High End Luxury Cars

michael_mattox · March 2005

Den:

There is no argument that Mercedes makes a Beautiful car...Unfortunately that beauty is ONLY skin deep...SAD.

ljflx · March 2005

I would say the 70's and 80's MB cars fit the profile of as bland as it gets. Funny that cars that are bland now are criticized by MB lovers today but they can't be critical of past MB bland designs. Hmmmm.

denaliinpa - Phrase it however you want but Lexus and MB are going in opposite directions when it comes to quality, reliability, sales volume and profits. Everything you talk about is purely subjective and everything the Lexus crowd talks about has real world proof wherever you look.

merc1 · March 2005

"The only big deal is that you would make such a comment and then not be able to back it up..."

Nobody made a "claim" I said that in my opinion that one car looked like another. I didn't pass it off as fact or make a bogus claim like you've been doing for over a year. I gave an opinion, not a factual claim. The difference between what I said and what you "claim" is that mine is just an opinion about styling, yours are based on a limited knowledge of any other car beyond a Lexus and automotive technology in general.

M

merc1 · March 2005

"I would say the 70's and 80's MB cars fit the profile of as bland as it gets. Funny that cars that are bland now are criticized by MB lovers today but they can't be critical of past MB bland designs."

So now I guess you've changed your mind about the Mercedes SL which you've stated you wanted back in the day? What should really make you go "hmmmmmmmm" is that Lexus still can't design a car that looks worth squat 15 years after their debut. The new IS is about the only hope. How can anyone that fancies Lexus styling call any other brand of car bland is beyond me. Whether it be now or a car from 20 years ago because Lexus is the epitome of bland and nothing designs...today. How easy is it to post picture of a 1971 Benz and call it bland. Lexus' entire 2005 Lexus lineup stylistically forgettable at best. 70s and 80s Toyota looked like the junk they were and if the first ES250 is any indication of what Lexuses would have looked like before 1990, they would have looked like blenders.

M

merc1 · March 2005

think there is a reason for why Japanese cars look bland to you. The reason is many new cars are Japanese brands. For example, everytime i stop at traffic lights i will see either corollas or civics. For some occassion, i even saw 3 or 4 civics at once. Therefore, even the car with greatest style in the world will look bland after millions driving in one.

Nah a good looking car looks good no matter how many times you see it. VWs are plentiful too and the Passat in particular is still a very good looking. Where I live on a good Saturday you'll see more Mercedes/BMW/Lexus than you could count and the story is always the same, German lookers and Japanese blanders. What I find really interesting about Lexus is that their chief has shot his mouth off about this new look and so far the car have only come out looking worse, especially the GS. Now the new IS does hold promise. It has the small tight, lithe look of the best European cars, at least in pics.

One element of good styling is the way the sheetmetal appears to be stretched over the chassis just enough to cover the wheels. Another is no space in the wheel wells. Look at an Audi to see what I mean here. This is one reason why the 7-Series BMW is so ugly, their is too much space in the wheel wells. Ditto for the 5-Series which depends greatly on color and wheel size to look good. The Japanese are getting better at this, but in the past Nissan and Toyota were terrible with this. Any Maxima up until the 2004 model looked like it had an air suspension locked in the highest postion possible. Acres of space between the tire and the body. Mercedes and Audi lead the way in styling, imo. Nothing from Japan even comes close to a E, M3, CL, SL A6, or A8.

Infiniti is getting there for sure, they're way ahead of Lexus on looks.

M

oac · March 2005

"How can anyone that fancies Lexus styling call any other brand of car bland is beyond me"

For you Merc1, you'd make everyone think that Lexus owners don't live in the real world. And their Lexus is all they care about....Just absolute nonsense...

"How easy is it to post picture of a 1971 Benz and call it bland."

To prove how truly BLAND and ugly those MBs were. You'd look at them and call them classic; I'd look at them and call them UGLY.

"Lexus' entire 2005 Lexus lineup stylistically forgettable at best"

Really ? Then car styling must be totally out of fashion, when you consider that these bland Lexus cars and trucks COMBINED are the #1 selling brand in the entire NA market. And the beautiful Audis and MBs are going backwards in sales, and hence, market demand. Hmmmmm.... Interesting, don't you think ? If I understand you correctly, buyers of Lexus have no styling taste whatsoever, right ? While those beautifully-styled MBs and Audis are just so gorgeous buyers cannot wait to buy them..... Something happened on the way to the bank, buyers quickly found out that exterior styling is only skin-deep, whereas build quality, reliability and excellent customer service are what matters most. Hence LEXUS' success. Need we remind you most ardent MB fans that you do not even own an MB, nor would you even buy an MB today. Or would you ? Enquiring minds will like to know !

