Looking At Is250

[smooth1]

What package does the car have? Does it have any other options on it?

[Knightshade]

Lexus OEM nav in the ISx50 does not support traffic at all, has nothing to do with if you have XM or not. The only thing you can get in the 2IS via factory XM is the radio stations.

XM -is- one of the providers of traffic data (there are 3 common ones... XM, FM TMC, and MSN) but unless your nav unit supports it you don't have it...and the Lexus unit does not. The OEM nav in the infiniti supports traffic via XM. Garmins GPS support traffic via all three of those options, depending which GPS you buy.

MSN is the better option of the three IMHO because you get all the extra realtime data besides traffic (the local movies, fuel prices, weather, stock quotes, etc).

[smooth1]

So how much is MSN every month?

[Knightshade]

So how much is MSN every month?

You get a year free with many of the Garmin units... After that you have a choice of $129 lifetime or $50 per year.

Considering Lexus gets $300 a year just for new maps (that's $75 per year with Garmin) it's yet another area the OEM unit sucks.

[smooth1]

So how much is MSN every month?

You get a year free with many of the Garmin units... After that you have a choice of $129 lifetime or $50 per year.

Considering Lexus gets $300 a year just for new maps (that's $75 per year with Garmin) it's yet another area the OEM unit sucks.

In your opinion.

[tex2670]

I doubt many are paying $300/yr for new map DVDs. I've had my Honda since 2004, and have yet to encounter a situation where I needed to update my maps. Yes--OEM updates cost more, but unless you live in a boomtown, maybe you need one update for the length of ownership of your car.

[Knightshade]

So how much is MSN every month?

You get a year free with many of the Garmin units... After that you have a choice of $129 lifetime or $50 per year.

Considering Lexus gets $300 a year just for new maps (that's $75 per year with Garmin) it's yet another area the OEM unit sucks.

In your opinion.

I'm pretty sure it's not an opinion that $75 is less than $300.

I'd even go out on a limb and suggest it's not opinion that $75 plus $129 is still less than $300 :P

And so, of course, even if you only update the maps once EVER (and I'd suggest a lot of people would benefit from doing it more often... I live in a metro area with a lot of Lexus drivers and a LOT of new construction too, and I'm sure I'm not alone) you're still saving some additional money on top of the several grand you saved in the first place going aftermarket.

[smooth1]

So how much is MSN every month?

You get a year free with many of the Garmin units... After that you have a choice of $129 lifetime or $50 per year.

Considering Lexus gets $300 a year just for new maps (that's $75 per year with Garmin) it's yet another area the OEM unit sucks.

In your opinion.

I'm pretty sure it's not an opinion that $75 is less than $300.

I'd even go out on a limb and suggest it's not opinion that $75 plus $129 is still less than $300 :P

And so, of course, even if you only update the maps once EVER (and I'd suggest a lot of people would benefit from doing it more often... I live in a metro area with a lot of Lexus drivers and a LOT of new construction too, and I'm sure I'm not alone) you're still saving some additional money on top of the several grand you saved in the first place going aftermarket.

Ok, I'm not trying to be a smarty here, but do you use that logic on all purchases or just certian ones? We are talking about the purchase of a 40K dollar car here right? See Knightshade, I'm not faulting your logic, I am pointing out that it's not about need, or good logic, it's about ease and desire. If we all used the logic you just set fourth as gospel, then none of us could even justify buying a luxury car at all! Because you can have all the feature you want and get great gas mileage in a Kia and save thousands that way! And if you wanted to be so uptight about the costs, then why did you even waste 300 bucks on a Tom Tom. They have it on your cell phones now also. That you carry already. and you don't need another peice of equipment. And then you'll have bluetooth, music, the ever so useful calender, and a built in calculator too! :P Bet your Tom Tom doesn't have one of those!

[Knightshade]

So how much is MSN every month?

You get a year free with many of the Garmin units... After that you have a choice of $129 lifetime or $50 per year.

Considering Lexus gets $300 a year just for new maps (that's $75 per year with Garmin) it's yet another area the OEM unit sucks.

In your opinion.

