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I honestly have been back and forth with regrets. But I have come to love her for what she is. I tend to live through my wife's ride every now and then when I want a ride that's a little quicker. She had a 2014 f30 328i and we traded that in recently and copped the newer 340i. Now, that sucker gives me what I want when I punch it. I don't know who said the 330i is slow but that sucker can hang with my 2014 IS350. Catch a 350 off guard and you have to work to get rid of the f30. Slow? Hell no! Either way, I love this car because of my love for Toyota and their reliability and long term rewards. I learnt when we traded in the 328i how much it wasn't worth it. So now we ONLY lease when it comes to German cars and finance Japanese cars. I just wished Toyota didn't put this 8 speed in the 3is. The 6 speed in my previous 2008 GS350 would murder this. So much more aggressive and the supposed mpg savings in the 8 is BS. I had the 6 in the GS350 and it was better mpg than this or similar. That car I actually regret selling. Remembering it on 19's, coilovers and the comfort moves me.
I have a 2008 AWD IS250 that I bought new in 2007. If you search my posts you'll see a 10 year ownership run down.
The reliability to me, seems much better than other cars listed (besides Toyota's) based on reading other forums, seeing friends with issues, and experiencing some myself.
The maintenance has been straight forward and doesn't include exotic things like frequent ATF changes or one time use bolts (bmw). It's a NA car which means no extra turbo or supercharger parts to break. It doesn't have giant wheel/tires which has actually made it cheaper to maintain.
Everything has held up well besides the dashboard which has the recall for stickiness I didn't experience until now. That is a bit annoying but I use solar shades and it seems to keep it in check.
Some of the recalls like the valve issue have been incredibly generous compared to other manufacturers -- ask any mini owner with an A/T or any ford owner about their PTU to see what the bad end of the mfg spectrum looks like.
I had a co-worker get rear-ended very badly and the responders did not expect it to be basically a walk away situation that it was. The passenger compartment seems to hold up extremely well in impacts.
I expect to continue to hold on to the car for as long as possible. The biggest life changing feature I would dump the car for would be self driving & other advanced safety features like auto stopping but all that stuff is still in it's infancy and I'm good waiting on them to develop more.
Things it could do better:
It's not particularly fast, especially the 2.5L AWD but it does ride nicely and quietly. I think the 3.5L AWD that was eventually released mitigated the performance issue some.
Some "luxury" features are now almost standard and I would very much like to see Lexus stop creating packages -- it's just such a marketing ploy to advertise lower prices, build the car with everything and let it be something.
Some features I'd like are memory seats, electric folding mirror, parking assist, blindspot monitoring (didn't exist at the time), emergency auto stopping (seems like a good feature -- didn't exist at the time) -- The memory seats, electric folding mirrors, and parking assist were hard to find at the time (i.e. no car on a lot had this package from DC to Maine at the time), hence my comment about no packages.
The seats are not super comfortable for me but I can hardly find a car that is comfortable for me to sit in for a long time.
If I had to do it all over again:
I would buy a CPO just to get a much better price.
I wouldn't bother with lojack -- I had it in another car and it paid for itself but it didn't in this one insurance wise.
I would have sprung for an AGM battery (they probably come with them now) when my first battery died, not on the third battery.
So overall I think it was the right car if you wanted a long term situation.
No one buys an IS because they want a fast car. My IS350 has the power I need for the driving that I do. No regrets.
A lot of your other complaints are along the lines of the evolution of the car industry. But basically what you're saying is that you don't think Lexus should have an entry level "affordable" offering. OK, that's your opinion. You're also complaining about a car that was first released over 6 years ago. If you want cutting edge, get a brand new version of a model.
The other thing that's happened in the past 10 years is that "pedestrian" cars now have most of the features that used to only be found on luxury cars. A lot of the features on my IS are no longer 'special' because most cars have these features. That wasn't true 5 years ago. Lexus is overdue for a re-design of the IS and they'll have to really work to make it stand out among the competition, and I am sure they will not disappoint.
I owned a 2014 IS350 with the luxury package. I was initially going to get an F Sport, but came to many of the same conclusions as you. Seat memory and ventilation with the power telescoping steering wheel were more important to me than the fancy gauge and front end. Those options weren't available with the F Sport that year. The F Sport didn't have fog lights either.
I was always baffled by not having the power folding mirrors. Overall I don't regret the car, but performance led me to buy an ISF. I missed the 3IS tech features and interior, so I swapped that for a GSF. I still don't have power folding mirrors lol...