"70s and 80s Toyota looked like the junk they were...."

Wanna know what JUNK is ? Ejerod's 2001 and 2002 S500 ? Those were as junky as junk can ever be. Comparing $20-30K Toyota cars of the 70s with $90K+ 2001 and 2002 MBs. Which is junk-ier ? You be the judge...

denaliinpa · March 2005

Consumer Reports is coming out again with it's
auto issue. here is a link about the upcoming issue.

http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-cars5mar05,0,5658976.story?coll=la-home-business

a couple of interesting things. first the Lexus GS is the top Lexus. i find this strange because Lexus hardly sold any GS's last year. this leads me to believe the samples that Consumer Reports use are extremely small and therefore imo not credible. and Audi is right behind Lexus 11% to 12%. you know what this means to me...nothing. when it comes to purchasing an automobile CR's is a very small informative tool when making a decision. to rely solely on what they say is "better" is imo ridiculous. when they start reporting how many surveys they received for each vehicle and year i would feel more comfortable.

i am amazed that people look to CR's Jdpowers as being gospel when it comes to automobiles. keep in mind they are selling you news. they make their money hyping even the smallest of differences between automakers. keeps a roof over their head. just like newspapers, news channels and the like the more they can hype and sell the better "they" do. all information needs to be filtered and weighed with your own personal experiences.

i receive CR's. i did not fill out a survey. i don't remeber getting one. who know's my 1 survey might have put Audi over the top! i sent them an email last week asking them for information on how they come about their opinions. specifically sample size for the cars in this thread. they have not emailed me back as of yet. i wonder what everyone would think if CR's only receives 20-30 S class surveys a year...if that and even less for the A8.

footie · March 2005

Good article, well reported by LA Times, except some details important in this forum (imho) were missing.

Here's the bottom 4 of the CR list in terms of problems per hundred cars.

04 03
BMW 21 19
Volkswagen 23 19
Mercedes-Benz 25 22
Lincoln Ford 26 31

Here's a quote on response rates:

"Some brands, including Hummer, Isuzu, Jaguar, Kia, Mini, Mitsubishi and Porsche, were not rated because of insufficent owner responses."

CR made it very clear that cars with insufficient responses weren't rated.

One more Audi return wouldn't have changed it's problem per vehicle rate. Statistically it's unlikely that 100 more Audi returns or any one car brand or model would have changed the numbers. That's the way statistics works. It may be hard to understand but study can always help.

syswei · March 2005

Denali (or is it denial?) if you are still in denial about JDP and CR reliability data, I suggest you do a web search for extended warranty companies and price out an extended warranty for a 2005 MB and a comparably-priced 2005 Lexus.

The results might be illuminating.

ljflx · March 2005

Well merc1 - I love the look of my LS, think the new GS is a great looking car, love my GX470 styling and the new IS looks great. I've never been a fan of the ES, but many like it and the RX is perfect for it's market. The LX470 is a classic, albeit outdated style and the SC430 I have liked from day one. Your problem is you want every car to be a racy design and then the line-up is a hit - in your view of course which is not held by the buying public. Otherwise how would Lexus even selll a car. But MB never had any widespread sporty or racy designs and as OAC states it really all started with the headlights on the E in 96 and accelerated with the new S design in 2000. Before that they were bland cars and of course much higher quality relative to the market.

Yes my wife and I always had a desire for that old SL but looking at it now in that picture it is a boxy very bland design.

denaliinpa · March 2005

nobody is in "denial". all i am trying to point out is that the surveys that the seem to appeal to the Lexus buyer so much are limited in value and scope. i would assume that when shopping for a vehicle that most people would purchase one that they actually like but, by judging from some of the posts on this thread i think i would be wrong.

as for the style of earlier MB models i think everyone is forgetting the super bland Toyota Cressida. it was a box on wheels. even in the first photo the MB hood has move curves and bends than the current LS430 has today over the entire exterior surface!

like i said earlier...until we as consumers have some idea of the minimum sample that CR's uses we have to take with a grain of salt their opinions and actually use the brains we were born with and make a decision. if not....is everyone here going out to the local Subaru dealership to trade our vehicles in for CR's new number 1?

