bitkahuna

iTrader: (20)

besides being a terrible, glare-filled photo of the new interior, i think it's decent, although hate leather boots on autos. why, why, why?

LexFather

Put biases aside? Of course people here are biased, Lexus makes some of the best interiors around so people have high expectations. Maybe you put your biases aside before accusing anyone else?

To me year the interior is generic but what did people expect, for them to completely revamp the car their brand depends on? No, evolutionary was always coming.

No issues with the interior to me.

mrraider

Any interior looks crap in bright sunlight. Conversely, soft lighting can make a a Yaris look pretty at night.

bagwell

Looks pretty nice to me - blows ANY BMW blah/bland interior outta the water.

bitkahuna

iTrader: (20)

removed screen smudges and less bright/harsh.

Hoovey689

iTrader: (16)

The materials are high quality. Moreso than the IS and 3. Check it out in person, color me impressed

StonedCL

You have to see and sit in the car in person..
You take a smudged up Ipad 5 years ago and take a pic of it and people would also say it is terrible and look at it now... When the car is on the the screens are on it looks great and is very user friendly.. I just got a 2013 Gs350 and I work for Infiniti but my lease was up and could not wait another week.. I am kinda bummed I did not wait because I am starting to really hate the mouse idea and dual touchscreen is ALOT easier to navigate through and use.. We just got the Q50's in yesterday at my dealer in North NJ and I must tell you the interface is 10X easier to use then the Lexus mouse, and I know many people will agree with me.. I had the GS350 about 2 weeks now and still am getting very distracted trying to change music and navigate through the car while driving where in the Q50 the first day using it was like I had it for months.. The great thing is I got a really sick deal on the Gs350 lease and it was only 27 months so I will have this car in 2 years.. I don't know what Lexus was thinking with these mouse interface.. I grew up with computers and I am having a hard time using it , I can't imagine someone that is 40-50 years old like my dad that is not computer literate trying to navigate through the new Lexus interface.. It just seems stupid to me where a company that caters to a older demo went with this kind of set-up..
I believe this car will blow the IS350 out of the water..

bagwell

Nice, thanks.

LexFather

Don't you sell them? Of course you will feel this way.

StonedCL

My wife was dead set on getting a GX when her FX lease was up but after trying to use my car she said no way.. Do you really think that the lexus mouse is easier to naviage through then daul touch screens and a **** like the Idrive? you control the bottom screen by only touch and the top screen is also touch but you can also use the **** (like the audi or BMW) so there is many ways to access information..

Yes I do sell them but I am also not a biased person. I did choose the GS over the M37x because the GS350 interior is better and it does have more tech.. I do believe the GS is a better car then the current M37 and I do sell the M. Lexus does make a great product but the mouse idea is great on paper but is very frustrating to use as of right now for me.

I was also a big ACura fan, had a 2001 Cl type-s, 2006 TL and 2010 TSX but I believe Acura went in the wrong direction and think they have nothing going for them.. The 2006 RL was a GREAT car but the RLX.... no way.. I believe that Infiniti is branching away from Nissan and will be doing a lot of great things in the next few years.. Infiniti will be the new AUdi..

pman6

cuz it looks sporty ! You can do it like the movies, where you look like you're driving stick.

bitkahuna

iTrader: (20)

2gs setup i had, like this (this isn't a pic of mine) was sweet...

TangoRed

Here's Edmunds' first drive:

Seems promising.

bagwell

A New Name for a Well-Known Sedan
Published: 07/19/2013 - by Jason Kavanagh, Engineering Editor

Coming up with clear automotive model nomenclature is a thankless job. Names are hard to conjure up and nearly all the letters in the alphabet are taken.

Infiniti was at a point where its current system had become unsuitably awkward, so it binned the whole approach and started over. This is why the 2014 Infiniti Q50, while bearing a brand-new badge on the rump, is a mix of new and familiar parts.

The Q50 is effectively the next-generation G37, but it's not that simple. Infiniti feels like the Q50 is actually a modest step up from the G37 in terms of refinement, style and equipment. "It's the finest sedan we've ever built," company officials like to say.

So it's not a direct replacement in the traditional sense, but a whole new idea of what the company's midrange sport sedan should be.

Major Changes to a Familiar Car
Like the G37, the Q50 will be offered in rear- or all-wheel-drive variants, now in separated into three trim levels (base, Premium and the zoomier S). New wrinkles in the G/Q transition include the availability of the Q50 Hybrid, and the fact that no Q50 configuration will include a manual gearbox.

Blame for the latter can be spread equally among consumers and Infiniti. For their part, buyers shunned manual-equipped Gs. On the flip side, and Infiniti offered them half-hearted manual gearboxes that only soured the people that did give them a shot.

