2016 Lexus ES 350 review – Roadshow

The Good The ES 350 upholds traditional Lexus tenets — it’s quiet, it’s comfortable and it’s plenty spacious.

The Bad It’s far less stylish than its stablemates, the powertrain feels old, and even the bare-bones base model is quite expensive. It also has the worst satellite radio antenna known to man.

The Bottom Line If you plan on stretching your bucks to slide into the luxury-car life, you’re probably better off going with a fully equipped, non-luxury competitor, like a Toyota Avalon or a Nissan Maxima.

Luxury automakers constantly assault you with advertisements, claiming that it’s never been easier to nestle into the lap of luxury. With base models offering ridiculously attractive pricing, it all seems rather attainable. But let me tell you — what you get for that advertised price ain’t always exactly luxurious, and it might make more sense to avoid going with a premium badge altogether.

Thus is the conundrum with the 2016 Lexus ES 350, equipped as my review model was, which is to say not terribly well. It represents the least expensive way to pick up any new Lexus sedan, but at $38,000 before taxes and delivery, it’s tough to make the value argument when you’re staring down non-luxury vehicles that can arrive on your driveway with much of its ride quality and way more luxury and safety options and doo-dads for much less money.

A little refresh

This ES 350 should look a little different from the hundreds of others you’ve seen on the road since waking up this morning. For 2016, Toyota updated its midsize luxury sedan’s exterior with slightly tweaked front and rear fasciae and some new wheel designs. It’s a very conservative update for a very conservative car, falling far short of the aggressive styling seen on other new Lexus models, like the NX and RX. In fact, all its sedans are playing catch-up to the crossovers, which is a pretty good metaphor for the state of the auto industry.

Inside, the steering wheel is slimmer and sportier looking, there’s a new in-cluster display and there are new “Enter” buttons on either side of the take-it-or-leave-it infotainment system controller. The interior remains on the conservative side of handsome, although harder plastics creep up the lower you look. The cabin leather is comfortable to the touch, and screen-averse buyers will love the panoply of physical switchgear for radio and HVAC controls.

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That pesky tech

Lexus’ infotainment system is definitely love-it-or-hate-it. Personally, I find the system’s method of mouse-like cursor control to be just as easy to use as any touchscreen, although learning how it works can be difficult, as it’s not like any other system on the market — even Toyota’s.

Devoid of options as my tester was, I didn’t get any connected services that couldn’t be utilized through the satellite radio connection. I had weather updates, but otherwise, my technological experience was quite limited. There are two USB ports up front, however, which is a nice touch, although low current means a slow charge on larger, newer phones.

This knob is now the third different kind of screen manipulator I’ve found on a new Lexus, the other two being a touchpad and a mouse-like knob.

Andrew Krok/Roadshow

The satellite-radio antenna is the worst of any car I’ve ever driven, cutting out at random, far away from tree cover or overpasses. Occasionally, it took 30 seconds or so to find a station’s signal, and when it did, I got a minute of music followed by more seeking. Over my week with the car, it never worked correctly.

The in-cluster screen works as it does on any other Lexus or Toyota product, placing pertinent info (fuel economy, navigation directions when applicable, audio data) in the driver’s line of sight. It’s easy to adjust using steering wheel controls, and I found that it cut down on my center-stack screen glancing to a great degree.

Advanced driver-assistance systems are available, just not on my tester. For the curious, you can opt for a low-cost Lexus Safety System+ option, which gives you adaptive cruise control, forward-collision warning, automated emergency braking, lane-departure warning and automatic high beams.