strklssk

Greetings friends, Chicago-based Toyotahead here, new to the forum. ISO a new daily driver, I drive about 40 highway miles per day to work. My past commuter vehicles have included a 97 Civic, 01 Solara, 97 4Runner, 05 Outback, and 01 CR-V.

I'm ready for a nicer ride, and have been looking at the 3rd gen Acura TL mostly because of its affordability. But I haven't been super impressed, as only a couple of 07-08 TLs have "felt right" to me. And I'm here to find out if there are any people here who have experience with the 3rd gen TL and could give me a fair, honest opinion about the ES 350. It seems like the fifth gen ES 350 is the comparable model to the TL.

I need a car ASAP and need to widen my search parameters. Looking to spend around $6000 cash and trying to get the most for my money! Any other Lexus sedans I should be considering? Any help you could share would be much appreciated.

PS—I'm pretty into wrenching my vehicles. My other ride is a modded '99 Land Cruiser that I work on all the time. So if there are typical issues with this vintage of ES that are relatively fixable, I'd be interested to hear. I'm more concerned about anything major that would need require a certified mechanic.

12jimmyjam

I can tell you that the ES is a very comfortable car to commute in. Used to have an 09 accord and it definitely wasn’t.

Axles are common problems on the 5th gen but it sounds like that’s something you can take care of yourself. Good luck!

danielnas

ES 350 is much better in every way. I had the same question too but after test driving many TLs realized ES350 is much more reliable and more comfortable. it has timing chain and TL has timing belt which is big and expensive maintenance.

CQRT

My top three considerations were the TL, the Infinity M45 and the Lexus ES - - -two ES350's later, I have no second thoughts although I don't really care for the newer design's blacked out nose grill - -

Smoother, quitter, equally responsive, better fuel mileage, more durable and easy to care for.