Telepierre

I am in your camp. I am simply challenging those that may see it differently and do put "prestige" in their rationale...

AMGPilot

This coming from a guy who drive a Toyota LOL!!!

Jontall

Sweet..

RocketGuy3

Thanks for proving my point about people who pay for "prestige". Saves me some effort.


Ah... as you were then.

B747VET

I've owned two Jags and driven 3 DB9's while training their owners how to play on mountain roads. You could never pay me to own another Jag. Just like Lexus, there are often serious mechanical design deficiencies or intentional shortcomings in both brands that you will only find out about when you hit 30,000 to 60,000+ miles and then they will fight you every inch of the way on doing what is right and will never meet your expectations.

DB's? Amazing classy cars with much HP and a great tranny that inspires you to go deep, very deep. I would never say anything negative about a DB but mechanically they can be problematic, more so than a C6 and probably more so than a C7. Compared to the DB, the suspension on the C6/C7 is where they really shine along with the manual tranny availability.

While there is no comparing the C6 interior with a late model DB, the high optioned C7 is actually in the near ball bark except for some of the DB interiors with that beautiful sweeping piece of wood so perfectly integrated with the very high end stitched leather.

If you buy a 2015 ZO6 and have Carravagio or someone like that do one of their high end interior jobs, you will have a car that is superior to any DB made unless your definition of superior is dependent upon what some country club putz thinks and he probably couldn't really make a ZO6 perform if his life depended on it. You will also have probably spent about $60,000 less and will have a car that is far more reliable and vastly cheaper to maintain for any duration you care to measure.

Or, you could just live with the ZO6 interior and have a significantly superior performing car for about $105,000 to $115,000 less.

Please don't hold me to these ballpark numbers, they are approximates but if you like, by all means feel free to make your own numbers after doing some research.

With the Vettes you will also have something they will never have ... American pride. And that is worth something to many of us.

TBIRD57

rolls, bentley, veyron

jag and aston(ford fusion) just another luxury car and behind most others in technology and performance. corvette is sports car and never should have been included in the test because it is a sports car.

RocketGuy3

Am I misunderstanding you, or did you just equate Jaguar quality to Lexus?

You're going to have to give some very good, non-anecdotal pieces of evidence to back up that claim. Every piece of real, statistical analysis I've seen supports the fact that Lexus cars are just about the highest robustness/quality in the industry, and have been for years. Whether from JD Power, Consumer Reports, cost-of-ownership analyses, or even just engineering analyses of the differences in their cars.

Anecdotally, I've had mine for over 82K miles, and I have not had to "fight" for any inches, let alone every inch, and that was even when mine came with a nearly-all-new drivetrain, chassis, etc. My car runs just as smoothly today as it did the day I bought it, and I have put her through hell, too. I have literally not had to fix one single solitary thing on the entire car, including all the electronic luxury gizmos (other than a couple aftermarket parts). Just regular maintenance. *knock on wood* And I know several people with Lexuses that have 100K+ miles and have had similarly great experiences.

Granted, there are always exceptions. No matter how good a manufacturer you are, cars are just far too complex for you to get every single one right and never crap out a lemon now and then. I assume if there is any basis to what you're saying, it's that you had bad experiences with one and wrote off the rest.

With that said, though, I do agree about the quality of Jags and A-Marts based on what I've seen.

Beach

The Aston is the car that I like better. Nothing more, I have a Vette and like I said I have liked vettes since childhood. However the Corvette isn't the pinnacle of cars for me, and I don't make my choices based on performance numbers alone.

Telepierre

You get a +1 from me on the above especially on your characterization of the DB mechanical risks since I had first hand experience of seeing a rather wealthy owner stuck with a mysterious right cylinders bank malfunction (right half engine dead) and no mechanics willing to give it a try without manuals and schematics which allegedly AM does not make available!?

At the time I was told AM would help if the owner was willing to pay a specialist to fly and lodge on site...

I suppose this is how luxury support works...

and for you wall street types..

http://www.cnbc.com/id/101409150

johnodrake

The PCar stopped well. I wonder if the Corvette was a base or a Z51?

SteveSoCal

I'm not all .... Open the hood of the F-Type; look at where the engine sits in the chassis. It's very high and half of is ahead of the front wheel centerline.

C7's rolling chassis has it all over these two. Although, they are nice to look at.

B747VET

Well, I understand where you are coming from. We've owned three Lexus vehicles. Two were great and not problematic. The dealers are generally excellent and even when a Lexus is 10 years old they still will give you a brand new loaner car for free. Of course, I think they figured out long ago that this policy about loaner cars leads to a significant number of new car sales.

In fairness, another thing we have noticed is that whenever you list a used Lexus in the paper, the phone literally begins ringing off the hook. Unlike other cars where the phone never rings.

