Short Take Road Test
After a long day at the office or, in our case, testing cars and digging up facts, we dread the commute home in tied-up traffic just as much as the next guy. A stiff drink or a Valium would take the nasty edge off this draining and aggravating slog, but we couldn't do that, now could we? Lexus has just the remedy for such a problem with the 2007 ES350. It's the automotive antidote to stress and road rage in one very convenient and comfortable package. Here's a car that will coddle you in high style without causing you or anyone around you any angst or grief. Just point it and go.
The new, sixth-generation Lexus ES may not be exciting to us as committed car enthusiasts, but nearly 70,000 customers found Lexus's version of the Toyota Camry acceptable enough in 2005. Lexus figures it can add a few more buyers with a slightly bigger and faster version of its entry-level luxury sedan.
The big news with the ES350 is that it is indeed faster and slightly larger than its predecessor, the ES330. The displacement of the V-6 has grown to 3.5 liters, and the engine's horsepower has jumped by 54 ponies to 272. That brings the 0-to-60-mph time down to 6.2 seconds and the quarter-mile to 14.7 seconds at 97 mph. That's 2.1 seconds quicker than the 60-mph sprint clocked by an ES300 in 2002. The ES350 can now rip rather than stroll through traffic, but the added power also accentuates the torque steer of its front-wheel-drive layout.
The wheelbase has been stretched 2.2 inches to 109.3 inches, most of that giving the occupants in the rear seats more legroom. Mated to the bigger V-6 is a six-speed automatic transmission (replacing the previous five-speed) with a manumatic shifting mode should you need to drive in a more sporting fashion.
Lexus claims it has put some extra starch in the ES350's suspension to stiffen up its road manners, but we didn't sense it. What we did experience was the same softly damped body motions and lots of predictable understeer. When it comes to handling, the ES350 is still as dull as a butter knife rather than as sharp as a scalpel, as our mediocre 0.75-g skidpad result indicates. We did notice a trait that the ES has always shared with the Camry: the annoying habit of feeding road imperfections back through the steering wheel without letting the driver know what's going on with the front tires. Switching from all-season radials to a dedicated summer tire would probably help the situation, but that might also make the ride less buttery smooth.
A base ES350 retails for $33,865, but adding just a few options can quickly run the price over the top. Our test car came with a $5380 Luxury package brimming with leather and power options, a $4050 Navigation/Mark Levinson premium audio package, parking assist for $500, and the Preferred Accessory package (trunk mat, cargo net, and wheel locks) for $194. That sent the as-tested price soaring to $43,989. For that kind of money we would opt for a little less luxury and a lot more excitement in the form of a BMW 3-series or Audi A4.
The ES350 isn't about excitement or sporty driving - it's meant to get you from point A to point B in a stylish manner with the least amount of fuss and stress. And it does that damn near perfectly.
