Was going to add to satiger's thread but figured I would start my own just to keep the thoughts separate.

This afternoon I was able to sit in and drive at length a new LS500, highly loaded with an MSRP of $103,000. Car was black (caviar which is a metallic black) with a black interior, AWD w/ air suspension. 20" wheels on Bridgestone runflats. Power rear seats, etc...just not the executive package (no ottoman, no kriko glass for instance). I followed this drive up with an identical drive in my 2017 LS460L, RWD w/ air suspension with 19" wheels on Pirelli Cinturato P7 Plus tires. For the ride and drive portions all modes were tried, but largely both cars were in "COMFORT" suspension mode.

First off, let me begin by saying this is a VERY nice car. People who run it down and say that its not a nice car, or that it feels like a GS or whatever aren't being fair. Its a very nice car, but it is very different from the 2017 in a number of ways. I can absolutely see how a previous LS owner wouldn't like it. As a comparison, I see no reason why a previous LS owner wouldn't like an LS460. The LS500 is that different from what an LS has been traditionally.

I'll go through the exterior, interior, ride and drive and give my thoughts on the new car vs the old car.

Exterior:

I quite like the way the car looks in person. Despite physically being bigger than the outgoing car, it looks smaller in my opinion. The rear doors aren't as long, and the car is much lower. The hood specifically is much lower. The car is wider, but again looks narrower to me. Its a very different look than the outgoing car, I would say when I look at it I think more A7/CLS/6 Grand Coupe than I do A7/S Class/7 Series. It doesn't have the "presence" those cars have, which I don't personally think is a good thing. The car is very stylish, but it lacks elegance. The old car is not nearly as stylish, but it has an elegance, a maturity that the LS500 doesn't have, but which other "flagships" possess.

I quite like the PVD/Chrome 20' wheels everybody seems to hate. I also like that the car does have some chrome brightwork trim on it, which Lexus seems to be doing away with on other models.

Interior:

As others have said, this is really the car's strong suit. The interior quality and execution are fantastic. Clearly on another level from the previous car. Every material you touch is high quality, seat leathers are excellent, door materials are a step up, no hard touch plastic anywhere. One really significant exception is the adjustable seat belt height anchor which is no longer power operated, and is a very thin, cheap feeling plastic. Huge fail there IMHO. Ambient lighting is nice although I too wish that it had multiple color options. I like the floating door armrests.

But, the car is significantly tighter inside. The front of the roofline rakes down significantly as it approaches the windshield, and the windshield is much more steeply raked than before. Th result of this is the top of the headliner being a couple inches closer to your head, and lower down into your field of view than on the LS460, which has the result of making the cabin feel much tighter. The headliner on the LS500 w/ black interior is black vs grey in my LS460 w/ black interior which adds to that also. The way the front doors wrap up into the dash make the dash feel narrower too, which makes the cars feel narrower. Front seats are also narrower, and the console seems narrower. Car feels more intimate and sportier, but definitely less airy, and less roomy.

The back seat is a huge difference. With the front sear adjusted for me, the legroom in the back seat felt similar to that in my SWB 2015 LS460, if not slightly less, and when I got into the back seat of my 2017 LS460L behind the front seat adjusted the same way, it felt positively cavernous. I lay my briefcase down on its side in the rear passenger footwell behind the driver, and it doesn't fit without touching the base of the front seat, similar to my SWB LS460, in my LWB LS460L it has 4-5 inches before it touches the seat in front. The rear seating area of the LS500 is unquestionably significantly smaller than the outgoing LS460L. This would be a huge issue for me as the reason I wanted a LWB car was to have more room for my kids and so they wouldn't kick the seats. Well, they would definitely kick these seats, and with the wood trim on the back of the seats, it would be a big issue.

Getting more positive, front and rear seating is excellent, front seat adjustability is excellent, big upgrade there. I most liked the massage, which you can definitely feel! I thought the ML audio was a big improvement from the ML audio in my car.

