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 road tests, just select from the menu on the left. Hover your cursor over the manufacturer's name, then choose from the drop-down menu.
*Please remember too, that prices quoted were those ruling on the days I wrote the reports.


This is a launch report. In other words, it's simply a new model announcement. The driving experience was limited to a short drive over a prepared course chosen to make the product look good. We can therefore not tell you what it will be like to live with over an extended period, how economical it is, or how reliable it will be. A very brief first impression is all we can give you until such time as we get an actual test unit for trial. Thank you for your patience.


The 2014 Lexus IS350 is a left-brain car with right-brain appeal. We attended the launch.

More luxury, more refinement, more Lexus

Published in Witness Wheels on Thursday August 8, 2013

Safe, luxurious and impeccably built; dynamic, communicative and fun to drive – must be German. Wrong: it’s the Lexus IS 350. For this 2014 model, they used laser screw welding around door openings, and adhesive bonding of panels in addition to traditional spot welding, to tighten up the body while keeping mass as low as possible. Then they stretched it 80 mm longer while adding 70 mm to its wheelbase and made it just a touch taller and wider. This pays off with about 85 mm more legroom in the back and an additional 84 litres of luggage space.

A more three-dimensional evolution of the spindle grille from GS and LS models, its shape accentuated by a chrome plated frame and muscular looking horizontal bars, follows the curvature of the vehicle’s body to define the front end.  The new pop-up bonnet design provides a low front profile while optimising pedestrian impact protection.

Further, L-shaped LED daytime running lights, located independently below the cluster, give the IS a unique and distinctive visual signature. A deep front bumper anchors muscular front wings and flared wheel arches. Integral fog lamps are housed within secondary sculpted side air intakes that control the flow of air out through the wheel arches to enhance aerodynamic performance.

Want more? How about sitting the driver 20 mm lower and increasing the angle of the steering wheel by three degrees; just to make life more comfortable? Major reworks of the double wishbone front suspension and multilink rear tightened up its handling. Then Lexus replaced the old six-speed box with an eight-cog twin-clutch unit that was given a lower first and higher top to make it accelerate off the line a touch more quickly and cruise more comfortably.

The 3.5-litre, naturally aspirated V6 was detuned very slightly in the interest of reducing emissions, but you really won’t notice the difference. It still produces a few kW more than arch-rivals BMW 335i and Mercedes-Benz C350, so it responds willingly when called upon to do so. Bigger brakes also worked very well when their number was dialled, on a few occasions during our drive from Ballito to Nottingham Road and back, via the longest and most scenic route the organisers could find.

There are three models; a lavishly equipped IS 350 E, IS 350 EX with added features and IS 350 F Sport that takes things to a higher level. Even the basic version offers 17” alloy wheels, drive mode selection (Normal, Eco & Sport), cruise control, keyless smart entry, dual-zone climate control with touch-sensitive temperature controllers, powered and heated mirrors, HID headlamps with dusk sensing function and washers, full leather upholstery, heated and ventilated front seats that are eight-way power adjustable, eight-speaker Lexus display audio with audio input terminal, iPod integration and Bluetooth connectivity.
 
Safety items include eight airbags, vehicle stability control, traction control, ABS with brake assist (BA) and electronic brake force distribution (EBD) and vehicle dynamic integrated management (VDIM). This last item senses trouble brewing before things get dramatic and begins rescue procedures ahead of the driver becoming aware that he or she has overstepped boundaries.

EX trim adds an electrochromatic interior mirror, Electro Multi Vision Navigation (EMVN) multimedia system with upper display and lower operational zones, Lexus’ renowned and yet more user-friendly Remote Touch Interface (RTI) controller, fully integrated satellite navigation with automatic screen zoom and 3-D functionality, rain-sensing wipers and parking assistance with reversing guide monitor, and park distance sensors.

Finally, F-Sport adds special trim, a honeycomb grille, more aggressive front bumper, 18” silver-black wheels, adaptive variable suspension, two additional settings (Sport and Sport +) on the drive mode selector, variable ratio steering, sports seats and special instruments.

The authoritative US motor magazine, Car and Driver, found that the Lexus IS 350 F-Sport gave the industry-standard BMW 335i a very close run for its money; in overall dynamics, on a mountain course and in slalom runs. Add standard equipment that costs a lot extra on German cars, but for which owners receive very little credit at trade-in time, distinctive looks and Lexus’ less complicated unblown engine and you have little reason to stay within your comfort zone. It has been described as the new benchmark in rear-wheel drive sporting sedans. Try it.

Information gathered at a manufacturer-sponsored press launch.

The numbers
Prices range from R449 900 to R553 900
Engine: Toyota 2GR-FSE, 3456 cc, DOHC, 24-valve V6
Power: 228 kW at 6400 rpm
Torque: 375 Nm at 4800 rpm
Zero to 100 km/h: 5,9 seconds
Maximum speed: 225 km/h
Combined cycle fuel consumption (claimed): 9,7 l/100 km
Tank: 66 litres
Luggage space: 480 litres
Warranty: 4 years/100 000 km
Maintenance: Various Lexus Distance Plans; model-dependent

To see our review of the IS350 EX, click here

F-Sport

IS350 EX

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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