SW17LS

I wouldn't go to the level to call it irresponsible, his bias towards European cars is very clear if you watch his channel. What he posted was opinion, Mercedes and Lexus cars have a very different feel inside. He did do a review of an LS460 a while back that was very positive.

He also hates BMWs so much he refuses to work on them.

The wood steering wheels on LS400s and LS430s very commonly crack.

Heres his LS460 review:

Toys4RJill

I don’t think most Mercedes consumers care how well built or how well engineered a Lexus LS was. Mercedes has done very well with Lexus in the luxury car space as competitors. The luxury car segments all grew in the late 90s and the exploded in the 2000s. Mercedes makes very good cars...so does Lexus.

SW17LS

The history of the luxury car market would disagree with you lol. The LS400 made a huge impact on the luxury car market, Mercedes included. Lexus' impact has waned considerably in later years as they took their foot off the gas, but in the 90s and 2000s Lexus had a huge impact on Mercedes and their direction.

My LS400 is the car I still measure all cars against, and I haven't owned another car as well built as that car was, my current car included. Like I said before, many many W222 S Class owners on MBWorld came from the Lexus LS.

Toys4RJill

That is good that you do. But there tons of Mercedes car owners that just don’t care about Lexus. Mercedes grew very well in sales and did very well with their prices and the brand got stronger as time went on. There was room for Lexus...but Mercedes grew as well.

For example: I still have a 90s C & D comparo in the library. MB V12 vs BMW V12, Lexus was not a player

Och

iTrader: (3)

I don't agree that LS400 was more over the top engineered vs the LS430, as the LS430 was an evolutionary design to the the LS400 where they perfected every detail and worked out all the shortcomings. It may not have been as much of an impact as the LS400, but from the engineering perspective it was a masterpiece. The LS460 was a new start and somewhat a new direction, with way more options to comply with modern demands.

I know everyone has their own opinions, but I still say it is irresponsible for someone who can be considered a popular automotive journalist to create such a misleading, biased video. The LS430 is legendary, and to dismiss it over mundane nonsense such as headlight shape is offensive - it was the beginning of the era when cars were completely modeled in CAD, and companies were beginning to experiment with complex surface shapes including headlights and tail lights. There are a bunch of cars from that era that have similar headlight and tail light shapes - were they all copied from Mercedes? These are just the trends of the times, much like everyone once copied Audi's LED headlight accents, Lexus exhausts integrated into rear bumper, todays obnoxious grilles, and so on.

SW17LS

Sure there are, but that doesn't mean that Lexus didnt have an impact on Mercedes, or that Mercedes buyers don't cross shop Lexus. Plenty of BMW owners who dont care about Mercedes and vice versa, but that doesnt mean the brands arent competitors and don't have an impact on each other.

Well sure, Lexus doesnt have a V12. I can post many many comparisons where Lexus was a player.

Did you own both? I did. The LS430 was a great car but there's no question that the LS400 was a more over engineered car. Of the 3 generations of LS cars I had, my least favorite was the LS430...

Who says hes an automotive journalist?! He's a car mechanic who makes videos loi, the vast majority of his videos arent even reviews. Not everybody who has a you tube channel is a journalist lol. In fact, almost nobody is. Its just his opinion.

Thats your opinion, and when does he dismiss the car? Did you watch the whole video? And as Carmaker posted his assessment of what it was styled after and the reaction it made when it was released is correct.

Och

iTrader: (3)

I owned the LS400 and GS430, with the GS essentially having the same drivetrain as the LS430. They were both of legal age in car years, so I spent a lot of intimate moments under the hood and underneath each car performing all kinds of invasive acts, whether they were repairs or mods. I even swapped LS430 seats into the LS400 and figured out the wiring by trial and error. I'm pretty familiar with most aspects of their respective engineering, and the LS400 had a lot of issues that were worked out over time. Maybe the LS400 was more impressive for its time, but the LS430 was a far better car.

He reaches out to a large audience, and unlike some reviewers who are more entertaining than informative, and since he claims to be an expert mechanic his opinions are usually educational, but in this particular case they are completely misleading to viewers who are not very familiar with the LS.


I watched the video before it was even posted here, and his claims about "probably real wood", plastic headlights, and "Toyota plus" or whatever absurd reference he made toward the LS is certainly dismissive.

Och

iTrader: (3)

The steering wheels back then might have been solid chunks of wood, prone to cracking. Check out the process they use now
The original LS400 used thick chunks of wood on the center console and doors, and it would get absolutely destroyed after a few years.

SW17LS

Having had them both, I just don't agree.

Quite frankly, I don't see anything he said that was misleading...its all his opinion.

It does have plastic headlights, and the W140 does have glass headlights, those are facts. That is certainly misleading as I said in my first post because the next generation S Class also went to plastic headlights, and older generations of the LS that were sold when that W140 was sold had glass lights. So, thats not a question of quality as he presented it to be.

