I've Finally Decided
Some of you may know that I've been out car-shopping (again!) this weekend. This time, I bought something, rather I put a downpayment on something, to be delivered to me for the beginning of September.
In the run up to the weekend, I narrowed down the shortlist to the following (in no particular order of preference):
1. Volvo S60
2. Lexus IS250
3. Audi A4 (1.8T S Line)
4. BMW 320i
5. Honda CR-V
I'd previously considered the Chrysler Sebring, the Jaguar X-type and the Chevrolet Epica but these were all ruled out without being test-driven.
I then test-drove all the short-listed cars and narrowed it down to 2 - the Volvo S60 and the Lexus IS250.
I didn't really like the handling of the BMW 320i or the Audi A4 and the lack of features on the 320i for the price I would have to pay for it was also one of its disadvantages. The steering on the A4 was heavier than I liked but apart from that, the car wasn't too bad.
I've always been partial to the S60 and the drive was very pleasant but the interior was rather bare and unremarkable as I'd test-driven the IS250 immediately before that.
In terms of price, the IS250 cost quite a bit more than pocket change compared to the S60 and although price was a factor in my final decision, seeing as I'm planning to pay for it over 3 years, the extra money works out not to be very much if spread out over that time.
I spent this afternoon agonising over which car to buy and in the end, decided on the IS250. The reason why the S60 lost out is because it is a model on its way out, to be replaced by a radically different S60 in 2009. It will probably only get here sometime in 2010 by which time, I'd be thinking about getting a new car and the resale value of an old model would probably plunge seeing as a new model had only just been launched.
Comparing these photographs with the ones of the current S60 model, I think it's obvious why I didn't choose the Volvo. Hopefully Volvo will be able to get their act together for the new S60 and incorporate some of the new ideas into the S60 which will be going into the XC60 which is a sort of SUV but not quite. It incorporates some of the interior design features which are currently seen in the C70 but is likely to have a sliding device to replace the gear knob. How it will work in practice remains to be seen. For more information about the XC60, see here.
There are currently on 2 variants of the IS250 on sale here, both of which are automatic (they have a tiptronic (E-shift) gearbox which allows the driver to shift between automatic and manual gears). The main specs are the same for all the variants but in terms of features, the one I bought falls somewhere in between the IS 250 SE and the IS250 SE-L which are on sale in the UK. It otherwise has a V6 2.5l engine which puts out 205bhp which is considerably better than the 2.0 light-pressure turbo engine of the S60 which puts out 180bhp.
Basically, the car looks like this:
Sporty isn't it? I suspect that the similarity in shape between the IS250 and the 2009 S60 is more than a coincidence.
The colour I picked was "Dark Grey Mica" but it's marketed in the UK as "Cadoxton Slate" but it looks like this:
Earlier on, I made reference to what I thought would have been the poor resale value of the S60 and it was with an eye on this that I picked the IS250. Bearing this in mind, Lexus has launched a prototype IS-F (for sale in 2009) in the USA which is a 5.0l, V8, beast of a car which has a similar shape to the GS300 but has a quadruple exhaust - very scary indeed. I doubt that the IS-F will be on sale here as there isn't much of a market for that type of car but you never know. The prototype looks like this:
More information about the IS F, together with a gallery of photgraphs and a video clip can be found here.
My new IS250 should be delivered to be for the beginning of next month and I'm definitely look forward to driving it.
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