encore888

I think the rear seat legroom issue, the most important thing for 99% of us is whether it is adequate under normal conditions, and I think it will be. The ottoman is nice, but now we see why for sure they didn't have one on both sides. The full recline likely cannot be used very often, or only with the ottoman not fully extended (is that possible?). But anyhow, most of us are going to be fine with the rear seats without the package, I guess.

exBMWowner

The ottoman really does not go up that much anyway. I extended it all the way up, and it did not feel all that comfortable. It's not like sitting in a lounge chair where your feet can extend all the way up.

The marketing rep said they did not put the ottoman in the left rear seat because they knew the driver would not be able to push the seat up enough for the ottoman to be useful. He did say the left rear seat reclines more than the current LS430, even if you don't get the upgraded ottoman/massage package. I have the recline in my LS430 now, but with the SWB, the recline is not that useful because there is not much leg room in my rear seat. I would think with the LWB, the recline will be much more useful feature.

Ex-Lexic

Pictures, guys, PICTURES!

GSsnarl

I still haven't sat in an LS460 but I have to say judging from pictures it seems that the regular wheel base has a slightly smaller rear leg room then the LS430 (I’m sure its not). Whereas the LS460L is larger alright, but not large enough to extend the ottoman leg rest. You HAVE TO move the front passenger seat forward, and Lexus intended for it to be like that. They put front-passenger seat adjustment buttons within reach for the driver and another set of buttons for the rear right passenger. When the front passenger seat is moved all the way forward, voila! You have a truly long wheel base and enough rear seat legroom to streeeetch.

When I picture a person that would buy an LS460L with ottoman package,
I think of:
- CEO, business man/boss
- Chauffered 80% of the time
- During the drive, the boss sits in the back and the driver drives the car; so it’s usually 2 people in the car. The boss will sit in the rear right seat and since no one is sitting in front of him, he can move the front passenger seat forward at the push of a button (at the reach of his fingers) and benefit from the extra space to use the ottoman foot rest. Now sometimes, the boss has company, an assistant or something. The assistant sits next to him, on the rear left seat, which can also be adjusted but only to a certain position. You always want your assistant to be comfortable, but not tooo comfortable, remember “I’m the boss, now pull that table up and write down what I say”.

What im trying to say is, this is a four seater; people that buy this car don’t have just one car. This is an addition to 3 or 4 cars they have, each one has a purpose. The LS460L with rear ottoman package is excellent for people being chauffeured, whether it’s a 30-40 minute commute to your house in the suburbs, or 30 minutes of traffic in the city. The LS460L will be the most comfortable vehicle you can buy (right after the maybach, but I mean 3 times more expensive, no thanks ill have the LS with driver monitor system, lane keeping assistant, advanced parking assist, different kinds of massage for different parts of my body and infrared sensors that automatically adjust A/C temperature & airflow according to my body temperature )

LexFather

I've read in mags rear seat room in the short wheelbase is slightly smaller than the LS 430...

encore888

Sounds good to me! According to the ls.lexus.com site, the infared temperature sensors in the ceilings measure several spots on your body and the seat temperature, for an overall picture. I only wish they would tell you the temperature numbers for the cool factor.

flipside909

The rest of it is here:
https://www.clublexus.com/forums/sho...&postcount=200

For most Americans, the ottoman feature is pretty useless because your feet will hit the back of the front seat, even when the front seat is pushed all the way forward.

BTW, the Mark Levinson system in the LS460 has GRACENOTE, formerly CDDB, an online database of playlists.

rominl

iTrader: (4)

here's my review

https://www.clublexus.com/forums/sho...&postcount=203

in short i am very impressed with the ls460. much faster than the ls430 (any year) although handling and braking are just about the same. the rear setup of the interior is very nice, i love it. got to try the massager and i call this a real one. the one in the ls430 i always think it's pretty silly anyway. what a great car, i love it, great improvement from the ls430

exBMWowner

Sounds like you got to see a lot more at the event than I did. I could not find a car that had the power on so that I could try out the massage. What did you think of it? The vibrating massage in the LS430 is nice, but not enough to want to spend a lot of extra money on. Is the shiatsu massage in the LS460 noticeably better? I would never really get to use it, but if I take clients out to lunch, it would be something for them to play with back there.

uthatch

I was at the Irvine event yesterday and here are my thoughts:

We arrived ealier than we were supposed to and we ended up being thankful for it. We arrived at 11:15 (had a 12:00 appointment) and left at 2:30. By the time we left it was pretty packed, but when we got there it was not too bad.

