The Lexus I-S is pitched against the Mercedez-Benz C-class, the BMW 3-series, and the Audi A4. That's a pretty big task for any Japanese brand. So is it pretend prestige or the real deal? To help us find out here's Car Advice road tester Alborz Fallah. The Lexus IS250, I mean, can you ever be a Japanese car and compete with those prestige brands?
I think you can. I think Lexus Lexus has proven that you can't just taken them couple of decades to do it. But I think at this very moment, the IS250 is a great competitor history series. You have to remember the 320 also starts at about the same price so the difference is the Lexis comes with a lot of the things the Germans would ask you for a lot more money they've been voted as one of the best customer services in their market.
So I think they do sort of go after the German-biased customers knowing that what they want is real quality service. Lexus do have great NVH levels. You can't hear the little road noise inside the car. What don't you like about the Lexus IS? Look I think the 250 particularly is a little bit underpowered for me.
Thankfully Lexus Australia has addressed that with the 350 coming out end of this year. What's a convertible Lexus like? wouldn't be my pick of the bunch. The driving dynamics aren't that great. It doesn't feel like the kind of car that you would have the roof off and go for a spirited drive. It seems like the sort of car you'd buy to go and buy your weekly shopping.
So if you jump out of a 3 Series or an A4 or a C Class and then you jump into an IS for the same sort of spec level, what difference be noticeable. I think getting into a base model IS250 you might feel like you were in a glorified Toyota. It looks very similar to a ton of cars. I think they suffer from handling.
I think the German cars do a lot better job of going around corners. But Lexus does a much better job comfortable. So if you're a Mercedez-Benz customer or a BMW customer, should you go and maybe mystery shop Lexus and see what you're missing out on or if you're making the right call? Absolutely. Some of the interesting features in the IS two-fifty now include radar cruise control, which is something you probably see for the price on the equivalent germans and that essentially means you get into a car, you tell it to follow the car in front up to a set maximum speed, and it will just do that and it won't hit it.
And it's great for long distances driving. This isn't just the base model Lexus. This has really got a lot of guts to it. And thanks to an eight-speed automatic, it goes really hard and it changes gears really quickly. The M-division's been around for donkey's years, and they do a very, very nice job.
Lexus doesn't have the heritage. So where did the brains come from, and how's the execution? Look, I think they knew that in order to be a proper luxury brand they needed to go into the performance side of things. So I think it is a luxury car. It has earned its right to be a luxury car. Doesn't matter that its doesn't have to be European to be classified as a luxury car.
I think that perception is slowly dying off and Lexus has done a really good job of making sure that happened Well the Japanese, most people don't know this I guess but the Japanese have a reputation for building the best-built cars on Earth, and Lexus is up there with the best of the Japanese, right?
Absolutely. So while you may not have that many problems with the Germans, you're guaranteed not to with Lexus.
Alborz, thanks very much. That was Alborz Fallah. on the authenticity of Lexis as a prestige brand. You can read the Lexis IS review, download the specifications, add your comments and even get a quote. from a Lexus dealer. Just follow the links on this page
