Car & Driver: 10 Fastest Cars 30-40k (IS350: 4th Place)

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12-20-07, 02:56 PM

#46

sirkfc

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Quote:

Originally Posted by Heat00

One of the worries I have about the IS, besides the lack of room, is that I hear something about the tires not even lasting 15,000 miles? Can you guys give me some direction as to if that is true or not? Seems like that can get expensive as I drive 30k+ a year..

People here get significantly different results on their tirewear, despite having the same tires. I think the formula for tirewear is this....

# of tires to replace per year = A * 1 / age of the driver, where A is a positive number.

Anyway, I think the 15K warning on the brakes and tires is just for legal purposes so that people can't say they were "tricked". I haven't really seen any evidence that the IS chews up tires any quicker than a 3 series or Infiniti G.

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12-20-07, 05:06 PM

#47

llamaboiz

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About the tirewear, those are stock tires with 140 treadwear rating. Once they wear out your of course not gonna put the same OEM back on right?

OR your gonna buy some nice aftermarket 19" or 20" AME/Work/Volk rims, needing new tires anyway... right?

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12-20-07, 06:07 PM

#48

FiveOhNine

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Quote:

Originally Posted by Heat00

Nicely put. I am actually in the process this week of getting a new car and it is down to the 335i and the IS350. I'm leaning towards the IS, the only, only thing I don't like so far is that space is a little tight. My wife is pushing me towards the 335i and I did drive a sedan 335i yesterday.
since we are the subject I'll give me .02 worth.

it did drive very nicely and I'm going to drive the IS again saturday. (drove it a year ago before I got my G35S). handled nicely and space in both the front and the back seemed better than the Lexus....BUT

the sticker on the one I was looking at was $43,800 and all that it had was automatic & sport package. NO other option. no nav, no backup camera, no keyless operation and the list goes on. the interior of the BMW is just so plain and blah... I'm having a hard time with it. Leaning towards giving up some room to get a luxury sport sedan, the IS. The other worries I have are with reliability. seems like the Lexus (wife has rx330) and all japanesse are really that much better than anything out of germany and even though they include 50k of maintenance, it's not only the money but the time to go drop off the car and the headache associated with that. I'm sure for $43,800 (havent been to the dealer yet) that my IS350 will have many more options and luxuries than that of the bimmer.

One of the worries I have about the IS, besides the lack of room, is that I hear something about the tires not even lasting 15,000 miles? Can you guys give me some direction as to if that is true or not? Seems like that can get expensive as I drive 30k+ a year..

Both sets of OEM tires (BMW and Lexus) are fairly comparable as far as treadwear/tire life are concerned. BMW uses the RFTs which will run you about $50 more per corner for the same tire (or $250 more per corner if you are naive enough to buy from the BMW dealer).

The great thing about tires is that you are expected to replace them relatively early and often which gives you a great opportunity to upgrade. If you are concerned about buying tires too often, and aren't particularly concerned with taking corners at breakneck speeds, you'll probably want to look at a decent set of touring tires with a high treadwear rating.