SA Road Tests



Welcome

This is the home of automobile road tests in South Africa. We drive South African cars, SUVs and LCVs under South African conditions. It also just happens that most of the vehicles we drive are world cars as well, so what you read here probably applies to the models you can get at home.

*To read one of our archived road tests, just select from the alphabetical menu of manufacturers' names on the left. Hover your cursor over the manufacturer's name, then choose from the drop-down menu that appears.

*Please remember too, that prices quoted were those ruling on the days I wrote the reports.


We drive the 2014 Lexus IS350 EX

More than a sexy Toyota

We’re surely not alone in noticing that people can be odd, unpredictable and inconsistent. Take their choices in automobiles. They swarm to buy Toyotas because they are solid, reliable, and have bullet-proof resale value. They buy Volkswagens for the same reasons. People adore Mercedes-Benz, BMW and Audi because they are sexy, luxurious and safe. They don’t mind that Audis are sexied-up Volkswagens; they clamour to buy them anyway. But very few buy Lexus’ even though they are, by the same logic, sexied-up Toyotas. Work that out if you can.

We have three choices of the medium-sized Lexus IS in South Africa. They are similar in size and shape to Audi’s A5 Sportback, Jaguar’s XF and BMW’s 3-series GT. Because people aren’t flocking to buy them, only one engine option is available at present. It’s a 3.5-litre, naturally aspirated petrol burner that puts out slightly more power than the Mercedes-Benz equivalent. All three versions are extremely well equipped and the range-topping F-Sport out-handled BMW’s 335i in a shoot-out conducted by Car and Driver magazine. And despite not being turbocharged, they are less than half a second slower than the Beemer in a zero-to-100 sprint. Not bad for sexied-up Toyotas.

Getting technical, they are 4665mm long, 1810mm wide and 1430mm tall on a 2800mm wheelbase. That’s 70mm longer than the previous version, with 50mm going into rear seat legroom and the balance making the boot bigger. It now holds a very acceptable 480 litres. Standard kit on the basic model includes eight airbags, an eight-speed twin-clutch transmission with artificial intelligence control, ABS brakes with BA and EBD, VSC and traction control. A system called vehicle dynamic integrated management (VDIM) co-ordinates everything to bail you out of trouble before you even know it’s brewing.

In order to keep the bonnet line low and still satisfy EuroNCAP requirements for pedestrian safety, sensors pick up details of the impact and pop the bonnet up by 70 mm. This keeps them from being injured by solid parts inside and provides a more flexible surface to absorb energy. The sensors detect whether a child or an adult has been hit, in order to deploy the bonnet accordingly. They also sense when an inanimate object, such as a tree, is the “victim” and keep the bonnet closed.

Alloy wheels, HID headlamps, fog lamps at both ends, LED running lights and tail lamps, dual zone climate control, cruise control, an eight-speaker sound system with Bluetooth, two USB ports and auxiliary, powered windows and mirrors and smart entry with keyless start are all there. To make sure the car behaves as you want it to at any given moment, four drive modes are available – snow, economy, normal and sport. We found the economy setting a little too hesitant for our taste, but normal was fine for daily use and sport perked things up considerably. Naturally the seats are leather and both front chairs are heated, cooled and eight-way electrically adjustable. Suspension is taken care of by double wishbones in front and a multilink setup at the back. Brakes are discs at both ends.

Stepping up to an EX model like our test car adds DVD capability to the music player, satellite navigation, a self-dipping interior mirror, the famed Lexus joystick controller for the computer, automatic wipers, parking sonar and a reversing camera with guides. Altogether, there's quite a bit of kit that’s usually optional on German cars.

Obviously, not everything is perfect. The rear seatbacks fold flat but leave a step in the loading floor, the bootlid hinges on curved arms that can bump up against luggage, there are no bins on the back doors, the central hump means that only very short-legged passengers can sit in the middle and the cubby is small. And the coupé styling restricts headroom in the back, so even though knee space is generous, only shorter passengers can really enjoy it.

Those concerns aside, however, the engine is smooth and powerful, the gearbox works magnificently, it steers in and out of tight spots easily with its 10,4-metre turning circle and it handles like a sports car. Frankly, it doesn’t deserve to be dismissed as a sexied-up Toyota – it’s much more than that.

Test car from Toyota/Lexus SA press fleet

The numbers
Price: R515 800
Engine: 3456cc, DOHC, 24-valve V6
Power: 228 kW at 6400 rpm
Torque: 373 Nm at 4800 rpm
Zero to 100 km/h: 5,9 seconds
Maximum speed: 225 km/h
Real life fuel consumption: About 10,3 l/100 km
Tank: 66 litres
Towing mass (braked): 1500 kg
Warranty: 4 years/100 000 km
Maintenance: Lexus Distance Plan Plus, with servicing at 15 000 km intervals

To see our launch report and more technical detail, click here

To read about the F-Sport version click here

What We Do

This is a one-man show, which means that every car reviewed is given my personal evaluation and receives my own seat of the pants judgement - no second hand input here.
Every test car goes through real world driving; on city streets littered with potholes, speed bumps and rumble strips, on freeways and if its profile demands, dirt roads as well.

I do my best to include relevant information like real life fuel economy or a close mathematical calculation, boot size or luggage space, whether the space is both usable and accessible, whether life-sized people can use the back seat (where that applies), basic specs of the vehicle and performance figures if they are published. In the case of clearly identified launch reports, fuel figures are of necessity the laboratory numbers provided with the release material. If I ever place an article that doesn't cover most things, it's probably because I have dealt with that vehicle at least once already, so you will be able to find what you want in another report under the same manufacturer's heading in the menu on the left.

My reviews and launch reports appear on Thursdays in the Wheels supplement to The Witness, South Africa's oldest continuously running newspaper, and occasionally on Saturdays in Weekend Witness as well. I drive eight to ten vehicles each month, most months of the year (except over the festive season) so not everything gets published in the paper. Those that are, get a tagline but the rest is virgin, unpublished and unedited by the political-correctness police.

Hope you like what you see, because there are no commercial interests at work here. As quite a few readers have found, I answer every serious enquiry from my home email address, with my phone numbers attached, so they can see I do actually exist.



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