I have no real interest (same with my two guests) in anything but the LS, so that's what we headed for immediatly. The first one we saw was a silver L. It was inside the tent and people were all over it. My heart sunk. In that setting it looked like an overgrown Camry...not that that's bad, but it's not good for an LS.

But we din't give up-we sat in it and inspected it faily closely. My firend came over and said that the ones outside looked much better. Boy was he right!! What a difference the setting can make. I still wasn't overly thrilled with the look, but it looked substantial, wide, and low. Things were getting better quickly. This car was also silver and I am plain sick of silver. I just had a Machine Silver '05 Vette and every car in LA is silver I think.

So then we went and watched some of the demo cars. With these LS's were a couple S Class's and 7's. I'm a fairly big fan of the new S styling (although I would never buy German; ever), and I thought the LS would not hold up to the S styling. I was wrong. The LS actually looked more substantial and better finished than the S. The 7 was absolultey nowhere in the comparison.

From the front the S is not that great; the LS is very wide looking. It has a Japanese look, definitly not German, but still very pretty and again substantial. A definite nod for the LS. The side of the LS is way better than the S. The chrome trim on the bottom of the LS is so much more finished and elegant than the S, it's hardley compariable. But the real clincher is the C pillar treatment on the LS; the "arrowhead" behind the rear window is so much nicer and finished looking than the S, it's almost unbelievable. The S greenhouse looks like a semi-circle that ends very abruptly in the C-pillar area. Almost GMish compared to the LS. Additionally the LS again looks much heavier, lower, and surprisingly bigger.

The back I give the not to M-B. I really like the S rear end; the LS is good, but not great in my opinion. I don't really like how far the tailights extend into the rear fender...otherwise the rear is above average.

The above is a complete surprise to me because I thought I liked the back of the car best and the front was generic before I attended the event. The longer I looked at the car and compared it to the S, the more I liked the LS. My two guests argreed.

On to the inside: The LS looks plain. Again, I intially thought that it looked somewhat generic. Yes it's plain, no doubt. But everything is very easy to use and it's all pleasant to the eye. It feels a bit like you're sitting down in the car compared with the S, but I think that's just a matter of driving it a bit and getting used to it. Overall the interior is beautifully understated. The S is crazy!!!! It took me a couple minutes to get aquainted with the S. It's very art-deco and not intuitive at all. But some things are very nice looking-the window switches (although hard to use), I like the drive/reverse/park lever. But overall it seems like it's trying way too hard...definitly not understated. The pod that houses the guages is not very eye pleasing either.

I drove both, but in my opinion the course they had for us told me nothing. Except that the LS is fast...very fast. The S is fast too; maybe faster than the LS, but it's too difficult to say for sure. They both steered very well and overall worked nicely. I could not give a nod to either in the course we were in. Plus the LS's were preproduction and mine had a glovebox rattle. It was actually broken I could see.

The food was good, the lines were not bad; overall it was a very enjoyable time.

One final thought. Before I got there I was 100% sure I wanted the L model. I thought for sure it would look more substantial and hold more presence. I don't think that now...the long/short models proved difficult to distinguish. Now I will base my buying decision on option pricing and availabilty.

encore888

^^^
Very interesting review!!! I think your thoughts on the aesthetics of the vehicles are spot on, indeed the new S-class is very 'art deco' to me but that has the cost of not being very intuitive. And the LS is very interesting and different, sometimes plain, sometimes amazing.

The particular point you noted about the chrome on the LS windows, I was just reading an article which stated that Lexus put special attention on that; it is all built out of a single piece of metal and polished individually to achieve that special 'look.'

I agree that the LS interior is rather plain looking, but hopefully useful; I can't wait to go there and try for myself.

ntran18

iTrader: (27)

I remembered seeing a button for folding down the front passenger seat on the rear center console. That will add more leg room.

uthatch

Thanks.

I also saw the information about the chrome window trim and was interested in seeing what they were referring to. They certainly have reason to be proud, it's beautiful. And, again, when compared to the S, it's night and day in quality and detail.

rominl

iTrader: (4)

yeah i was lucky enough to get the staff to bring on the keys for us to test out everything. this is a REAL massager where it actually has a lot of different modes to really push on your muscle and masage you. just like those massage chairs. nothing like those plain vibrations on the current ls430. that's why i was so impressed by it. my wife was the first one that day to try it out, and she didn't want to get out of the seat

exBMWowner

That could be reason enough to get the rear seat executive package. Now we just need to find out what it cost...