2011 Lexus IS F Consumer Reviews

I have a 2011 Lexus IS 250 AWD with the Luxury and Navigation package. The milage has been much less then what I am used to. However I came from the compact 4 cylinder market so it is to be expected. Just a note for anyone thinking about buying the car, be aware that it uses premium gas only. Consider it an expense of owning the vehicle. The driving experience has been good. The acceleration, while not as fast as the IS 350, is quick enough to get onto the highway without effort. The vehicle hugs turns and feels very solid while at the same time masking bumps on the road enough where they are not as jolting but can be felt to know the road conditions. In this regard I love this vehicle. The interior is amazing in terms of quality of the materials used. The leather seats are very nice and the seats feel great to sit in. On paper many cars in the lower ranges sound like they would match this but having been in both classes of cars there is a very real difference. The cooled seats in addition to the heated are must haves. The features in the car are plentiful. However the back seats do not fold down. You instead get a pass through which is disappointing but not a deal killer. The center console with the navigation while full featured is a mess and difficult to us. For instance there are hard buttons for the temperature but you have to go to climate on the touch screen to control the fan speed. Many of the hard buttons that you need to use to operate the center console are not back lit. The interface in the navigation system is decent but things like switching between bluetooth media players is not user friendly. It uses a category layout with the hard buttons to each side of the screen to select the category. My gripe is that they are again not backlit. Also the car does not maintain it's value very well. My vehicle dropped in value $12,000 in nine months. Now granted the value sets into a more gradual depreciation slope after that it is a very steep loss in value for me to get used to considering that my Honda Fit Sport I had before this was still worth the price of a brand new base Honda Fit when I traded it in a year and a half later. The reason the IS depreciates is because there is not as large of a market for the vehicle after it has been used. Anyone considering buying their first luxury car like this would be well advised to buy a one or two year old used Lexus IS so that someone else takes the huge depreciation hit instead of you.