as for extended warranty pricing. the S has many more engines, drive trains, and options. plus it is a larger car that is priced higher. so it makes perfect sense to me that the extended warranty would cost more. whether or not most people agree with me and i am sure everyone who drives a Lexus on this board won't....price decides 99% of everything. the LS is cheaper...Lexus should sell more units.
55k vs 70+k. to me that is simple statistics that i don't have to "study" to understand.

geez...nobody mentioned Audi's results....hmmmmmmm.

ljflx · March 2005

Here you go. You don't need to read the whole story because it won't make you happy. Just read the 4th paragraph and wake up and smell the roses about how important CR is to the buying public vs. slanted auto mags that hype performance cars 90% of the time with no consideration to the things CR focuses on. By the way even in its last year of production on an outdated style the GS will outsell the A8 by 3:1. So of course CR will get plenty of data on it.

http://www.cnn.com/2005/BUSINESS/03/05/cars.survey.reut/index.html

footie · March 2005

In a post above you said "i receive CR's. i did not fill out a survey. i don't remeber getting one."

Then in 8277 you said "all i am trying to point out is that the surveys that the seem to appeal to the Lexus buyer so much are limited in value and scope."

I am mystified as to how you made that conclusion.

I think that the independent work that is done by Consumer Reports is the standard for testing consumer products, including automobiles of every variety.

Their work is the ethical standard of the industry and given the impact of their ratings, and like JDPowers, if they were off-base, the lawyers from every 'offended' automaker would be filing suit to get them rescinded or changed.

None of the car companies make a peep when the CR ratings come out except for the ones that move up the ladder. Everybody in the business knows that the reports reflect reality.

These reports and surveys are VERY important in the Edmunds discussion because the CR reports and road tests are funded by consumers, not by advertisers.

In addition CR has the most advanced, independent test facility in the world for measuring car performance. And their testers are unbiased by 'orientation', i.e. car buff, racer-head, greenie, etc. or 'target audience' car buyers, advertisers, etc. The problem with the mags and most auto-related web pages is that the testers ( aka, journalists ) have agendas.

hpowders · March 2005

I have been subscribing to CR for over 10 years. Every year they send me the survey form requesting my feedback on cars and appliances.
hpowders

vwguild · March 2005

A footnote needs to be added here...VW & Porsche took big hits because some electronic gremlins in the Tyre Monitoring system, and a conflict in response distances between the Keyless Access System and the remote key. All of these related to Touareg...

michael_mattox · March 2005

Some of us married women who are not supermodels but are fantastic beautiful people...

Audi is indeed like a supermodel but lacking a little in character, not very dependable ...Lexus is like a wonderful attractive woman who you can always love and trust.

footie · March 2005

Sounds like a Jimmy Soul song, "If you wanna be Happy" from the 60's warning that beauty is only skin deep.

hpowders · March 2005

I looked at the new GS and saw a nice-looking car. I will be at a Lexus dealership tomorrow and will take another look.

ljflx · March 2005

hpowders - I never got to test drive it. They had two people waiting to drive it when I got there on Friday and the two cars available were already out. I would have thought Friday at 10:30 would be dead but that was hardly the case. Needless to say the car is getting a lot of attention up here. I did see a black one in the showroom and it looked awesome.

Good luck which ever way you go - you have time on your side.

hpowders · March 2005

Hey ljflx:
Found a 2004 pre-owned LS430 with euro-tuned suspension and 18" summer tires at another Lexus dealership. I will be trying it tomorrow. The consensus here says to try the car with this particular combination, so off I go.
I will report back tomorrow afternoon on the LS board how it turned out.
Unfortunately, although this dealership has 2 GS430's on the premises-both have been sold. I did want to drive one again. But I will do a comprehensive walk-around since some folks here are rather emphatic on how ugly it is. Hope one of the GS's is silver which looks dynamite in the brochure I got from the other dealership. This brochure, by the way, contains some breathtaking photos of the Capetown, SA area. I must get down there sometime.
Yes, I do have plenty of time to decide, but the GS430 is already on my short list of one.
Regards,
hpowders

rcf8000 · March 2005

I tried on the new GS for size at my Lexus dealer last week. I'm only 5'll", but I did not like the extent to which I had to duck my head to get into the car, and I didn't like the fact that my head hit the ceiling when I adjusted the seat to a comfortable position.

