline in their brands.
The British was always terrible but in the last decade or so they have improved tremendously from utter crap to crap in the reliability department.
I hope the next LS keeps it simple for their core base that believes when you spend three or four times more then a normal car purchase it should be built to the highest standards not necessarily state of the art .

Devh

You can always sell them on the British quirks that gives their cars so much character.

Hwyman

I have a 2011 LS with air suspension and I have no rattles from under the car. In fact, it's very quiet. The direct injection tapping noise can be annoying, however, I have a friend who has a 2015 S 550 with direct injection and it has the tapping noise as well.

I for one am a little OCD about the tapping noise, tire noise and powertrain sounds and I have tried to make my car as quiet as possible. I used Second Skin Audio's Luxury Liner Pro around the transmission tunnel and Damplifier Pro in the footwells. I'm pretty happy with the results. Even the Lexus techs have mentioned how quiet it is. Just my 2 cents.

Wandl

Great insights! Actually with decent weather here in Dallas going to explore a 2012 s-class I spied earlier this week and a A8L. Both are CPOs and give at least temporary piece of mind for however short of a timeframe and thanks to your posts I'll have a good idea on how it will compare to our LS460!

Doublebase

I think the problems with Saab happened when they got bought out by GM in the early 90's, all of the sudden they went from a car that was unique and could go for 200,000k miles....to a quirky GM product, with a Saab badge on it. Out of high school I worked for a Saab dealer - great car, easy to work on, reliable, fun, sophisticated - then GM bought them...next thing you know they are getting towed in from all over the place.
They put in this coil pack assembly, I remember the tech next to me holding one in his hands, looking at it, saying, junk, before throwing it in the trash barrel and installing a new one. The thing had melted with 5k miles on it. After those years they started losing a lot of customers and the brand name went down the tubes. I don't know if GM owns them anymore, in fact I don't know if they're still in business.

Doublebase

That's cool! I've thought about adding some sound insulation as well. The problem I'm having is with tire noise, of course it may just be the tires, but I'm still thinking of doing something. Is it an involved project?

I do think the car is well insulated as it is - in the winter the thing holds in the heat better than any car I've ever owned, I can shut it off, leave it outside for a few hours, get back in and it feels as if it hasn't lost much in terms of temperature. Whereas with every other car I've ever owned it's like an ice box after a few hours. Still I'd love to get rid of the tire noise.

dfrosch

One of my sisters had an Audi Q5. It was a peppy little SUV with a nice interior. After about 50K miles, it was burning a quart of oil per day.


It was a little amusing seeing a 60 year old woman checking her oil.

Wandl

Wow good to note! Wife was going to check out a Q7 today and this really helps...

Devh

We have something in common as I also worked in a Saab dealership in my first year of college.
This is way before GM got their hands on them. GM took over Saab and I believe Ford has taken over Volvo. This is not American Ford and GM, this is essentially the European divisions of these companies and from what I read it was primarily German engineers that had everything to do with all of the problems.
There is a lot of mysticism surrounding German Engineering and how advanced the Germans were during WW2 but a lot of it is myth even von Braun work. The fact of the matter is the US was far more advanced and continues to be however the biggest problem with the US car industry is management influenced by greed and unions.

LS2k

How does the porshe panamera compares to the LS?