Could you say more about why you didn’t like the XC90. Based on test drives and everything I’ve read, XC90 has great ride quality. Did you have larger wheels (like 21 inch) without air suspension that may have degraded ride quality? Or was it more the handling not on part with BWM, which isn’t surprising.
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Not sure what the point of the graphic is. I see 2 large sedans that (kind) share same design cures. A Mercedes CLA and a CLS look very similar from the outside, too, but I’m pretty sure that they don’t drive the same or feel the same when sitting inside. Does that make a CLS simply a gigantic CLA?
And I see an Avalon daily at work. There’s maybe some resemblance to an ES, but I don’t actually think the Avalon looks much like an LS, TBH.
At any rate, my final post about this since I don’t want to contribute too much to thread drift.
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I’ve got a great loaner XC90 T5 that should be similar if you are interested
This is all subjective stuff. I wasn’t trying to convert anyone, just describing the lens through which I view these things. 
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No more so than Chrysler, Mercury or Oldsmobile (ok a bit more). But you go back in history far enough, there’s arguments to be made. I’m talking half a century or more though.
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Current generation XC90 is retiring soon. It will be replaced next year or so.
Mercury and Oldsmobile both went out when I was born, first time I heard of them.
Oh, that prob explains why you feel the way you do about the Lexus LS (b/c you don’t remember the original). When that car was first introduced in 1989 (for model year 1990), it absolutely brought the German luxury brands to their knees (and this from someone who used to be a huge MB fan) and was responsible, IMHO, for the crap cars that MB started to produced from the mid-1990s to early 2000s (cutting development time, likely to reduce costs, and making poor quality cars in the process).
The original LS produced more HP than an 560SEL, was arguably more refined (that generation S-Class dated back to around 1981 or so), and was less than half the price (I believe the base LS was $35K; a 560SEL was ~$72K, IIRC).
The 1992 S-Class was a superior car, but it was also even MORE expensive than the outgoing S-Class and was an over-engineered, overwt, and horrifically proportioned mess (the original design was altered to make the production model taller, which made the car look comically bloated). The US had gone through a recession just shortly b/f the 1992 S-Class was unveiled, making the S-Class seem embarrassingly overwrought and obscenely expensive, for the time.
Here’s a reminder of what a Toyota was like at the time (although, to be fair, the Cressida was much nicer):
The Lexus was, for comparison, about the same price as a 190E (the predecessor for today’s C-Class).
And then the Lexus placed 1st in the JD Power reliability rankings (and, of course, has stayed near the top every since). It was completely bonkers.
And then the SC300/400 were released in 1992. They were basically built on a Supra chassis, so you had a luxury car built on sports-car bones. They looked like nothing else on the road (and made the Acura Legend coupe obsolete).
Of course, the problem was that Toyota actually couldn’t afford to keep the LS that cheap, and nearly everything else they produced after that, while nice, was (edit: was not) the revolution that the original LS was. And, more recently, most of the Lexus models have just been “good enough.”
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This is inaccurate. Not sure what you mean by “replaced.” The XC90 is continuing; there may be a redesign for MY24 (over last major redesign in MY16) but that doesn’t mean XC90 is retiring. Just like redesigns of GLE, X5, MDX, etc. doesn’t mean those models are retiring.
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There will be a Volvo Embla to replace the role of XC90 in volvo, just like cx30 replace cx3’s role for Mazda. CX3 still exists after cx30 launch, but is no longer popular/important.
He specified ‘current gen’, there is going to be a long rumored complete overhaul isnt there? The current model is now 8 years plus in
In high school, my best friend’s dad had the first LS400 in town when it hit the market. I remember how astonishingly quiet, smooth, powerful, and refined that car was at the time, and how good the stereo sounded. It was almost like how astonishing a Tesla was the first time you experienced it. He traded the LS in for the first gen SC300 that was dead sexy and nearly as impressive (it didn’t have the V8),
I still have love for the LS sedans, and I like the GX and LX platforms, but the rest of the Lexus line got pretty boring after the RX came out.
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I recall my 1992 SC 400 as arguably the finest built car I’d ever owned. I stupidly traded it in on a new 1997 MB SC500, which I returned to the dealer after owning it for less than 3 months…it basically stopped running with less than 3000 miles on the odometer. Have not, nor will I ever, own another MB after that incident.
I considered the early LS and SC Lexus models to be true luxury cars; the best that Japan could produce…but now, they’re so ubiquitous that the cache is now gone.
Can’t wait for my new Lucid Air to be built and arrive down here!!!
DAN B
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The Lucid Air looks very nice you will be happy! I checked one out on Memorial Day at the Hermosa Beach street fair. It was sweet.
Never got to experience it myself, but my understanding is that the (optional) Nakamichi system in the original LS basically blew every other stock system else out of the water.
Oof. Sorry to hear about that. It’s unfortunate b/c one could easily argue that that generation of S-Class were the last old-school MBs made…
There’s one more X-factor not being considered here. Let’s take the scenario that a lease and purchase are nearly the same cost.
The #1 reason I would side for a lease is the fact that with a lease you have a guaranteed buyer and always maintain the option to purchase the vehicle out right at the end of the lease should there be equity.
The next piece I would consider would be if you purchase a vehicle and it’s involved in an accident, the vehicle is yours and arguably the diminished value of the vehicle is also yours. (Assuming you are not able to recover that diminished value through a claim from the responsible person‘s insurance company, assuming you are also not at fault).
I think I can also argue a little bit on the other side of the coin that if you have a vehicle that has a substantial amount of equity and it’s involved in an accident that totals out the vehicle, the equity now goes to the leasing company. In the event it’s not a total loss, the diminish value also gets to go to the leasing company.
For me if the payment is within $100 a month between the lease and purchase, with the lease being more expensive, I’m taking the lease.
yeah to be honest it just boils down to the individual and context. in my case I want to just “invest” in a car for the purpose of having a luxury vehicle and rotate it every 3 years. major things that were considered as an asset are turning into more of a service.
Are you saying this monthly is nothing but the MSDs rolled into MSDs ? If so, I haven’t seen better deal for an X5 for a very long time.
Agree with that sentiment 100%. After all this is “lease hacker” not “why you should purchase rather than lease”. I understand that leasing in this environment is not ‘financially speaking’ the better option in many cases. But that ignores the real reason for leasing for many (all?) of us here. We like new cars every three years, with new tech and warranties: let someone else deal with the depreciation. IMO purchasing now looks like the right idea but I’m willing to bet that a purchased vehicle is not going to be the ‘smart’ idea in 3 years time. Used cars will not be selling at, near or above MSRP forever; this environment will wind down and folks will be stuck with old, off warranty cars that no dealer will give them anything other than ‘bare-bones’ offers… Good luck when that happens.
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