hpowders · March 2005

Funny. I am 6'2" and had neither of those problems. That's why everybody has to drive the car for themselves. Reading about it is worthless.
Based on what you wrote, I should not have tried this vehicle.
Yet I did and I'm glad I did.

denaliinpa · March 2005

here are the units GS units sold for years
03 and 04. GS 1348 2078. approximately 3500 vehicles. out of those 3500 vehicles i wonder how many owners subscribe to CR's and then how many of those owners even noticed the survey and actually filled it out? we're not talking Camry and Accord type sales numbers. so "plenty of data"...i doubt it.

merc1 · March 2005

"Your problem is you want every car to be a racy design and then the line-up is a hit - in your view of course which is not held by the buying public.

Sorry, but this is an excuse plain and simple. A design doesn't have to be "racy" to look good. So it it too much to ask for a brand to have at least one or two good looking cars? I bet you won't think this way when Lexus adopts the GS/IS style across all their models because then you'll say they all look great - watch.

If my view of styling isn't held across the market with the buying public, and it isn't of course - your view about people not buying a car because of some bad press surely isn't shared by everyone either. Its amazing how you seem to know what the buying public is thinking on every issue.

"Yes my wife and I always had a desire for that old SL but looking at it now in that picture it is a boxy very bland design."

Very disappointed to read this. I'd like to know what luxury car back in those days was swoopy in design?

"But MB never had any widespread sporty or racy designs and as OAC states it really all started with the headlights on the E in 96 and accelerated with the new S design in 2000.

Its called progress. Styling can't possibly stay the same for 30 years, to suggest that is ridiculous. Every brand moves foward in styling, well except Lexus.

M

merc1 · March 2005

"Really ? Then car styling must be totally out of fashion, when you consider that these bland Lexus cars and trucks COMBINED are the #1 selling brand in the entire NA market. And the beautiful Audis and MBs are going backwards in sales, and hence, market demand."

It is amazing to me that everything resorts back to sales like every Lexus vehicle is a best seller when the truth is that Lexus got lucky and cashed in on the SUV boom. Without their SUVs and fwd Camry based wagon they'd be behind even Acura in car sales. Its time to quit exagerating the same hype and tell the truth, Lexus has some duds, namely the GS and IS. Will that change? We'll see.

The bottom line is that styling isn't everything, but neither is reliability otherwise Lexus and Mercedes wouldn't co-exist. Also, your sales theories have been wrong before based on even more data than just 2 months so I'd stay out of the assuming business until at least Spring before blindly thinking that all of a sudden for the first 2 months buyers are walking away from Mercedes simply because of reliability. Every year its the same incorrect prediction/assumption about sales.

Like I said before digging up pictures of 30 year old Mercedes and calling them bland is just a desperate attempt to make up for Lexus' current vehicles being the worst looking group of luxury cars on the market, well Lexus and Cadillacs.

As always when styling is talked about, something you can't spin in Lexus' favor the desperate "you don't own one" statement appears. Time for a new line.

M

denaliinpa · March 2005

i would purchase an MB today without hesitation and i don't doubt for a second that the other "ardent MB fans" would either. it's hard for people who need survey support and safety nets when making a decision to understand what a fantastically innovative and beautiful automobile a Mercedes Benz is. even now at their supposed lowest point they still manufacture stunning automobiles that Lexus doesn't even have in concept form. and the myth the pro Lexus crowd is always trying to perpetuate that...... an MB will break down on you the moment you leave the dealership is beyond idiotic.

as for those photos....ugly...not in my eyes.

oac · March 2005

"i would purchase an MB today without hesitation and i don't doubt for a second that the other "ardent MB fans" would either"

Let's for the moment forget that other "ardent MB fans" would buy today's MB, BUT you would buy today's MB, right ? So why didn't you when you had the chance, instead purchasing the A8 ? So what was it that gave the buy to the A8 over the S-class ? was it current needs, size, price, looks, features, ride, handling, performance, luxury, quality, reliability, customer service, etc...?

"an MB will break down on you the moment you leave the dealership is beyond idiotic"

Go tell that to ejerod on the S-class forum. He will remind you of his $90K+ 2001 and 2002 S500s which were duds/lemons/junk... He believed in MB as much as you and Merc1 did. He even ponied up serious $$$$ for 3 MBs. I don't think that his real-life experiences jell with what you described as "... a fantastically innovative and beautiful automobile a Mercedes Benz is..." Only an MB die-hard fanatic would believe that crock...

ljflx · March 2005

Well then that progress to produce a sporty design took a long time - 100 years or so.

