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after a year of talking about it, finally got a new ride! IS350

evident

evident

Lifer
drove down to richmond last week to pick this up from a private seller. private party sales across state lines can be tricky. took about 2 weeks before i figured out what we needed to do to complete the deal.

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14 IS350 FSport RWD with VGRS and mark levinson stereo. black w/ red interior. the previous owner put xpel ultimate paint protection film on the entire car. had 12.5K miles on it.

on the way back to philly it was nonstop traffic. what the hell is between fredericksburg and richmond? complete gridlock on I95. from baltimore to philly was just as bad too.

stopped in dc area to meet up with a college bud for korean bbq. great opportunity for a toyota heritage photoshoot.

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This car handles like a dream. just came back from driving in the poconos and its sublime. the engine sounds great. interior is great and it is plenty fast for a daily driver. its a rocket. definitely not the fastest of the cars in its category (q50S and 335i were definitely faster when i drove them) but it just does everything so well. gas mileage is decent for my mostly highway driving around 24 to 26.
it was actually my wife who egged me on to buy a new car, i think she just wanted me to stop talking about cars and going for test drives at the dealer. looks like my strategy worked :biggrin: I'm going to try and autocross with my buddy's supra and frs if i have the time.

the xpel ultimate made my first car wash so easy. all the bugs and tar came off with relative ease. the seller provided me w/ receipts and cost him around 5 grand to xpel the entire car. 😱 biggest complaint w/ my honda was that the front of my car looks sandblasted from driving on the highway and i never got the chance to had a clear bra applied to the car. I'm hoping that the xpel will keep the car looking great for the long run.
 
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exar333 said:
Great ride. LOVE the wheels you selected too, aggressive but not 'over the top'.
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Those are the stock f-sport rims. I love them too. look great. the gun metal color masks all of the brake dust from the front calipers. :biggrin:

twinrider1 said:
Good looking car. Congrats. Will it be your winter ride too?
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Yep. Will be getting a set of winter tires and rims (might end up using the stock rims in the winter and get a lighter set of wheels for the summer). Stock are summer tires (turanza er33's) seem decent for daily driving but i heard they arent nearly as nice as some of the options out there. Heard they pretty much wear out around 20-25k miles.

JulesMaximus said:
Nice! Does it have the NAV system? I like the Lexus NAV system, wish my Camry had the setup my wife's ES350 has.
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yep. Nav system is decent. the whole mouse thing didn't take nearly as long as i thought to figure out. I haven't seen this car come without a nav option. Voice commands are surprisingly good. I've been using it to dial contacts from my phone.
 
evident said:
Those are the stock f-sport rims. I love them too. look great. the gun metal color masks all of the brake dust from the front calipers. :biggrin:



Yep. Will be getting a set of winter tires and rims (might end up using the stock rims in the winter and get a lighter set of wheels for the summer). Stock are summer tires (turanza er33's) seem decent for daily driving but i heard they arent nearly as nice as some of the options out there. Heard they pretty much wear out around 20-25k miles.


yep. Nav system is decent. the whole mouse thing didn't take nearly as long as i thought to figure out. I haven't seen this car come without a nav option. Voice commands are surprisingly good. I've been using it to dial contacts from my phone.
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Maybe it's the IS250 that has the NAV as an option. We used to own an IS250 and I never really liked that car, it was my wife's car, too small and underpowered. The IS350 is the same size (same car) but much more powerful and fun to drive. I test drove one once and loved the power.

Lexus sells a crap ton of the IS250 though for some reason. 😕
 
JulesMaximus said:
Maybe it's the IS250 that has the NAV as an option. We used to own an IS250 and I never really liked that car, it was my wife's car, too small and underpowered. The IS350 is the same size (same car) but much more powerful and fun to drive. I test drove one once and loved the power.

Lexus sells a crap ton of the IS250 though for some reason. 😕
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i've never sat in the current gen 250 so i can't really say. every 350 i've seen sitting on dealer lots, even w/o the Fsport package has had nav as an option. the IS250 engine seems like a joke. for how little power it makes, it doesn't even get that good fuel economy. Honda's NA 4 cyl puts out more power than it, sheesh. my MIL had the previous generation IS250 and i thought the interior was nice for it's time. no fold down rear seats in that previous generation was a huge pain, especially in a small car. for the third generation i think they played around with the gearing of the transmission on the 250's to make it slightly faster. Hopefully next year the 2.0T will make the base model much more appealing when it comes next year. This newer generation is a huge step up from the previous one. interior is way nicer, and roomier. can fit a baby seat in the back too (one requirement that i had since we'll eventually have kids with this car).

the 350 is still an awesome engine, although getting long in the tooth now.
 
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JulesMaximus said:
Maybe it's the IS250 that has the NAV as an option. We used to own an IS250 and I never really liked that car, it was my wife's car, too small and underpowered. The IS350 is the same size (same car) but much more powerful and fun to drive. I test drove one once and loved the power.

Lexus sells a crap ton of the IS250 though for some reason. 😕
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Yah, but the starting price on the 250 is quite a lot lower. Just not a very interesting car to me. I more wonder why people who care so little for performance don't get the ES series instead.

When I was looking for a used car around here I couldn't find any IS350's to drive. Only thing available was IS250's and Chicago's a pretty big market.
 
evident said:
i've never sat in the current gen 250 so i can't really say. every 350 i've seen sitting on dealer lots, even w/o the Fsport package has had nav as an option. the IS250 engine seems like a joke. for how little power it makes, it doesn't even get that good fuel economy. Honda's NA 4 cyl puts out more power than it, sheesh. my MIL had the previous generation IS250 and i thought the interior was nice for it's time. no fold down rear seats in that previous generation was a huge pain, especially in a small car. for the third generation i think they played around with the gearing of the transmission on the 250's to make it slightly faster. Hopefully next year the 2.0T will make the base model much more appealing when it comes next year. This newer generation is a huge step up from the previous one. interior is way nicer, and roomier. can fit a baby seat in the back too (one requirement that i had since we'll eventually have kids with this car).

the 350 is still an awesome engine, although getting long in the tooth now.
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That and the 250 is the one that has the dirty intake valve issue as well. 350 is a dual inject setup.

My SiL has a convertible is350. Replaced her Audi. The lexus after 1 year I have only done oil change and a cabin filter. The Audi after 1 year I had worked on it 6 or 7 times plus oil change and filters.
 
Nice!

I like how fluid the Xpel looks. I looked up the price for xpel for my newly acquired car and I don't know if it's worth it vs repainting the surfaces.
 
SSSnail said:
Nice!

I like how fluid the Xpel looks. I looked up the price for xpel for my newly acquired car and I don't know if it's worth it vs repainting the surfaces.
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Yep, but buying a used, obsessively maintained vehicle with xpel on the entire thing just sweetened the deal for me more and made it worth driving all the way down to richmond :thumbsup:.
 
well motherfuck shit. yesterday my rear right tire dropped about 10 PSI from when I got to work till when i left. Got my PA inspection done today and had them look at my tires. looks like my rear right tire ran over a nail and is unrepairable. about 5/32 left on all of them. looks like i'll be getting some Continental Extreme DW Summer tires in a few days. Michelin Pilot Super Sports are sold out everywhere around here until late May.
 
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