Comment by Deanster, posted on September14 at 8:41 am ”

Funny – no other automotive journalist in the world who has tested these two cars agrees with you.

Meanpants: Fortiunately, I’ve only owned one car that wasn’t as “well-built.”

Weks, you’re right to a certain extent — some are plucked off the assembly line and sent for a round of qualkity testing. They pass, they go further down on a different path, ending with an “L.”
That’s not decided in design

e46: I’d take a kia or a mercury over a “L—s” any day

This car is just an alteeza

Great car, I would definitely consider the IS over a 3-series. Definitely.

Commodore: BMW may have luxury and sport but they are plagued with electrical problems and their standard seats suck. In many people’s book that’s already a turnoff.

This is what most people don’t understand. Not to defend Toyota but their parts are already better made than the Germans. The interior of a Camry doesn’t peel and degrade like the 3 series. If you look past the badging, you’re actually getting more for your money buying an IS than the 3 series. So your definition of “premium” only applies to brand image, not the products themselves.

Are you talking about the premuim the German makers get in the US due to their “status symbol” marketing and public perception?

While reading some comments here and other comments from the past it seems that most people here think that Lexus takes an already built Toyota badged car and then modifies it slightly and then calls it a Lexus. They are what one would call “idiots”.

In fact the distinction between, what will eventually become an Toyota and Lexus, is made very early on in the design process. Only the basics of a new platform has been designed when the Toyota and Lexus development teams take it and go their separate ways to create something quite different. Some may say that this still somehow takes away the “premium” from the Lexus badge or that it is still “just a Toyota” but those people have no idea what an platform really is.

The other thing I notice while reading comments is that most think that Lexus is boring, I agree, they are boring. When Toyota started Lexus their goal WAS to be boring. Boring in the sense that they prioritize comfort over rock hard suspension, whisper quiet and vibration free engines instead of howling demons under your hood. What you fail to see is that this is a feature and not a fault, the same applies to those cars that have hard suspension and demons, it’s not some mistake that a intern made, they were meant to be that way.

The only thing we can really see when looking at these sales figures is that Americans prefer to go slow in comfort, while us Europeans like to go fast. But hey, we knew that already.

I don’t think the whole F series, or rather the first batch of F-series Lexus cars, will be much of a competition to the already established brands. However, given time, I’m sure they will be.
I’m sure this what the executives at BMW and Mercedes think the same way, so they will strive to make even better cars that they have up until now, so we’ll get better cars no matter what happens. Everybody wins, expect the ones who like argue over the Internet.

I mean really, how many BMW or MB owners actually care about the performance, heritage, Nurburgring testing, touring car racing, F1, etc? 50%? 30%? How many people bought the last M3 because they just wanted the “top of the line 3 series”? I would bet, based on who I see driving them around here, quite a few.

Here’s a tip: next time you walk by an M3 (or any performance car of your choice) in a parking lot, check out the tires. See those little rubber hair things that are on the shoulder of the tire that were molded in there? If they’re not worn off, the car has never even been driven around a corner even close to it’s limit. Try it, you’ll be surprised how many people buy “performance cars” to putter along in the right lane and slow down for every turn that approaches .6G

60 years ago they were allies, they should at least look their fellow allie’s product and buy more of it.

Plus The biggest seller in these sectors are the usual german cars. Lexus has struggled ever since they were introduced there two years ago and have NEVER met their target sales by a wide margin. Japanese like the europeans like the technology to come before customer serice or anything else and thats where Mercedes and BMW whip lexuses asses. THats why most lexus are sold under the toyota name in japan.

Plus its only BMW thats actually consider lexus as competition and not being they produce decent cars(which they don’t). Its purely because they produce Rear wheel drive as opposed to the two or four wheel drive of Audi.

The only country the Lexus actually can sell cars in good numbers is the united states. If american stop buying lexus it would be dead in a matter of years. FACT

I just smell a bunch of BS.

My main point. It’s BOOOOOORING. You make a valid point, but my whole point is that the car isn’t interesting in any way except for the tech stuff. I don’t care if a car is mainstream, or luxury, or a sportscar – it has to have something more than the typical “getting me from point A to point B”. And also, remember that this article is about a luxury sportscar, so performane and handling mean EVERYTHING here (anyone can stick a big engine in, but there’s more to it than that..just ask BMW)

Haha, that’s your excuse? BMW doesn’t platform share because they ‘dont own much’. Well that makes them an even maker LUXURY carmaker because they are devoted to luxury, they dont make any boring mainstream cars. But with Lexus, their platform sharing is way too noticable – it isnt a badge job but its just too close (like the Nissan altima coupe/infinity G and land cruiser/GX470)

Well, BMW is best of both worlds. Ride nice? Of course. Handle nice, fun to drive, exciting? Yes, yes, and yes. So who is the better carmaker – BMW in my opinion.