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My opinion:
If you want the best of both worlds, get a Luxury and put all the F-Sport exterior styling mods in (i.e. this allows you to wait to save up money, research, figure out parts you might want, etc). Several people on this forum have gone this route. The only big things you'll be missing are the F-Sport tuned suspension and the brakes (not sure about the differences since I drive the GS hybrid). Here is a good read for you that contains a lot of good information: https://www.clublexus.com/forums/gs-...s-f-sport.html
If you want the F-Sport, it will cost you a whole lot of money and/or technical skills to retro fit all the Luxury features in. Nobody on this forum has done it. Not worth the time/effort/money imho.
As others mentioned -- figure out you budget, figure out your patience level to find the car you desire and where you're willing to go to get it, lastly and do what makes you happy! Remember there is no "wrong" decision here.
All depends on your desire. I have the '14 GS w/lux. Basically, if you want a more aggressive style, handling, rigid suspension than the F-Sport, maybe slightly better braking. Otherwise, comfort nicer features along with almost equivalent as my driving doesn't push the handling, shift points limits. To me, it was a no brainer. I like the adaptive lights, seats, rear controls, etc. I don't use power shade.
You are correct. The 18-way seats (Luxury package only) can adjust the angle of the upper part of the seatback. In addition, they have what look to be much thicker and plusher headrests that also have a built-in safety feature where they will shoot forward and up to catch your head in the event of being rear-ended. The 16-way F-Sport seats have the more basic headrests (that are not active in the event of being rear-ended) and lack the upper seatback angle adjustment.
The non-active head rests is an interesting one - my 2000 Inifiti has those so I would have assumed all luxury cars had them as standard safety equipment.
You are correct. The 18-way seats (Luxury package only) can adjust the angle of the upper part of the seatback. In addition, they have what look to be much thicker and plusher headrests that also have a built-in safety feature where they will shoot forward and up to catch your head in the event of being rear-ended. The 16-way F-Sport seats have the more basic headrests (that are not active in the event of being rear-ended) and lack the upper seatback angle adjustment.
The sides of the lux headrests fold inward allowing you to cradle your head and yes there is more spacing/padding, more comfortable than the harder base/f-sport headrest.
GS350 RWD, GS350 AWD, GS350 F-Sport AWD, GS450h have the two-piston calipers (and 1-piece rotors).
GS350 F-Sport RWD, GS450h F-Sport have the larger rotors (2-piece) and four-piston calipers.
Incorrect 2013 lexus gs 450h is 4 piston, 2 pistons on the back of each brake pad. I'm pretty sure same for all models of 350 also.
I know for fact since I've removed my pads before.
Incorrect 2013 lexus gs 450h is 4 piston, 2 pistons on the back of each brake pad. I'm pretty sure same for all models of 350 also.
I know for fact since I've removed my pads before.
I know for a fact my 2013 GS350 Lux AWD has 4 piston as well.
All GS350s have them in the front, see this listing, requiring 8 front pistons....
The Base, Premium, Luxury and AWD models use the same 4 piston front calipers. The F-Sport RWD model uses a little bigger 4 piston front caliper. The rear caliper is a single piston on all models.
Here is a 4 piston 2013 front caliper from a Luxury model, which is the same for the Base, Premium and AWD models. The F-Sport RWD front caliper is a little bigger.
Here is a single piston 2013 rear caliper which is the same for all models.
The Base, Premium, Luxury and AWD models use the same 4 piston front calipers. The F-Sport RWD model uses a little bigger 4 piston front calipers. The rear caliper is a single piston on all models.
Here is a 4 piston 2013 front caliper from a Luxury model, which is the same for the Base, Premium and AWD models. The F-Sport RWD front caliper is a bit bigger.
Here is the single piston 2013 caliper rear for all models.
Why does the f-sport and the base GS use the same exact pads?
Maybe the pistons are bigger on the f-sport
I've never looked into it, but I suspect the piston diameter is a little larger on the F-Sport RWD front caliper - the caliper does protrude outward (toward the wheel) a little further.
4 Pistons total, 2 behind each pad, exactly same caliper like BC posted earlier.. I'm not sure why they are calling 2 pistons on each side of the rotor (4 total), 2 pistons brakes.
2 piston brakes to me would be 1 piston on each side of the rotor.
The 450h weighs about 4200 lb's and the heaviest GS.
I checked the GS brochure and see what your saying, but that is false, idk what the marketing ploy is here.
Really weird. IDK why Lexus is lying about this since 2013.
Here are pics of the f-sport calipers, looks like 4 pistons just like mine:
I checked the GS brochure and see what your saying, but that is false, idk what the marketing ploy is here.
Really weird. IDK why Lexus is lying about this since 2013.
Here are pics of the f-sport calipers, looks like 4 pistons just like mine:
Then it's really strange that they've had incorrect marketing materials over the entire course of this GS generation. I wonder what the true differences are then between the base calipers & the F-Sport ones.
02-19-20, 02:39 PM