Our Q50 test car was a rear-wheel drive Premium model equipped with only two options, leather seating and navigation. Infiniti said this was a typically-equipped configuration so its sticker price of $42,805 is close to what you'll see at dealers.

Tiresome Tires
The Q50's overhauled body is two inches wider and rides on the same wheelbase as the G37. It's also underpinned by a new rear suspension and wider rear track. Both are notable changes, yet it's the decision to adopt run-flat tires across the board that arguably has the most influence on the way the Q50 drives.

In our case, the Q50 rolled on 225/55/17 all-season Bridgestone run-flats with that were hopelessly overmatched by the chassis. There is so little grip that it's though somebody accidentally mixed clay into their carcasses instead of silica. As a result, when given the mere suggestion of spirited cornering, the front tires protest audibly and early before washing out into understeer. This lack of enthusiasm was reflected in its meager skid pad performance of 0.79g and lackadaisical 60.9-mph slalom result.

Curiously, the Q50's ride quality dispatches truly bumpy pavement well, but is slightly fidgety on roads with prominent irregularities. It's not that the Q50 rides poorly ? it doesn't ? it's just that the busy-ness never quite settles out on freeway drives.

This would be a totally reasonable ride-handling tradeoff were this a red-blooded sport sedan capable of demolishing back roads with impunity. But the Q50 in non-S trim like our test car is not that car, and the reason hinges largely on its tires. If you want summer tires ? and our experience indicates that you should ? you need to step up to the Q50S.

Outstanding Powertrain
So, our Q50 tester gives up more handling than it gains back in ride quality. But it's still quite a pleasant car in which to spend time. The hydraulic steering (Infiniti's Direct Adaptive Steering steer-by-wire system was not present on our test car) is wonderfully precise and builds effort naturally as you turn around center, even if its effort overall is a shade light. Noise levels have also been dialed back on every front.

Its 3.7-liter V6 and 7-speed automatic powertrain, while largely carried over, remains a standout. The V6 boots the 3,603-pound sedan forward with such authority that you might mistake it for a V8. It's tremendous. The stats alone of 328 horsepower and 269 lb-ft of torque don't sufficiently convey its hugely flexible power delivery, or the rapid rate at which it turns that truck lumbering in your lane into a dot in the Q50's mirror.

That power is backed by a sharp, capable transmission calibration that's not afraid to drop a few gears and tap into the engine's ability to rev. In our testing the Q50 finished the 0-60 mph sprint in 5.5 seconds (5.2 with one foot of rollout like on a drag strip) and ran the quarter mile in 13.7 seconds at 102.8 mph.

The brake pedal is slack-free and offers excellent modulation around town. Drop the anchors as hard as possible and you'll discover another limitation of its all-season tires ? the Q50's stopping distance from 60 mph is 123 feet, a far cry from the 107 feet of the summer-tired G37S we last tested.

Looks Better Than Ever, Inside And Out
Outside, the styling trades the soft, amorphous forms of the G37 for a far more sinewy stance that recalls its M ? soon to be called Q70 ? stablemate. To our eyes, the new sheetmetal is a big step forward and its tip o' the hat to the Essence show car, one of the dead-sexiest show cars in quite some time, was wisely considered.

The cabin, too, sees upgrades in materials and presentation which make it a more noticeably more luxurious space. There's a bit more shoulder room inside as well, a result of the Q50's greater width. Six footers can sit in back comfortably without brushing their heads, so it remains a true five-passenger sedan.

There's a new center stack that features a double touchscreen interface, one below for the audio/climate controls and one above for the navigation screen. Both are responsive and fairly intuitive, but neither can avoid the usual touchscreen drawbacks of suspectibility to fingerprint smudges and washout on sunny days. Thankfully, there are hard buttons along the side of the screens if you prefer more traditional controls.

The layout is simple, elegant and easy to get comfortable with. Our only rear gripe were the standard seats. The base seats of our test car were short of lower thigh support, and the flat bottom induces road butt in just a couple of hours. Upgraded sports seats come with the "S" trim and are likely a noticeable step up.

Almost There
The sticker on our Premium test car was $2,850 more than the base Q50 which undercuts the current G37 Journey by a hair. Suffice it to say that with prices have crept upward but not drastically. In the bargain, EPA fuel economy sees an improvement to 20/30 city/highway mpg, a gain of 1 and 3 mpg respectively over the G37.

There are a lot of reasons to like the Q50, as it brings tangible improvements to an already excellent car in virtually every area. Comfort, space, refinement and efficiency have all stepped forward, and the powertrain is terrific. That word virtually, though, has our curiosity piqued for the S version which promises to put all of the pieces together in a more convincing fashion.

spwolf

so horrible handling?