IS350JY

Thats what i was thinking. How could they be maxed out if there are all of these other performance add ons like intake, exhaust, headers and they just started to make all of these things. They have just started and there will only be much more to come.

ff_

My point was aimed at arguing that there's no evidence that the Lexus engine has more potential than the BMW engine. Perhaps I didn't word it so well.

IS350JY

i see what your saying but the is350 has more power then the 330i and the new IS500 will have alot more power then the new M3. So once again the lexus has more power and more potential.

ff_

They also have/will have significantly more displacement.

Lexus 5.0 > 450 HP
BMW 4.0 > 400 HP

More importantly, what are the torque numbers?

Oh, and the amount of power that the engines have from the factory doesn't necessarily have a direct correlation to how much potential the engine has with aftermarket modifcations.

Bichon

Precisely. In fact in the case of our engine, a 306HP version of a motor that makes about 35HP less in the Avalon and ES350, one might suspect that the "low hanging fruit" has already been picked, and that further performance gains without compromising reliability and/or drivability will be more difficult to obtain.

akhbhaat

But the sensical answer is obvious! You've just ruled it out because of assumptions that you've made. Nowhere does it say that I do consider my time valuable (at least, time during the middle of the night when most everybody I know is asleep) and am actually bothered by wasting it. In any case, I usually find these forums entertaining, so even "waste" is a bit of a stretch.

I do believe that is what I was trying to say.

IS350JY

I just think that this is a topic that everyone wil have there opinion on and that they only way to find out which is a better car at least performance wise is to just wait it out until people start to but turbos and superchargers to find out which is a faster and more powerful car. Comfort wise lexus is definatly the winner no questions asked!

IS350JY

the only thingthat the bimmer has betther then the Lexus is that the back seat folds down and the back seat passenger leg room. BUT THATS IT!

TwiBlueG35

IS350 is like an art, a very fine art. Mechanically BMW 330i and Infiniti G35 are about the same level as IS350, but aesthetically both interior and exterior and choices of materials/equipments used differentiate these three, IS are ahead of the other two in my opinion. I have to see the 07 G35 sedan to see if Infiniti has caught up.

y2ks2k

Its absolutely clear to me and mind boggling. The *only* thing that the BWM is better at is "feel" which is totally subjective... It doesn’t best it in any performance statistic at all (matching in handling statistics).. but it "feels" better apparently... But that’s not what makes a car a car... but it seems that this is the absolute primary purpose of a car according to several magazines... which boggles my mind.


I’ve been reading about how *great* the 330 is in magazines for years and every time I go to buy a car I check them out… I pass every time, I just don’t get why people think this car is worth a damn.. Its $10000 over priced in my book (the 330).

If I were just looking for *feel* in a sports sedan, I would have kept my Sti, it felt great...

brentweiss

have you ever driven a bmw?

gshb

where are you guys getting the HP #s for the IS500? 500hp? wtf? 450? ...

before getting my 350, i drove my roommates 330ci ZSP for a while. my other roommate had just recently got the new 530i too. we were all joking about how cool would it be if i were to get the new 330i.

well yah that woulda been cool, but to be honest the 330ci has a harsh ride. driving from san francisco to san jose with all the potholes meant 2 hurting asses. this is no joke and we hit a pothole hard enough to get out and check to see if there was any damage. my roommate is a typical driver i guess, oblivious to the fact that he has a sport package which means stiffer shocks and lower ride height. also the fact that he was driving a bmw, accelerating into corners with pedestrians and braking hard before a light kind of deglamorized bmw ownership for me. the steering was ultra heavy too, i just dont understand why??? i mean, it was like there was no power steering at all. ive driven a dinan s2 m3 for a week and it was never that heavy, but maybe dinan did something to it i dont know. btw the s2 m3 was SWEET. car was worth at least 80k..gotta love rich friends.

the 530i was a nice change. kind of out of my price range, but i really really liked the screen (tho idrive was stupid, roommate showed me how to select a certain radio station and it took several menu clicks...wtf i just was a tuner button). he got one of the earlier 530i models with the really dumb cellphone center armrest holder. other than that there were no extra goodies.

i just had to sit in the new 330i to make my decision. no way im getting a sport package. i dont know if the car i sat in had real leather or what but like others have said the seats were rock hard. also, the headliner was pretty loose, you could push in the dome lights pretty far. center console was really boring with lots of black plastic empty spots. speaker location was odd, isnt as well integrated as the speakers in the IS. and speaking of which, the stereo is still rubbish! no pro logic, but i didnt get ML either so...

oh and compared to the new 5 and old 3, the new 3 is plain ugly...the car needs to come with blackline tails as standard, but that flame surfacing is just too dorky.

phew thats all...

Belmont

Quote:

have you ever driven a bmw?

Have you read his post?

I have, and frankly I don't see what the big deal is either. Outside of the M series, which I've also driven, the differences between the IS350 and the 330i are just not that great for daily driving.

4TehNguyen

iTrader: (1)

drove both the 330 and is350 at the taste of lexus event. 330 steering wheel was too heavy, yes its good to have a heavier fill but this was really overboard, especially when needing to execute a quick left right or right left, the overly heavy steering wheel hindered any fast switch of the steering wheel direction.

Bichon

Was your 330i equipped with that wonky 'active steering'? The two that I test drove (from dealer inventory) were not, and I found the wheel perfectly weighted, and more importantly, extremely precise and communicative with lots of feedback. Contrary to what others here have said, I don't think the difference between the steering feel on the BMW vs. the Lexus was insignificant or too small to feel in everyday driving. If an aftermarket mod was available to replicate the steering feel of the 330i in my Lexus, I'd buy it in a heartbeat. The only bad thing I can say about the steering on the BMW is that the steering wheel on the cars I test drove was not leather wrapped and felt like they were made out of plastic. (I think the salesman said that a leather wrapped wheel came with one of the option packages)