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Consumer Reviews for the Lexus ES 350
Read recent reviews for the Lexus ES 350
A Car to Drive Through my Golden Years
Aging Eagle, 08/07/2019
2018 Lexus ES 350 4dr Sedan (3.5L 6cyl 6A)
When in my 30s and 40s I regularly read the sporty auto mags with the greatest interest, especially when they were doing comparison reviews of the compact luxury brands led by the BMW 3 series. When I finally pounced on a BMW, it was the 5 series. 1994 I think. I didn't need the extra room. I assume that those magazine articles had a lot to do with it. It turned out to be probably the … least value I ever got from an auto. A heavy, mid-sized auto at a stiff price powered by a puny 192 HP straight six. I was going to replace it after seven or eight years with a 3 series, and even ordered one. But I test drove a Lexus IS 350 and found a like to like, starting with being able to buy a fully loaded Lexus for the same price as a "half-loaded" BMW. That Lexus will go down as my favorite auto. It fit me like a glove, had sufficient power and strong brakes and the most attractive coat of paint I'd ever seen, a Mica Red that glistened in the sunlight. In the eight years that I owned the car, the only defect of any kind that emerged was a broken wheel ball bearing that sounded much worse than it was. I put about $1500 into the car, preparing to keep it another three years. Not surprisingly, not long afterwards the car was totalled in a left turn intersection crash for which I was half responsible. The tow operator told me that most cars not built by Toyota would have been ripped in two by the van accelerating through the intersection to beat the light. True? Who knows. What to do next? I know that the Lexus ES series is considered to be sort of like a horse and buggy to the enthusiast magazines. But at age 66, mostly retired and putting few miles on my car, the ES 350 was in its last year before being replaced by a completely redesigned model, and Lexus was subsidizing the remaining 2018s with $4000. I leased for three years at the 7500 miles a year rate. And I can say that I'm satisfied. It is smooth and quiet, and has never failed to deliver all the acceleration I wanted from its 270 hp V6. The brakes are not quite as powerful as on the sportier cars, but I quickly adapted. The Lexus' most admirable features are ones not much considered in reviews but are very important to me living on a crowded Long Island full of accidents: reliability and all the safety equipment available coming standard.
Disappointments: The infotainment is clumsy to operate, but since I just have set a lot of presets to my SiriusXM, I don't face many challenges. The navigation system is worse than that on my 2008, mainly in cases where you depart from the original route set and the navsys when it recalculates wants to send you off the main highways onto side streets. A larger gas tank to improve the 350 mile declared range on a full tank would be nice. As I indicated, I don't drive the car that much so I haven't been testing it under more heavy driving. I also don't know how passengers would feel about it since I seldom have any. But I'm quite satisfied after 1.5 years.
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