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2019 Lexus ES 350 F
Sport: Could it BE any more refined?
Price: $57,768 as
tested ($44,135 for the F Sport trim level). $1,065 for blind spot
monitor and rear cross traffic detection; $1,515 for triple beam LED
headlights; $500 for the head-up display; $550 for the hands-free
trunk. More mentioned below.
Conventional wisdom:
Consumer Reports likes the “ride comfort, smooth powertrain,
quietness, interior ambience,” but not the “confusing controls,
cramped rear seat.”
Marketer’s pitch:
“Boldly styled. Meticulously refined.”
Reality: Not as ugly
as it once was. Still fun and luxurious. Any more refined and
it’ll just blow away.
What’s new: The
next generation of Lexus midsize sedan gets longer, lower and wider
— much like its Toyota cousins — while still retaining all the
fun and performance of a Lexus.
Up to speed: The new
3.5-liter V-6 engine certainly moves the sedan enthusiastically. The
302 horses bring 60 mph on in 5.9 seconds, according to Motor Trend.
On the curves: And
the fun doesn’t have to stop when there’s a bend in the road.
With the Adaptive Variable Suspension ($750), the ES 350 has Sport
and Sport+ settings, but even Normal offered plenty of road hugging
and tight cornering ability. (I’m usually not at all about
Normal.) Just sail around the empty off-ramp turns.
Shifty: The 8-speed
transmission has a shift mode, and it operates through the gearshift
or paddles on the steering wheel. Both worked fine, but so did
automatic mode — so well that I just thought, “OK, why bother?
Lexus doesn’t even want us shifting when we’re racing these
things.”
Back to a stop: And
the brakes in the test model were among the best I’ve felt. Even
hard stops happened smoothly and with no sense of jerkiness.
The interior of the
2019 Lexus ES 350 is beautiful, awesome, supple, refined. But then
there’s that infotainment touchpad, which has become only slightly
less infuriating.
Friends and stuff: We
set off to visit Sturgis Kid 3.0’s apartment, and I heard 6-foot-2
Sturgis Kid 4.0 sigh with satisfaction at the roominess of the
backseat. Not even the rear headroom could disappoint for the lanky
young lad. I don’t know what Consumer Reports was smoking that
week, but cramped it was not.
My wife also remarked
how comfortable her front seat was.
Seriously, if your
goal is to impress your family or friends, there are worse ways to
do it than with an ES 350. They’re becoming a little less scowly,
and even the scowliest front ends are forgiven once everyone is
comfortably seated.
Cargo capacity is a
healthy 16.7 cubic feet.
Driver’s Seat: The
driver will enjoy plenty of comfort as well. The seat feels just
right, and even the steering wheel grip is soft and supple.
Play some tunes:
Here’s the catch. For the bargain price of $3,000 for the Mark
Levinson infotainment system, Lexus forces us to use the blasted
touchpad to get around the large, lovely infotainment screen. It has
gotten better, but it’s still like wearing boxing gloves while
aiming for fingertip precision.
Simply finding your
favorite station can be a challenge. Upon first drive, the nice
Lexus controls asked me to let it find AM stations for me; that’s
great, I thought. Unfortunately, the Lexus wasn’t catching
Philly’s hallowed KYW at Chez Sturgis, so it wasn’t offered in
the list of choices once the search was done. It’s the only AM
station I want.
So I said forget it,
and moved into 2019, kissing Traffic on the Twos goodbye for a week.
Sad. Why can’t Lexus just put a dial on the dashboard for tuning?
There’s one for volume, plastered forlornly between heater
controls. (Note to self: Try the Lexus voice commands. They work
brilliantly in Cadillacs.)
The screen is huge,
of course, and the sound is awesome. As are the graphics.
Keeping warm and
cool: Lots of fussy buttons control the HVAC, and a fussy up-down
slider controls the temperature.
Fuel economy: I
averaged 22 mpg while putting the ES 350 through its paces time and
again. I put regular in it, though I probably shouldn’t have, and
it worked just fine. But if they want premium, they need to put a
notice on the gas cap.
Where it’s built:
Georgetown, Ky.
How it’s built:
Consumer Reports predicts the ES 350 reliability to be 4 out of 5.
That’s bad for a Lexus.
In the end: Because
the world isn’t fair, the ES 350 has to come with this blasted
touchpad.
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