Toyota plus...well it is Toyota plus. Thats what Lexus is. There is absolutely a argument to be made that many things about a Lexus LS feel more Toyota than they do Mercedes. Thats something that has improved since that generation LS, and IMO the 460 and 500 feel a lot less Toyota-ish. You also forget the opinion he gives that it being a Toyota is not a bad thing, and that if someone wants a car they can buy and just drive and not have to worry about costs of repairs etc, that was the car to buy. Lexus' Toyota roots are a positive and a negative.

"Probably real wood", well it is obviously, but his opinion about its appearance vs the way the wood trim appears in the Mercedes is again his opinion.

Just remember, every car he's given negative sentiments about that you agree with theres a group of people "offended" he feels that way too.

You don't think I'm aware of that? ! had two LS460s with those wood steering wheels. Thats one trim option, the shimamoku wood. The other wood trims available were simply solid wood as was used in the 430 and 400.

sdls

A great big gift wrapped +1 for SW17LS for this post.

Toys4RJill

Yeah, no doubt Lexus had an impact...I believe the Lexus impact was that Mercedes successfully moved to make their brand higher upscale in price. Mercedes pushed the needle higher and so did BMW and I forgot about Jag I just looked up the mags we still have...LS400 in 1994 all-new was $54,000 est base price, an S500 in 1995 had a base price of $95K and a test price of $101K...that was not for the V12. Lexus was making 260hp at the time while Mercedes cleared 315hp...BMW and MB upped their game quite a bit because of Lexus

I also think as Lexus did well in sales. So did Mercedes...haven't paid attention to BMW sales..

Back to the wizard...this car he is comparing really should be compared to a 2 door Lexus of that era...not the LS430 of a different era. A 1993 Mercedes 500SEC went for $111K so this 1996 model is like twice the price...this is a whole different category price point

I think opinions on wood is personal. I don't think the LS430 wood in the Wizard video is very appealing IMO


This is what the Wizard should be comparing the LS430 to:

SW17LS

But Mercedes didnt make their brand more upscale in price, its the opposite and your numbers show that. Adjusted for inflation $95,000 in 1995 is $163,000 today. The W140 S Class was WAY more expensive than the W222 or W223 S Classes today. An S560 started around $95,000 in today's money. The LS on the other hand hasn't really gone up or down in pruce, $54,000 in 1995 is $92,686 today, which is a well equipped LS500.

Mercedes dramatically reduced the price of the S Class after the W140 generation and a big part of why was Lexus. When the LS came out, price wise it was cheaper than an E Class. Today its firmly more than an E Class but still a value proposition to the S Class. Thats not a coincidence, Mercedes brought the pricing of all their cars down which is what led to all of their quality issues in the early 2000s.

You miss the point of the comparison. As Carmaker said, the W140 coupe WAS the design focus of the LS430. Thats a fact, hence this design comparison makes perfect sense.

I don't like that blond wood either. Our LS430 had a black interior with the antique stain dark cherry wood:



From a quality perspective I agree, the W220 is its contemporary. And many of his plusses he finds in the W140 he wont find in that car. No glass headlights, no metal door jambs, no little handle that pops out of the trunk. Material qualities inside way lower.

Toys4RJill

That wood in the LS is better.... I still don't love it... I also do not like the grey buttons and switches.

SW17LS

Yeah I never loved the interior of the LS430, I felt the dash felt too tall, I didn't like the grey buttons, wood trim in the console broken into too many little panels, I much preferred the simpler more elegant interior of the second gen 400, especially the 98-00

Och

iTrader: (3)

Interesting that you find interior of the W140 superior to the W220, as well as LS400 to the LS430. I find both the W220 and LS430 interiors far superior to their predecessors with improved, more moderns materials. I prefer the boxy exterior designs of the previous models, but you can't directly blame Lexus or Mercedes for the designs of the W220 or LS430 - such were the design trends of the times due to pedestrian safety requirements. I understand not liking the taller dash, but that was simply a result of taller exterior beltline, automakers had to adopt. But the materials - leather, wood, plastics, switches, sound insulation, audio systems, and so on were much better in the W220 and LS430. Tighter panel gaps, better assembly, and so on. If you disagree with me, try finding photos of these models that are a year apart with roughly the same mileage, and see where the plastics have warped more, leather wore out more, etc.

I should also note that there was a tremendous amount of improvement to the LS400 through its 10 year life span - the refresh to the original in 1993 brought many improvements, the second gen 1996 was light years ahead, and the 98 refresh was major enough to be considered an all new model. In fact, it was probably the biggest leap in the LS400 development, even bigger than the original second gen LS to the first gen LS.

Love or hate the LS430, it did not cost cut from the LS400, it is built on top of all the engineering that went into the LS400 with all the possible improvements that the engineers learned through their experience. And scottykilmering about the plastic headlights is just disingenuous, especially for an expert mechanic. Anybody with any automotive knowledge knows that automakers switched to plastic headlights at the turn of the millenium to allow for projector optics, and I reckon that LS430 molded plastic headlights with advanced projects and HID lighting cost a lot more to develop at the time vs the traditional glass headlights.