Hey everyone,
I've been studying this forum for some time now and am ready to decide on IS350 or 328 or 335 BMW. I have test drove at least once. The inifiti G35 once (1 time too many) and have my comments below. I have pros and cons on both. Please tell me your thoughts to my comments below;
I drove the IS350 today (my second time) and the engine sounded terrible! It was practically dieseiling. My brother asked the sales guy, which said it was normal. My first test drive had a very quiet idle. Could be an isolated incident, not sure. The two biggest drawbacks on the IS350 are the fake feeling steptronic shift delays. Also the roofline is a little too low. I'm 6'0" and could not see if the traffic light had turned green, I had to duck my head to look. I tried to lower the seat as far as it would go too. Right now I'm about 50/50 IS350 vs 328 or 335. See below
IS350
PRO: 1. Good power
2. Extremely quiet, at least on my first test drive
CON: 1. Low roof line. Even with the seat all the way down, i could not see if the light turns green (I'm 6'0")
2. Shiftronic tranny is surprisingly fake feeling. Too much delay between me hitting the shift button and the tranny shifting. I think the computer is involved a little too much.
3. Handling (corners) is a little too soft, but I didn't try the Xpack with suspension.
4. No realtime XM traffic available for the nav? that's pretty lame.
BMW 335
PRO: 1. Amazing power
2. Fantastic handling
3. very quiet cabin
CON: 1. Very expensive. I couldn't afford navigation.
2. I'm not very familiar with BMW
3. BMW twin turbo? I don't want to be a ginnipig
4. Dash is plain compaired to the IS
BMW 328i
PRO: 1. Power was good (not as good as IS350 but def better than IS250
2. Superior handling
3. Very quiet cabin
CON: 1. Not enough power maybe? (230HP)
2. Pretty boring dash compaired to the IS
Infiniti G35 sedan
PRO: 1. Had some really good power
CON: 1. too much road noise
2. Car felt cheap
3. Goofy shift-tronic type tranny (very quirky)
4. Too much emphasis on sport and not enough on luxury
5. It's a nissan so there's too many problems.
Any comments would be greatly appreciated