kjhouston

Last night I test drove both the GS430 and the Infiniti M45. Let me just first say that cars have come a long way. All of the bells and whistles are top notch. Call me biased if you want, I still think the GS is the better car. Felt sportier, tighter and more responsive. The M definitely felt larger inside and out. I didn't really like the dash of the M though. It's multi level and creates an awkward feeling. Both have great raw power. The greatest highlight of the GS is no more lag time on the gas. I hated how my 01 GS430 has the 2 second delay before it decides to kick it in to gear when you floor it. Absolutely no hesitation at all. Even when I was pulling out of the dealership you could tell already. It felt like it was begging to be unleashed. Also was impressed by the very tight turning radius on the GS. The M also felt responsive but still had the floating feeling that I got when I test drove the Q45 a few years ago. Don't get me wrong, it's a nice car, I just didn't feel as connected to the road. I did really like the 19" wheels that come on the M45 sport. They were very nice indeed. But I also like the 18" spider wheels on the GS.

I also went to the Audi dealership to check out the new A6, but they were closing. Will have to wait another day to check them out and Mercedes and BMW.

My lease will expire in the end of August. So I'm sure I'll be back posting to see if any one is interested in my current ride.

Can help with questions if interested.

Gojirra99

Is it the M45 Sport version that you've driven, & still felt like it has a floating feeling ?

jyg es3

I too have driven both gs430 m45 sport. I agree on styling , Gs has it over m on both int/ext. But on the drive no way. Gs was a floater, Did not have the same power. Tranny does not react to engine
like the m45 does. . Also m45 steer /handles like a bmw. not lexus. If I could only get over the int/ext of the m45 it would be my choice. I guess I will drive gs430 again. I also noticed on gs 430 when i took f oot of gas rev dropped down very quickly almost like car down shifted. Curious. I will drive it again. Gs still has a fault the tires, here in NE only run flats normally are put on the car. With
no spare , not even a donut. But I do like the looks of the gs SO SO much more

psteng19

Really? Most posts I've read are opposite of what your posts says.

The GS has a slight delay when accelerating and the M has gobs of power on demand.
The GS ride is floaty while the M has a BMW-like sporty handling characteristic.

I have yet to test drive either to experience it for myself.

dseag2

LOL. Are you sure you drove a 2006 model M45????

Car Freak

I could not agree with you more. As I also posted before, I think the GS is GORGEOUS inside and out, much better looking than the M45, but definitely does not have the power feel that the M45 has. Though I do want to give the GS430 another chance. BUT, there are a few things that I don't like about the GS, the foremost thing is the fact that the audio system will not play MP3 burned CD's and it doesn't have any A/V jacks to connect my iPod to. I think this in itself is a major inconvenience, one that I can't believe Lexus let through to the end product. I mean, everyone nowadays has burned CD's. This could possibly be a deciding factor for not getting the car. But when I go back for a test drive I'll bring one of my burned CD's and I'll see for myself if it works or not. Not that I don't believe everyone that is saying that it doesn't work, but if I see it for myself, I can more easily make the decision not to get the GS430.

PaqZa

You could always just burn an audio cd and all car cd players would play it just fine, Lexus or otherwise. Few people I know use MP3 CDs and although I think Lexus should have offered mp3-cd capability [and of course, they might, and I just don't know about it], it's not really a big deal. At this point, all the car needs is a cassette player, and it makes no difference to you whether there is a line in, since you could just hook up a cassette adapter to your dap [I think it was an iPod].

Car Freak

The sound quality that comes from cassette adaptors suck. And I think what you said about burning an audio CD is the same thing that everyone has been saying does not work in the car. Please if it is that simple, that's great, but from what everyone is saying they don't work.

yaro1

I wouldn't say the cassette adapter "sucks" because it is the best you can get over FM (On the other hand, FM absolutely "sucsk"). Casette just isn't CD quality like we expect . I have that problem too in my GX using the tape adapter. But, there are a few fixes playing around with the source volume that can make it sound better to acceptable quality. But don't expect CD quality from tape.

idg

Making audio CDs out of MP3s miss the whole point of being able to put 150-300 songs on a single CD or more than 1000 on a single layer DVD. I did try a CD with MP3s on a 2006 GS300 and it did not work. Later on I tried it successfully on the Infiniti G35 (for whatever reason the key on the only M35/M45 in the dealership did not function). I definitely think that Lexus screwed up royaly this one for no good reason and expect it to be fixed soon (wishful thinking). A lexus quality to me means to not only be able to play MP3 files, but also to have a nice user interface, similar to the IPOD, and be able to sort the songs to genres, albums, artists, etc. by scanning the disc.....

One way to overcome this deficiency is to make an audio DVD, i.e.; make a DVD with only the audio tracks. If one utilizes AC3 encoding (say at 192 Kbps), one can fit more than 50 hrs. of music on a single layer DVD+/-R. I will try it soon.

LEXTricity

I second that question. I drove the GS430 and M45 sport right after each other last week. I love the new GS, much sportier than my 2nd Gen '00 GS but still it has that Lexus luxury I've become accustomed to.
The Infiniti M on the other hand is pure sport, I thought the interior was kinda different and has grown on me since the test drive, but without question the power/performance/handling goto the M45. The sport version has Rear-Active-Steer which makes u-turns and high speed lane changes quite thrilling.
I plan on trading in my '00 GS in a few months and will probably go with the '06 GS430. The M45 sport however definitely left me with the feeling that I would rack up the speeding tickets if I owned one.

Car Freak

Ok, I'm not too informed about this whole MP3 world, but I have burned MP3's on a CD, am only able to fit about 17 songs on the CD. Is this an audio CD? Will this work in the car? If so, this is the only way I have ever been able to burn songs on to a CD so this would be fine for me. I never knew you could burn hundreds of songs on to a CD. Well if this is correct, this still only solves one of my problems, I still have to drive the car again and see if my initial feelings about the performance of the 430 were correct. But this information makes me happy. Or actually has the potential to make me happy if it's true. Sorry PaqZa for saying that you were wrong, didn't know that we were talking about different things.

idg

When people speak about the ability to play MP3s they mean play the MP3 files directly (the way the IPOD does or your computer players do). This way you can put many MP3 files on one CD. A song of average quality (128 Kbps) and length (3 min) requires less than 3 MB of storage. On a typical CD one can fit more than 200 such tracks.

spwolf

of course, one should mention that for ML system, you can burn and dvd-audio cd for long hours of listening pleasure :-).

LexFather

I think its kind of a moot point (though the GS should have this feature) because unless your driving for hours non-stop, its just nice to know you have it, but will never be used to its full capacity. Then you have to remember how to find or you have to scroll through hundreds or thousands of songs.