I'm pretty sure it's not an opinion that $75 is less than $300.

I'd even go out on a limb and suggest it's not opinion that $75 plus $129 is still less than $300 :P

And so, of course, even if you only update the maps once EVER (and I'd suggest a lot of people would benefit from doing it more often... I live in a metro area with a lot of Lexus drivers and a LOT of new construction too, and I'm sure I'm not alone) you're still saving some additional money on top of the several grand you saved in the first place going aftermarket.

Ok, I'm not trying to be a smarty here, but do you use that logic on all purchases or just certian ones? We are talking about the purchase of a 40K dollar car here right? See Knightshade, I'm not faulting your logic, I am pointing out that it's not about need, or good logic, it's about ease and desire. If we all used the logic you just set fourth as gospel, then none of us could even justify buying a luxury car at all! Because you can have all the feature you want and get great gas mileage in a Kia and save thousands that way! And if you wanted to be so uptight about the costs, then why did you even waste 300 bucks on a Tom Tom. They have it on your cell phones now also. That you carry already. and you don't need another peice of equipment. And then you'll have bluetooth, music, the ever so useful calender, and a built in calculator too! :P Bet your Tom Tom doesn't have one of those!

Actually, the nuvis (which are Garmin units BTW) not only have calculators, they have currency converters :P

And if you can show me a Kia that is RWD and has 300 hp your analogy would actually work.

I -do- use best bang for the buck for virtually all my purchasing decisions- that's _why_ I could buy a new IS350 for cash. I don't waste money.

The primary reason I bought the IS new is that the residual value remained so high it literally wasn't worth buying used.

I looked at available cars with the following things in mind-

Reliability

RWD

Performance

Nice interior and features

Among highly reliable brands- Honda and Acura make nothing that is RWD, so they were out; Same with Buick. Caddy made a couple so I looked at the CTS and DTS. Infinity I looked at the G35. Lexus I looked at the IS350. I did briefly consider the BMW 335 but IMHO you got a lot less car for a lot more money compared to the others.

For caddy the resale plummeted after a year, so I looked at 1-2 year old STSs- the CTS that would be competive wasn't available when I was shopping and sure wouldn't have been available as a 1-2 year old model For the G35 and IS350 I looked at new.

Thanks to being able to get excellent pricing on the IS350 it ended up the clear winner as apart from Lexus having the higher reliability, it also offered way the best interior and luxury, and was about tied with the G35 for performance.

Once that decision was made I looked at options.

The sport package was easy- I like good handling, and I wanted many of the other features, the memory seats with heat/cool, the HIDs, etc... The only other way to get those was the Lux package which was considerably -less- bang for the buck being $500 more than giving up the sport handling for a rear sunshade I'd never use.

Mark Levinson was easy- No way in hell I could upgrade the factory system that much for just $752. I say that having spent far more on a previous Alpine/JL setup in a previous car where no decent factory options were ever available.

Skipping the nav was easy for the reasons already covered.

Skipping the radar cruise was easy as it's INSANELY overpriced

Skipping the park assist was easy as this thing is half the size of my other vehicle- I wouldn't need help to park it.

Skipping the headlight washers was easy as it's kind of a silly useless option

I skipped the spoiler because I felt my color looked better without it (and my wife agreed)

And that was pretty much all the options.

I special ordered since it was the only way to get exactly what I wanted, and had a dealer willing to do so for an excellent price.

Now, if the Lexus nav has had current modern features (the Infiniti is a lot better in this regard) and been priced a little more sanely (here again Infiniti beats Lexus) I might well have bought it.

For comparison, on the G35, whose system I find only a little bit overpriced, for an invoice price of $1850 you not only get nav and the rearview camera, you get realtime traffic, XM radio, and a 9.5 gig hard drive to store MP3s with the CDDB database built in. Lexus gets $2150 invoice for JUST nav and the rearview... you have to drop another $400 for XM, and you can't get the traffic or hard drive no matter how much more you give them. So for $700 more than the infiniti nav you get significantly less features with the Lexus nav.

Lexus shouldn't be getting more than, maybe, $1000-1200, for their 90s-era nav system with limited features...