Sales - it reverts back to sales because that is the ultimate barmometer that is indisputable. Much of your stuff is subjective to each person which is quite disputable and always will be.

Surveys - what a ridiculous statement it is to say we buy because of surveys. Where were the surveys about Lexus in 1990?? Didn't exist of course. But the brand skyrocketed right out of the starting gate. It's too bad that the surveys bother you so much and you have to resort to nonsensical BS to try and counter them.

ctsang · March 2005

Let those people buy those European junk cars. They will learn except for those fanatics. I and all the friends and relatives did learn from mistakes. Does MB know that if Lexus didn't exist, they would sell a lot more cars? Again look at electronics. I used to own German TVs, but now I only buy Japanese.

denaliinpa · March 2005

after already having an S55 i wanted something that was not as long but just as wide on the inside. the S isn't available in the US in the swb but this year Audi did offer a swb A8. plus i really like the look inside and out of the A8. i did test drive the 7 and the LS but the 7 was too visually complicated inside and out and the LS the exact opposite. the A8 fell right between the two.

there are horror stories for every brand. on a vw board there is a poster who just purchased an LS430 a week ago and wants to dump it for a Phaeton. and it seems he is willing to take a big hit in resale value to do it. I've had 4 MB's...2 of the dreaded ML's and i didn't have the experience that ejerod had. these are the vehicles....00 E430, 02 S55, 00 ML430, 02 ML500.
so it is not a "crock" that i feel the way i do toward MB, it is real world experience.

as for surveys purposes. if you don't value your own real world experience over what CR's is selling you that is your choice. i wonder how many people who will believe what CR's sells as being 100% accurate will even ponder how many
vehicle surveys did they actually receive to justify that opinion? like i said in an earlier
post...Audi did quite well in CR's survey. big deal. i don't need CR's or JDpowers to be in agreement with me. IMO it is an irrational fear that just because the car i drive isn't on the top of some surveys list it is not manufactured with quality and care.

ctsang · March 2005

"there are horror stories for every brand."
You are right. But there are a lot MORE horror stories for MB than any Japanese or Korean brands now.

michael_mattox · March 2005

The Allante in the earily 90s was a classically beautiful car...Still is.

ctsang · March 2005

Styling is not going to get you from A to B. I didn't buy a Rolex to keep time, it's only for show.

ljflx · March 2005

Since most of us are repeat buyers several times over - I think it is quite obvious we value our experience greatly. First time I ever saw the words "what CR sells you". Your bias is way over the top but if you want to go around believing we buy because CR hypnotizes us - so be it. It's fruitless to reason with that viewpoint.

ctsang · March 2005

ljflx,
denaliinpa is not against CR, he is against all evidence that shows Lexus is safer, more reliable and retain more value that those European cars. You can't reason with denaliinpa. Let the market speaks for itself. As I said before: If Lexus weren't here, the sales of those junk European cars would be a lot higher. But thanks to Lexus, we now know better.

hpowders · March 2005

Just got my new CR auto issue. MB 80% worse than average in 2005 new car reliability. Absolutely shocking!

ljflx · March 2005

Junk is way way overboard. The European cars are certainly engineered very well with high quality safety features. They are simply not reliable and in my opinion terrible values, and in the latter I mainly mean MB. The depreciation is big because the used market puts reliability at a much higher criterium than does the original buyer. The real problem issues, mainly MB and Audi, is customer satifaction scores for the new cars are not high, despite all the ramblings of merc1 and denalinpa. BMW scores very high in satisfaction so it is a different story. But how long will buyers keep paying a premium for cars that don't satisfy to the levels of the competition, are unreliable and have lower resale percentages than the competition. In other words do you really want to pay the freight for the secondary buyer of your car? MB's high prices in the past weren't an issue because the cars retained high resale value percentages. Today they don't.

ctsang · March 2005

I did go way way overboard. I just can't stand that denaliipna and merc1 kept saying MB's style (which is so subjective) is better than Lexus. Even if MB were the same price as Lexus, I think Lexus still beats MB in safety, value and reliablity (all objective criteria).

designman · March 2005

Here, try this before some of you get taken away. Smile and recite the following:

Pins and needles, needles and pins,
A happy man is a man who grins.