The big HUD is big, and sharp. I don't personally like HUD displays so it doesn't do much for me, but its there. Instrumentation in the LS500 I don't care for. The gauge cluster is too small, I prefer a standard side by side analog or full digital analog type readout (a'la Mercedes). The dash is much lower than in the LS460, and thus the navigation screen is also much lower and you look notably down at the screen vs it being up in the drivers field of view in the 460.

Ergonomics are good, the RTC is much improved and doesn't bother me at all. All switchgear and controls feel high quality. I hate the e-shifter.

Ride and Drive

• Ride Quality: The ride quality was better, and closer to the LS460L than I anticipated, even on the 20s (which have similar sidewall height to the 19s on the outgoing car) and the runflats. The car was a little sharper over bumps, and less floaty/glidey on the highway than my LS460L w/air, even in comfort mode. The suspension allowed a little more of the grain in the roadway and coarseness in the pavement through to the cabin. Around town though pretty similar, impact absorption similar. If you replaced the runflats with the same tires I have on mine (Pirelli Cinturato P7 Plus) I bet the ride would become very similar, to just a hair firmer. I would say the ride is 90% as comfortable as my LS460L w/ air. Really surprised me.
• Handling: HUGE improvement. I mean, wow. Planted, steady, very little roll in corners or pitch/dive in acceleration/braking. The handling/ride balance is truly excellent. Feels like a much smaller car. Took several offramps at a high rate of speed, really impressed. I would say the handling is 40% better than the LS460L w/air, and when you factor in that they achieved that while losing only 10% ride quality...thats a huge achievement! Truly is.
• Cabin noise: The LS500 is by and large just as quiet as my LS460L w/air. Little more tire noise, but again Bridgestone Runflats, the difference was similar to how my car felt before I put the Pirellis on. On the road, the LS500 has just a hair more wind noise, which surprised me because you would think that would be the easiest thing to engineer out of a car, the new flush seals, etc. Very similar though.
• Engine. So...the famous TTV6 vs V8 engine. So, the car is quick, power is good and strong, and it sounds great up in its rev-band for what it is. I drove the car on several roads that I drive on routinely, and when merging for instance I would look down and expect to be going 70 and find that I was doing 86-87. The accelerator pedal has a click in "WOT" indent at the bottom of its travel which I liked. So, power good. Here's the problem, its just not as smooth as the V8 either up at WOT or in other acceleration points commonly used when driving. Its louder, coarser. Its subtle, and its managed well, but the drivetrain does not feel as refined as what we had in the LS460, and I also don't feel its as refined as the I6 in the 740, or the TTV6 in the G90. I have not driven the 6 cyl S450. If I didn't have the LS460 to compare it to back to back I might not notice, but I do and I did and its there. In Sport + mode the engine note is totally different and is quite loud.

How does it fit in for me?

So as everybody knows I am a long time LS buyer, this is my 4th one, I had a 1998 LS400, a 2004 LS430, the 2015 LS460 SWB w/coil suspension and my current 2017 LS460L w/air suspension. So, how does the LS500 fit in? Am I sorry I went for the 17 LS460L instead of waiting for the LS500? The answer to that is no, I'm not. I am delighted to say that from a comfort perspective the car is very acceptable to me, which was my big worry. On the right tires I think it would be even closer to what I have, and the improved handling while not something that I really look for, would be an added bonus. However, the difference in style and feel, the dramatically smaller interior, and some of the design choices would keep me from going back in time and waiting, if I could. Having driven the car, I would have made the same deal I made last month in other words.

BUT, if I were at the end of my lease and the LS460s were gone and this was the only option I had in a new "Lexus LS" I would seriously consider it, and given the value proposition would likely get one.

So in short, I was impressed in some ways, not in others, and I agree if it had a V8 it would be a considerably better car.

 

Outstanding write-up Steve. So....you'd take this over the G90?

 

Probably. I like the space use of the G90 better, and it rides a little better, but I think overall as I said in one of ricknchar's threads I just think ultimately the Genesis wouldn't hold my interest. The Lexus has a certain "something" that is hard to describe.

