Maybe you do a lot of city driving homeboy, I'm mostly highway.

 

I agree with you about the brake hold, Benjam1n. I average 80-95% City driving each tank of gas and never really cared for the brake hold. I don't see the point of the feature. My right leg/foot never gets terribly fatigued from driving all day so what's the point? I also don't like the feature because the execution is not very smooth when you get going again. Teslas naturally come to a complete stop and hold too but they execute it better and the electric motors resume speed smoothly -- I still keep my foot on the brake in a Tesla though, it barely takes any effort anyways (sort of like the video above referring to the effort needed to close a trunk, lol).

 

The Alcantara headliner is a pretty meaningless "feature" to me. What is so bad about the standard headliner? I also find the ambient lighting too dim and subtle, to the point that I don't even notice it when driving at night. I have to take a moment in a parking lot and let my eyes adjust to darkness before I can notice my shoes are faintly illuminated by the ambient light. I definitely can't see the light meant for the door handles (I only know it's there because I deliberately looked for it once). To me, the ambient lighting is really pointless, not to mention expensive to fix.

 

I felt the same way about the power closing trunk lid until I adjusted my thinking about it. When you're unloading the trunk and your arms are full of luggage or bags, the power closing trunk lid is great. Same for the opening, although modern systems where you swipe your foot under the bumper to open it.

If you don't want to use the power closing trunk, you can just close it the old fashioned way. Unlike the power pull down trunks on my dads 90s Lincoln and Cadillac the trunk in the LS doesn't jam if you slam it (I.e. you can slam it or power latch it).

I also love the brake hold now that I've gotten used to it. The Pacifica doesn't have a brake hold and I seriously miss it when I'm driving that.

I've had the standard headliner and the alcantara headliner. The standard headliner on the LS460 is really nice also plush and thickly padded, but the alcantara headliner makes the car feel much more luxurious inside.

Most cars dont have standard headliners as nice as what Lexus uses. If you sit in an S Class for instance without the alcantara headliner and with it there's a HUGE difference as the standard headliner isnt plush.

As for ambient lighting, remember the 13-17 LS460 was designed right before ambient lighting really took off. Now ambient lighting is a huge part of the interior experience of a luxury car.

I can see all the lights in mine on at night.

 

The standard Escaine headliner has a very luxurious feel. It’s really nice but once you’ve had Alcantara there’s no going back. The cabin seems more insulated with it. My Custom Luxury 430 had it and I was disappointed when I found out that only JDM 2010-12 LS460 SZ’s came with it.

Useless features I’d say the redundant outside temperature read out on the center display. Not sure why I need to be reminded twice. They could had added other useful gauges to monitor the car.

Ambient footwell lighting is terrible without pulling off the orange bulb condoms. It’s more noticeable/useful after the DIY. The door handle lighting could be mistaken for halogen bulbs.

The most useless feature in my opinion is the E differential that plagues 2008-09 ISFs. A Torsen was added to FSport models in 2013-17. Come on Toyota/Lexus you put a LSD in the mid 80s Cressida. This pulsating side to side braking effect is trash under throttle. Full Trac disable and I’m cooking my 285 Falkens.

 

Yeah it does seem to insulate the cabin more...

 

How about the self parking feature? Not that accurate, too much trouble to set up.
Useless, the absence of a “set” light when cruise control is engaged.

 

They did away with that feature in later models.

However, I have it on our Pacifica van and it works great, fast to set up, we use it every time we park. Just needed some time for the tech to get there.

Later models also have a "SET" light for the cruise.

 

The ECO mode is pointless. No increase in mpg at all.

 

Ha- for that matter, I can't figure out what the heck the Sport mode does, either!

Don't get me wrong- I LOVE the car, but got a chuckle out of the display switch I mentioned in my original post. And I love the power trunk close feature!

 

I wish the power trunk close worked from the remote like with our Odyssey.

 

ICE lockout while in motion. Why can't my wife switch audio input to her phone while I'm driving? Definitely the most useless feature.

 

For me, the live radio pause function...

 

What in the world?
I imagine my 2014 that doesn’t have a hard drive can’t do this.

 

On occasion I roll in ECO. I notice up to 1.5 MPG improvement but I drive 80-95% City. Not much improvement when on a road trip and majority freeway miles.