Gadgetory

I'm guessing the phrase great value and flagship luxo sedan don't go together in your head but if you spent much time with this guy they might get a lot closer let's drive the 2013 lexus LS 460 with the F Sport Package and check the tech now with this LS an F Sport trim whose Lexus going after clearly not BMW they don't even do an m7 but that leaves the s-class and it's AMG version and of course outies eight in the S trim Lexus has always been known for a very fine touch on precision and luxury and nuance but are they still top of the stack on tests inside all Lexus and especially the LS scream high-tech in a 1970s Japanese way which I offer is a compliment lots of buttons and indicator lights crisp high-tech gauge faces a lot of blue lighting and a vaguely masculine touch the same things I might say of a technics quadrophonic receiver you navigate the lanes of this big wide screen with this the Lexus remote touch controller I'll be honest the novelty of it has worn off for me since its introduction a couple model years ago and I now find it fiddly and imprecise under my hand at least it's just a lot of overshooting when I'm trying to cursor to something so of course you can fall back to voice command which is generally excellent in this LS in terms of comprehension but kind of old-school and that it generally requires button and beep parsing for each part of an address for example enter an address enter an address searching California say only the city name or say change state San Francisco San Francisco rear cam is standard but front cams all around cams and a variable view rear cam don't show up here again somewhat dated media choices however have all the modern hits am/fm HD with tagging Sat radio USB plus iPod bluetooth streaming and of course an optical drive on top of that you have lexus version of Toyotas groundbreaking Entune apps here they call it inform Yelp open table Pandora Bing I Heart Radio and Facebook Places the latter I think is unique to the Lexus side and probably the least relevant 19 speaker 450 watt Mark Levinson audio is a Lexus hallmark but it remains an upgrade on the LS 460 Lexus was a pioneer in fancy rear cabins and on this one you can get shiatsu massage rear seats with butterfly headrests recline dedicated rear heater and air purifier but all that second row luxury in a car that isn't a long-wheelbase doesn't make a lot of sense to me do an L Lexus of course builds engines that seem to come out of the Rolex Factory and this one's no exception even though you can't see any of it 4.6 liter v8 no tricks no blowers no turbos no hybrid 386 horsepower 367 foot-pounds of torque gets this guy to 60 in 5 point 4 seconds that's moving four thousand three hundred and sixty some odd pounds and still delivering 1624 mpg everything goes out through an 8-speed automatic and either rear wheel drive like we have or all-wheel drive option away in the ls you're totally aware of the smoothness of it right there with Audi it's one of the smoothest engineered cars out there they've dialed out almost all the noise vibration and harshness that the auto industry goes after as a basket of bad guys on the other hand and therefore has a certain softness almost we were just driving the BMW 750 against this car which we've got another video on head-to-head and this is much more of a finer softer lighter input type vehicle even though it's meant to be a very Sport trim version with this F package now like many cars in its category we've got a couple sports settings a normal setting a couple of comfort settings you may not find a huge difference between the ones that are in one end or the other like the two sports mm you know I could use one same thing for comfort but it's all software so why not give people more features that they'll pay for even as an F Sport the power is somewhat buried in this LS until you go looking for it and you still won't mistake it for an M car when pressed and in sport mode with manual shifting and the lowered adaptive suspension doing its firmest the big Lexus still feels like a fine car in performance mode more than a serious performance car that's also luxurious I actually think that makes sense certainly for an LS no head-up display or night vision available here blind spot tech though is standard as is lane departure control and collision avoidance that can flat stop the car at up to city speeds if it spots something out there that you don't alright here's my take on the LS 460 in the F Sport trim it's a hell of a value 72 8 was base I threw every option at it 16 thousand and change for the ultra-luxury package and I barely got over eighty nine thousand compared to the Germans that's a steal the LS 460 export slots a notch below AMG and manager didn't mean that's it's a nicer performance flagship and foremost it's a smarter buy in terms of MSRP and depreciation Lexus has the best app system in its class buy one of these because you like precision comfort and performance but when the AMG car pulls up alongside you at a light wave him on