 

Excellent review Steve.

Yeap, interior is HUGE plus for 500. Also that HUD display to me gives a 3-D like display, amazing. It could display some road signs. Hope Lexus takes road sign reads to next stage i.e self-controlling the car (read autonomous) .

They will have to do huge catch-up game with Tesla as Tesla's latest model 3 ships with 'auto-pilot' option. Not fully operational at the moment but buyers are promised for future releases being pushed OTA. Friend of mine recently purchased model 3 and will be visiting him next month and will test drive model 3.

 

Great write up! Yeah let hope for the 5.0 V8 in a few years. From several Youtube clips the engine revs sounds nearly Identical to my GS350.

 

Thanks for sharing.

So the space in LS500 is smaller than LWB 460 but bigger than SWB?

 

This is a another good detailed review just like the others that's been posted. I need to call up the dealership near me and see if they have one on the lot. The TTV6 would not be a deal killer for me if I was ever in the market for one but if it feels tighter inside as you have said I would also notice this. I always feel choked up when I get in my wife's GS and I need a big windshield like on the LS. I really don't want a luxury/ sedan/ sports car which is what Lexus seems to be for of I'm reading everyone's opinion correctly. Or maybe I'm reading everything wrong.

 

That dash pod though.....it would be a total deal breaker for me. The V6 is bad enough for a car like this, but add that wierd single gauge pod.....

 

Yeah that was pretty cool!

It does sound similar, but the engine is smoother than the 3.5 in the GS (I had a 13 GS350 also)

So physical size outside its 207 inches, so 2 inches longer than the LWB LS460 and 7 inches longer than the SWB LS460. Inside rear seat legroom is BARELY as good as the SWB LS460, and nowhere near as spacious as the LWB LS460.

I think you would notice this. The car doesn't feel any bigger than a GS in the front, in fact it feels tighter than my GS because of that low roofline in the front. In the back the LS500 is considerably bigger than a GS, its similar to how my SWB LS460 was. The GS is very tight in the back.

These pictures show the styling difference and its very clear where you loose that front headroom and why that area where the roof meets the windshield feels so low and tight. The roof on the LS500 actually gets taller as it goes back, which is a very unusual look for a car (not a good look IMHO). Thats why the rear windows look bigger than the front windows.




With the LS460L you can clearly see that area is higher, and the roof is flat and then drops off a little in the back



Whats frustrating me is that change serves no purpose. Its not more attractive, and its not more aerodynamic. The LS500 is the least aerodynamic LS ever with a cD of .30, the LS460 is .26 and the LS400 was .28.

I'm the same way, BUT I didn't personally have an issue with the ride/handling balance or tradeoff. On the smaller wheels and/or on softer non runflat tires I think the car would ride 95% as well as the LS460L on the air (haven't driven the coil LS500) while having a 35% improvement in handling, which isn't a bad thing.

If the car was roomier inside, and had a V8 I'd be a lot happier with it.

Its one of the reasons I didn't wait...

 

 

Nice wright up Steve. Thanks

 

Thank you for the review. It is a good reminder that final judgements shouldn't be made until you see the car in-person. As for me:

No matter the car I'm an engine sound guy. The engine sound is a key buying factor for me no matter if a luxury car, sport car, small car, etc. With that thought in mind for me it's V12 to V8 to . . . Tesla--- meaning I'd rather have no gasoline engine sound at all than live with the sound of a V6 or V4. I understand mandated CAFE mileage pressures, but if the V8 is an option as opposed to standard equipment, the impact on CAFE from V8's sold would be negligible to Lexus. Ans as we know this is the engine option route Genesis chose, and I agree:

Let the buyer decide.

 

Great job - I haven't had the time yet to go for a test drive - but I'll be doing that soon.

 

No, the turbo 6 still uses the D-4S system of both direct and port injection.

 

Likely Toyota will always use a direct and port injection, the reason being is to keep the valves clean.