I honestly have been back and forth with regrets. But I have come to love her for what she is. I tend to live through my wife's ride every now and then when I want a ride that's a little quicker. She had a 2014 f30 328i and we traded that in recently and copped the newer 340i. Now, that sucker gives me what I want when I punch it. I don't know who said the 330i is slow but that sucker can hang with my 2014 IS350. Catch a 350 off guard and you have to work to get rid of the f30. Slow? Hell no! Either way, I love this car because of my love for Toyota and their reliability and long term rewards. I learnt when we traded in the 328i how much it wasn't worth it. So now we ONLY lease when it comes to German cars and finance Japanese cars. I just wished Toyota didn't put this 8 speed in the 3is. The 6 speed in my previous 2008 GS350 would murder this. So much more aggressive and the supposed mpg savings in the 8 is BS. I had the 6 in the GS350 and it was better mpg than this or similar. That car I actually regret selling. Remembering it on 19's, coilovers and the comfort moves me.
Its all relative. The IS350 is adequate but kinda slow just like the 330. The 340 is quick for sure but many competitors are as fast or faster for the same price range. I really hated the way the F30 drove...steering was so blah. IS350 was a much better balanced car and I chose it over the 340 even though its much slower because of the balance. Speed isn't everything but I acknowledge what is slow vs. fast in this day and age when Accords get 0-60 in mid 5s.
I did not read the entire thread, and I have 2nd gen IS350 and ISF. If you bought a 250 and are disappointed in the speed, that is like buying a civic and being upset that it is slow. The 250 is not sporty and is not marketed as such. The 350s are very competitive in performance, and much more reliable and unique than any of their competition. I started with the 350, and bought an ISF because I wanted more power, but I certainly didn’t need it.
My regret? Should of get the 350 instead of 200T. If there is a IS Hybrid in the US, I would of get the IS Hybrid without any regret.
I bought the 200T for the fuel economy reason over the 350. The fuel economy for my driving and the area I'm in (So Cal) isn't as good as I was hoping for. It's only 2-3 mpg better than my big @ss Sienna. Base on that I think for me the 200T is only 1-2 mpg better than the 350. Hence, I should of get the 350. Also the turbo lag, sometime kill the joy of driving it (2nd or 3rd priority to me).
I'm really sorry you are having buying regrets about your IS. I am also surprised a the lack of features you discovered.
I had a 2006 IS350 (first year they made the 350) that I drove for 13 years until it was totaled in an accident on the sixth of last month. I loved that car and had fully intended to dive in another five years. It had everything on it - even the passenger side had three position memory which I hadn't seen before or since. It allowed me to have car seats in the back when my kids were young (both now in college) and also enjoy driving a sportier car. It was an amazing automobile.
Even in the end it didn't disappoint us. My wife and I were fully stopped at a stoplight on a highway and we were rear-ended by a woman going 55+ who admitted she was looking at her phone and she was arrested for being intoxicated; she never touched her brakes. She hit us so hard we spun 180 degrees, bounced off another vehicle so hard it had to be towed, and stopped spinning facing the opposite direction to what we were facing. The airbags that needed to deploy deployed, and the car took the brunt of the force. We were both taken to a trauma center and my wife suffered a serious concussion; we are still both in physical therapy.
As far as my wife and I are concerned, that IS350 was a rock-star.
The accident happened on a Friday and the following Monday I was back at the Lexus dealer. I bought an RC350 that night - I am a LEXUS FAN.
I had read the entire thread.
I was asking the poster (Albo) what options he thought were missing.
I've got heated/cooled/power/memory/leather seats, heated steering wheel, navigation, headlamp washers, park assist, cross traffic alert, etc.
And that's all on the first year model of the 3IS. I thought it was pretty impressive. Sure, it doesn't have massaging seats, but I wouldn't expect it on this class of car.
So the question was to Albo, what does he think is missing, that lowers the car's appeal?
I'm really sorry you are having buying regrets about your IS. I am also surprised a the lack of features you discovered.
I had a 2006 IS350 (first year they made the 350) that I drove for 13 years until it was totaled in an accident on the sixth of last month. I loved that car and had fully intended to dive in another five years. It had everything on it - even the passenger side had three position memory which I hadn't seen before or since. It allowed me to have car seats in the back when my kids were young (both now in college) and also enjoy driving a sportier car. It was an amazing automobile.
Even in the end it didn't disappoint us. My wife and I were fully stopped at a stoplight on a highway and we were rear-ended by a woman going 55+ who admitted she was looking at her phone and she was arrested for being intoxicated; she never touched her brakes. She hit us so hard we spun 180 degrees, bounced off another vehicle so hard it had to be towed, and stopped spinning facing the opposite direction to what we were facing. The airbags that needed to deploy deployed, and the car took the brunt of the force. We were both taken to a trauma center and my wife suffered a serious concussion; we are still both in physical therapy.
As far as my wife and I are concerned, that IS350 was a rock-star.
The accident happened on a Friday and the following Monday I was back at the Lexus dealer. I bought an RC350 that night - I am a LEXUS FAN.
Wow. Glad you survived. Hope the recovery is speedy.
Is there another car in same class that has 10 airbags like the 3IS? When i bought mine in 2016, none of the german makes had it. It was one of the list of requirements I had: as many airbags as possible..
10-02-19, 09:50 AM
Regrets?