[gocardinals]

So how much is MSN every month?

You get a year free with many of the Garmin units... After that you have a choice of $129 lifetime or $50 per year.

Considering Lexus gets $300 a year just for new maps (that's $75 per year with Garmin) it's yet another area the OEM unit sucks.

In your opinion.

I'm pretty sure it's not an opinion that $75 is less than $300.

I'd even go out on a limb and suggest it's not opinion that $75 plus $129 is still less than $300 :P

And so, of course, even if you only update the maps once EVER (and I'd suggest a lot of people would benefit from doing it more often... I live in a metro area with a lot of Lexus drivers and a LOT of new construction too, and I'm sure I'm not alone) you're still saving some additional money on top of the several grand you saved in the first place going aftermarket.

Ok, I'm not trying to be a smarty here, but do you use that logic on all purchases or just certian ones? We are talking about the purchase of a 40K dollar car here right? See Knightshade, I'm not faulting your logic, I am pointing out that it's not about need, or good logic, it's about ease and desire. If we all used the logic you just set fourth as gospel, then none of us could even justify buying a luxury car at all! Because you can have all the feature you want and get great gas mileage in a Kia and save thousands that way! And if you wanted to be so uptight about the costs, then why did you even waste 300 bucks on a Tom Tom. They have it on your cell phones now also. That you carry already. and you don't need another peice of equipment. And then you'll have bluetooth, music, the ever so useful calender, and a built in calculator too! :P Bet your Tom Tom doesn't have one of those!

Actually, the nuvis (which are Garmin units BTW) not only have calculators, they have currency converters :P

And if you can show me a Kia that is RWD and has 300 hp your analogy would actually work.

I -do- use best bang for the buck for virtually all my purchasing decisions- that's _why_ I could buy a new IS350 for cash. I don't waste money.

The primary reason I bought the IS new is that the residual value remained so high it literally wasn't worth buying used.

I looked at available cars with the following things in mind-

Reliability

RWD

Performance

Nice interior and features

Among highly reliable brands- Honda and Acura make nothing that is RWD, so they were out; Same with Buick. Caddy made a couple so I looked at the CTS and DTS. Infinity I looked at the G35. Lexus I looked at the IS350. I did briefly consider the BMW 335 but IMHO you got a lot less car for a lot more money compared to the others.

For caddy the resale plummeted after a year, so I looked at 1-2 year old STSs- the CTS that would be competive wasn't available when I was shopping and sure wouldn't have been available as a 1-2 year old model For the G35 and IS350 I looked at new.

Thanks to being able to get excellent pricing on the IS350 it ended up the clear winner as apart from Lexus having the higher reliability, it also offered way the best interior and luxury, and was about tied with the G35 for performance.

Once that decision was made I looked at options.

The sport package was easy- I like good handling, and I wanted many of the other features, the memory seats with heat/cool, the HIDs, etc... The only other way to get those was the Lux package which was considerably -less- bang for the buck being $500 more than giving up the sport handling for a rear sunshade I'd never use.

Mark Levinson was easy- No way in hell I could upgrade the factory system that much for just $752. I say that having spent far more on a previous Alpine/JL setup in a previous car where no decent factory options were ever available.

Skipping the nav was easy for the reasons already covered.

Skipping the radar cruise was easy as it's INSANELY overpriced

Skipping the park assist was easy as this thing is half the size of my other vehicle- I wouldn't need help to park it.

Skipping the headlight washers was easy as it's kind of a silly useless option

I skipped the spoiler because I felt my color looked better without it (and my wife agreed)

And that was pretty much all the options.

I special ordered since it was the only way to get exactly what I wanted, and had a dealer willing to do so for an excellent price.

Now, if the Lexus nav has had current modern features (the Infiniti is a lot better in this regard) and been priced a little more sanely (here again Infiniti beats Lexus) I might well have bought it.