Now say to yourself

What am I mad at?

ljflx · March 2005

They raised the rent $10!

hpowders · March 2005

Anytime the circular reasoning on this thread seems to defy all logic despite overwhelming evidence to the contrary just take a deep breath, raise your arms and face toward the sky and shout 3 times as loud as you can:
SERENITY NOW! SERENITY NOW! SERENITY NOW!

pablo_l · March 2005

According to the Business Week article on Audi (Hot Audi!), in JD Powers latest study Audi ranks behind (of course) Toyota and (surprisingly) Mercedes, yet ahead of BMW in quality. I was somewhat surprised by some of the data points mentioned in there, but then again perhaps not, beause the article mentioned that the US market remains a top "need to fix" for Audi, since for some reason it's been left with an obsolete sales and marketing channel that has been revamped elsewhere. But here some reasons why BW had the hots for Audi: stock has grown over 4X since '00 (VW is a majority owner, but Audi stock still trades); record profits of $1.2B in '04; total cars sold have grown 3X since '94. Sales volume in Europe now matches BMW (each about 550k cars), but still trails behind globally (~800k vs 1.2M). In Europe, the current Audi line-up -from A3 to A8- has cleaned up on mag and industry analyst awards. And I was surprised to learn that in Europe Audi outsells BMW and Mercedes with the A8 in the top 8cyl and 12cyl category - it's the "hip" luxury brand when it comes to those top of the line models.

It'll be interesting to see how quickly they pose a stronger challenge to the perceived Merc and BMW superiority in the USA, because it's obvious that in Europe by now that is a thing of the past. Moreover, Audi's surging strength in Europe is supposedly making Toyota reconsider some of the goals for Lexus.

pat · March 2005

some of you have given great suggestions to lower the heat in here, thanks!

But I need to point out - again - that things are getting too personal. Talk about the cars. Leave out your opinions of other posters and we'll be just fine.

Now raise your arms, shout about needles and pins and ask why you are mad at serenity... or something like that...

:-)

hpowders · March 2005

I just wonder how MB can sell vehicles in the USA when Consumer Reports comes out in its highly influential April 2005 auto issue on page 18 predicting from its accumulation of previously submitted data that 2005 new car reliability across the MB brand should be about 80% below average.
Only Jaguar and Land Rover are worse.

ljflx · March 2005

pablo - their distribution network/dealerships that I have seen are awful. Walk into the Audi dealership near me and you can't wait to get out. It's tiny, claustrophobic and ancient. Walk into the Lexus dealership and it's like being in the executive offices of a fortune 500 company.

ljflx · March 2005

Or maybe it's huchimama or however you spell that word.

oac · March 2005

I'd like your informed opinions on this article... rather long, I must warn. Gobs of design details to the finest "ith power". And of course, the story would not be complete without the element of intrigue between TMC and an Italian car designer (formerly of Fiat and Ferrari) in Lexus' new design direction !!! Methinks it may be more fodder for the MB fanatics.... Hope not tho'.

happy reading...

http://www.automobear.com/WhatThe2006LexusISIsAndIsnt.html

hpowders · March 2005

Upon entering the Lexus dealership today for my test drive, I thought I was at Windsor Castle. Very impressive and absolutely spotless.

oac · March 2005

But what about the test drive ? Forget the fluff, give us the real scoop....

hpowders · March 2005

I already posted on the LS thread but here goes again.
I was given a 2004 pre-owned, euro-tuned with the 18" summer tires and modern luxury package which had about 12,000 miles on it.
This vehicle was better than the bare-bones LS that I drove at a different dealership.
This time, I found the driver's seat quite comfortable.
The suspension created the illusion that I was riding on air and very high off the ground.
The combination of seat and suspension made for a very relaxing ride. I see why so many people love this vehicle.
The only negative and it was a big one is there was a quite noticeable hesitation when accelerating which I wouldn't expect from a $55,000 vehicle.
Others have posted on the LS thread in response that they too have the same problem with their LS430.
It is especially noticeable on turns when you either take your foot off the accelerator or apply the brake and then after the turn is finished, you attempt to re-accelerate. For a long fraction of a second, nothing happens.
I would invite other LS 430 owners to please let me know if they have a similar experience.
I couldn't get over how you can set the ac vents so they rotate from left to right continuously.
I also liked how the rear window's sunshade removes itself when you put it in reverse so the rear-view camera can do its thing.
I felt very relaxed driving this vehicle but would not consider buying it with that annoying and sometimes scary hesitation.

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