Our one problem Lexus had a bad tranny that went out at 42,000 miles and had to be replaced. Hey, stuff happens right? Except, when I got on the internet I found dozens of long standing complaints about this Lexus model having transmission failures at mileages between 30,000 and 60,000. Turns out the transmissions are defective. Turns out it was a widely known problem for two years before we bought that Lexus new.

So, yes, Lexus knew that they had a seriously defective transmission and continued to sell cars with that tranny for three more years. Naturally ours blew shortly after the warranty expired.

We talked again and again with corporate Lexus through our dealership for over two months without any resolution. So, I put on a business suit and drove 10 miles to the U.S. Lexus headquarters building to speak with the customer service gurus. I made the appointment for a set time.

When I got there, they refused to speak with me face to face. They would only speak over a customer service phone in the lobby. The entire corporate team hides behind bullet proof glass and will not do face to face with customers because they had a bad experience with an irate customer 4 years earlier.

The dealership was great and continued to fight on our behalf. Corporate Lexus could have cared less. I finally found out over the Internet that after much prolonged wrangling with many other owners of the same car that Lexus would eventually "cave in" and agree to provide a "free" rebuilt tranny to owners who agreed to pay a $1400 installation fee.

The only problem ... It's the exact same transmission that has serious design deficiencies. Take it or leave it. Like many other others we finally caved in ourselves and took the deal after three months of asking for what was right and dozens of phone calls to corporate Lexus.

So, we have a car with a tranny that currently works OK but will likely fail again from the same design deficiencies. And, yes, Lexus freely admits that zero improvements or modifications have been made to these rebuilt trannys.

Bottom line, Lexus knowingly sold defected trannys for three to four years after they full well knew they were defective and then made owners lives hell on earth for three or four months during which time many of the cars were unsafe and could not be driven before "generously" agreeing to put a rebuilt tranny of the same design in the cars for $1400.

And, again, those trannys will likely fail again so exactly who do you sell it to without feeling damn guilty about this pig in a poke? I guess we are all supposed to adopt the Lexus mentality and philosophy of caveat emptor?

Anyway we are out of the Lexus family. Can't reward that kind of behavior.

RocketGuy3

It seems like I was right -- it was one bad experience that left a sour taste in your mouth. That's unfortunate, but it doesn't mean all Lexuses fall apart between 30 and 60K. The VAST majority do not, even if they had one bad model with well documented transmission problems (and even that model, it was surely still a minority of the cars sold that had the problem). As you said yourself, your other two Lexuses were fine.

Every manufacturer has those kinds of issues, and Lexus actually has fewer than most.

I am very surprised that you had so many issues with Lexus corporate and customer service, though. Personally I have not had to deal with them yet since I haven't needed anything fixed yet (and I'm almost far enough out of warranty now that they probably won't be much help even if I do). But several friends have told me great stories about their experiences. For example, one person's head unit died after about 6.5 years (half year out of warranty), and it was something like a $2K repair. He gave corporate a call, expressed his frustration, and they pay for the repairs without any hassle.

It does sound like you got the short end of the stick, though, so I can understand your frustration. Always a shame when that kind of thing happens, but I don't think that is the norm for Lexus.

B747VET

I don't think we are really disagreeing about anything, perhaps we just have a different standard when it comes to corporate accountability. I would only add that we are talking about selling many thousands of knowingly defective cars and then trying to weasel out when the defects come home to roost.

I should have added that I also went to Toyota/Lexus headquarters in Japan while there on a business trip. They were also very polite but of a definite "not our problem" mentality. Without question, most Lexus vehicles are outstanding in almost all respects. However, this goes far beyond "one bad experience that left a sour taste in my mouth."

This was an intentional orchestrated ripoff and blatant refusal to step up and do what is right. I haven't researched all the dozens of makes and models of Lexus to see whether this was an isolated occurrence. But, suppose we buy another Lexus and the same behaviors happen? In that event we would move from "Shame on Lexus" to "Shame on me."

Besides, the new Caddy V Sport CTS is far superior to any performance sedan made by Lexus or anyone else so not considering a Lexus nowadays is not simply a matter of retribution. Time to move on to better American cars.

RocketGuy3

If you want performance, yeah, the V will be better. And I think the CTSV is a great car. But you don't typically buy Lexuses for the reasons you would buy a CTSV. That said, Lexus has been starting to make some more exciting cars lately.

But yeah, if I wanted a fast luxury sedan, I would probably look at an ATS or CTS before a Lexus today.

Daekwan06

Still amazed at how every reviewer in the entire world gets a manual z51 car, but Chris Harris somehow manages to only get an automatic to review.