For comparison, on the G35, whose system I find only a little bit overpriced, for an invoice price of $1850 you not only get nav and the rearview camera, you get realtime traffic, XM radio, and a 9.5 gig hard drive to store MP3s with the CDDB database built in. Lexus gets $2150 invoice for JUST nav and the rearview... you have to drop another $400 for XM, and you can't get the traffic or hard drive no matter how much more you give them. So for $700 more than the infiniti nav you get significantly less features with the Lexus nav.

Lexus shouldn't be getting more than, maybe, $1000-1200, for their 90s-era nav system with limited features...

I appreciate all the insight. I am traveling to Florida for a few days, so my decision will be put off until next week ... although I'm sure it will be on my mind.

After 4 days of comments here, I can honestly say, I'm still confused on the NAV issue. But for me, it's simply a cost factor, not whether it's worth it. It a matter of going over the magic $500 for a lease payment.

[smooth1]

I still like the stock nav better. :P

[gocardinals]

I still like the stock nav better. :P

:D Thanks ... so do I. Do you care to sponsor my stock NAV?

[smooth1]

Only if you'll agree to put " Brownies Septic Services" in big Yellow and brown letters on your hood, and a phone number.

[gocardinals]

Only if you'll agree to put " Brownies Septic Services" in big Yellow and brown letters on your hood, and a phone number.

Tempting! Let me think about that one. :D

[smooth1]

[gocardinals]

Hey guys .. back to Illinois, after a mini vacation in Fort Lauderdale/Miami. Did a LOT of car watching, and I didn't see a lot of ISs down there. A lot of BMWs, Infinitis. Did stop at Lexus dealer in Pembroke Pines to check out colors. Think I've narrowed it to tungston pearl, starfire pearl or the smoky granite. Love the look of black, but I'm too much of a perfectionist, and the spots drive me crazy. I've had three straight silvers, so that is probably out too. If I did the starfire or tungston pearl, what color interior do you guys like?

[bartkat]

Black.

[smooth1]

Ditto!

[gocardinals]

Black.

How do you guys maintain black? I always keep my cars clean, but black seems like a lot more work, especially in Illinois with snow, ice, salt, and lots of rain.

What's your second choice after black?

[smooth1]

Black.

How do you guys maintain black? I always keep my cars clean, but black seems like a lot more work, especially in Illinois with snow, ice, salt, and lots of rain.

What's your second choice after black?

It's a labor or love.

[tex2670]

Black.

How do you guys maintain black? I always keep my cars clean, but black seems like a lot more work, especially in Illinois with snow, ice, salt, and lots of rain.

What's your second choice after black?

I have Tungsten/Sterling, and I'm very happy with that combo. You can't get Cashmere on Tungsten, and personally, I don't think Cashmere would look right with SGM.

[bartkat]

Black.

How do you guys maintain black? I always keep my cars clean, but black seems like a lot more work, especially in Illinois with snow, ice, salt, and lots of rain.

What's your second choice after black?

Lighter colors are going to get/show stains worse. I don't particularly like the two or three color tone interior you get with the light colors. With black you just have black and gray. The only maintenance I see is that black shows lint and leaf particles in the carpet more, but once a week with the little shop vac and that's taken care of. For the leather, a cleaning and conditioning with Lexol keeps it looking nice and matte finished and soft.

[gocardinals]

Just for kicks, I stopped at the BMW dealer today after driving an IS AWD, with no NAV. When I told the BMW dealer I was considering a Lexus, he told me I might as well save money and buy an Toyota. He was serious.

[CrunchySkippy]

When I told the BMW dealer I was considering a Lexus, he told me I might as well save money and buy an Toyota. He was serious.

I'm sure he did. Nobody ever likes the new kid on the block, especially when they're competing with you. Did he bother to mention which Toyota was identical to the IS??

By the way, BMW's are nice too - but they have their high and low points, just like anyone else. Just be an educated consumer, and you'll make the right decision that is best for you. Afterall, you're the one that has to make the payments.

Good luck.

[bartkat]

Just for kicks, I stopped at the BMW dealer today after driving an IS AWD, with no NAV. When I told the BMW dealer I was considering a Lexus, he told me I might as well save money and buy an Toyota. He was serious.

He may have been serious but he didn't know much about cars.