New gs300 2008 model

[Carlover76]

Frankly speaking, you never know which country they bring in the LEXUS since all their Toyota cars are mostly from Thailand!

[Weiming]

Does it matter where the dealer brings in the model from?

 

The ES350 is only manufactured in Lexus's Kyushu Plant in Japan.

[Natnut]

Wrong. All Lexus cars are manufactured in Japan except for North American RX :

 

http://www.lexus.com/about/corporate/manufacturing.html

 

Tahara is the main plant and it has the distinction of being the first Platinum Award automobile factory in the world(lowest manufacturing defect rate in the world).

 

The smaller engined 3 series, C and E classes have the honour of being made in South Africa or Austria.

Edited November 22, 2007 by Natnut

[Natnut]

BMW = Sheer Driving Pleasure (Sheer Wasting Pleasure as quoted by my friend from the BMW forum becos its so expensive)

 

Lexus = Relentless Pursuit of Perfection (Still pursuing after so many years and will continue to pursue)

 

Mercedes = Very comfortable bricks

 

Enuff said

 

BMW=B reak M y W allet

=B ring M e W orry

 

Just kidding.

[Dclk]

Toyota stops making right hand drive ES, hence one can only see them in left hand drive countries.

[Porker]

Well Said......It also means only Lexus have the perfection while their other brands like Toyota or Daihatsu, there are no perfection at all.

 

Sorry... Lexus = Not perfect cos they relentlessly pursuing.

 

The cars drive like boats say for the IS200 (not bad but no where close to good either).

 

Sorry I just say it as it is. Others may disagree.

 

Copycats will always be copycats no matter how good they are. They still fall short though

[Ahbengdriver]

"Lexus = Relentless Pursuit of Perfection (Still pursuing after so many years and will continue to pursue)"

 

Well Said......It also means only Lexus have the perfection while their other brands like Toyota or Daihatsu, there are no perfection at all.

 

No car in this world is perfect.

[Phochem]

It looks pretty too... for my age.

[Will_I_Am]

If only they have the 2 litre version for the IS250. The FL version that is.

[Carlover76]

Wrong. All Lexus cars are manufactured in Japan except for North American RX :

 

http://www.lexus.com/about/corporate/manufacturing.html

 

Tahara is the main plant and it has the distinction of being the first Platinum Award automobile factory in the world(lowest manufacturing defect rate in the world).

 

The smaller engined 3 series, C and E classes have the honour of being made in South Africa or Austria.

It may sound true but not forgetting that Lexus and Toyota share the parts!

[Natnut]

Wrong again.

 

Toyota parts DO NOT exceed 50 defects per million parts shipped.

 

Lexus parts do not exceed 10 defects per million parts.

 

Even within Japan itself, the Lexus factory of Tahara receives much higher quality components

and undergoes much more stringent QC compared to even other Toyota factories.

 

Think about it :

 

When you buy a Singapore Lexus, you are receiving the best of the best of Japan's most powerful and advanced automobile company.

 

When you buy a Singapore small engined BMW or Merc, you are buying a manufacturing afterthought made by an outsourced factory while the Germans keep all their locally made higher quality cars for themselves or the Americans.

 

If you were to offer me a German made BMW/MB made in their highest quality German Factory, I might consider buying it. Buying a knock down version of their car while still paying inflated prices is another matter.

Edited November 23, 2007 by Natnut

[Weiming]

I guess this is the reason why Lexus will never be a major luxury contender here in Singapore; simply because of the lack of engine choices.

 

If there is a IS200 or GS200 or LS300, there will be higher sales as most consumers will prefer a lower cc vehicle for the lower road tax and perceived better fuel consumption a smaller engine will bring.

 

Even in Europe, the bulk of sales for the German luxury makers are fleet sales and lower spec/basic versions.

[Weiming]

Actually I am all for parts sharing :) No point re-inventing the wheel.

 

You seem to forget that other car makers also share parts/platforms/engines like Ford/Volvo, GM/Saab, VW/Audi/Lambo/Skoda etc. Even across brands car manufacturers do work together. The current Alfa 159 engine is from GM. Check out the slew of commercial vehicles from Fiat/Peugeot/Citroen/Renault. Some of them were developed together (Vivaro/Trafic, Partner/Berlingo). The Porsche Cayenne and VW Touareg were co-developed and Porsche is planning to use Toyota's Hybrid technology in their future models.

 

This is where one can reduce the cost of production, improve quality control and hopefully give consumers a better price. If you check out the MB A, B and previous C class, you will notice that the interior cabin shares quite a fair bit of parts too.

[Dclk]

Actually I am all for parts sharing :) No point re-inventing the wheel.

 

You seem to forget that other car makers also share parts/platforms/engines like Ford/Volvo, GM/Saab, VW/Audi/Lambo/Skoda etc. Even across brands car manufacturers do work together. The current Alfa 159 engine is from GM. Check out the slew of commercial vehicles from Fiat/Peugeot/Citroen/Renault. Some of them were developed together (Vivaro/Trafic, Partner/Berlingo). The Porsche Cayenne and VW Touareg were co-developed and Porsche is planning to use Toyota's Hybrid technology in their future models.

 

This is where one can reduce the cost of production, improve quality control and hopefully give consumers a better price. If you check out the MB A, B and previous C class, you will notice that the interior cabin shares quite a fair bit of parts too.-------------

 

Apart from BMW and the Merc, most other luxury makes share parts with their lesser siblings. Even Merc's parts were used by Chrysler before the split. In addition, Merc also sells their technology to the Korean make which I could not remember, the "Chairman". Now would one say the Merc is a Chrysler? Is the Ferrari a Maserati in disguise?

 

Unless one refers exclusively to BMW and Merc, part sharing probably exists in most other commercial makes.

[Edison]

Sorry you are wrong,

but i think the angmos europe do not even know about the joke of 320i here in sg...

 

What for lexus must also copy bmw to be joker to introduce scale down models like GS200 or even IS180 here in sg..

they believe that their cars run most ideal on the specific engine and thats it. If like it, just buy, if dun like, dun buy

[Edison]

But we do have to applaud lexus for being able to be at have sales volume that high (though still lose to bmw & mercs) with only so few models and specs available. Its amazing that all their sales come form their one and only tiny showroom (compare to mercs, bmw , audi) with just 5-6 cars in leng kee

[Porker]

Search is your friend grasshopper. The below link shows only 45 x BMW 320i (used) for sale in Germany. Thats because I narrowed down the search to

 

1) Auto trans

 

2) Mileage from 5,000 miles to 10,000 miles

 

3) etc

 

The search for just 320i alone resulted in more than 10,000 320i on resale market.

 

So the Europeans do buy the entry level models.

 

http://suchen.mobile.de/fahrzeuge/search.h...MAGE_UNREPAIRED

[Porker]

And don't do comparison based on petty minor details such as small showroom, few cars on display, few select models and etc.

 

Lexus sells because its refined, reliable and has good built quality.

 

BMW and Merc sells because of the long tradition and established engineering, quality and prestige + performance.

 

Not because of the nice big showroom and numerous cars on display