2008 Lexus IS-F review: 2008 Lexus IS-F

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2008 Lexus IS-F

In its continuing attempts to lose a reputation for boring luxury cars, Lexus takes its IS sedan and turns it into an M3 competitor. The 2008 Lexus IS-F uses the same platform as the standard IS line, but gets fitted with a powerful 5-liter engine. Lexus isn't really into manual transmissions, a legacy from its luxury roots, so an eight-speed automatic transmission, similar to the one in the Lexus LS 460, puts the power to the wheels. Lexus knows how to make an adaptive suspension--we've seen it in the Lexus GS 460--but sticks with more traditional sport-suspension tuning in the IS-F. The result is a car that evinces the same dual personality as the BMW M3. It drives like a small luxury car in traffic, but put the power on in the twisties and it lets you get your yah yahs out, with just enough rear-wheel drift to find its way out of the turns.

Although the engine, suspension tuning, and some of the body work is new, the electronics are the same as what we saw in the 2006 Lexus IS 350 two years ago. That car impressed us enough to give it an Editors' Choice award, but times have changed. When we got into the IS-F, we were disappointed to see no traffic reporting on the navigation system and no iPod connection from the factory.

Test the tech: F = fast
With music limited to CD and broadcast radio, we decided to spend more time listening to the engine. During normal driving, with the engine speed at 2,000 to 3,000 rpm, it doesn't sound very impressive--just a quiet purr as it moves the aggressive-looking car around. But kick it up to 6,000 and the note changes dramatically. The sound is pure music to any gearhead, a melodic roar punctuated by each gear shift. To play that music, we ran the IS-F through some zero-to-60 mph tests.

Shifting just before the 6,800 RPM redline let us get the IS-F to 60 mph in under 5 seconds.

Editors Antuan Goodwin and Wayne Cunningham took turns driving the IS-F up to 60 mph. For our first test, we let the IS-F do the shifting, using the transmission's automatic mode. Goodwin took the wheel for this one, although his input was limited to keeping the wheel straight and flooring the accelerator. And when he did, the car jumped forward with minimal wheel spin, the engine's 371 foot-pounds of torque making the tires bite the pavement under Lexus' traction control system. The engine ticked up, shifting once, and before we knew it, we hit 60 mph, with the computer reading 5.5 seconds.

Then it was time to test the manual shift mode, seeing if we could best the automatic's time. Goodwin stayed in the driver's seat, bringing the car back to its start point. With everything recalibrated and the shifter pulled to the left--its manual shift position--Goodwin hit the gas. Again, the car maintained composure as it jumped forward. Just before redline, Goodwin used the paddle shifter on the wheel to shift up, making the engine drop revs slightly and then pick them up again. Past 60 mph the computer gave a time of 4.77 seconds, an impressive figure.

We only needed one upshift with the paddle to hit 60 mph.

Cunningham took his turn, setting up the car at the start line. Again a blast off from stop, the car running speedily and the engine making a beautiful noise. Cunningham shifted to second just above 6,000 rpm, short of redline, and was soon past 60 mph. But this effort was slower than Goodwin's, returning a time of 4.85 seconds.

With both manual shift times at well under 5 seconds, we were impressed by the IS-F. We were confident that some practice time would have yielded even better times, coming closer to 4.5 seconds.

In the cabin
Lexus knows how to build a luxury interior, and doesn't skimp out in the 2008 IS-F. An Alcantara headliner, leather seats, and quality dashboard materials let you know this is a Lexus. But performance touches are also evident, from silvery carbon-fiber patterned material on the console to metal sport pedals. The F logo also gets a prominent place on the steering wheel. Lexus also keeps the tech cues, with an engine start button, smart key, and LCD on the instrument panel.

The maps are rich and colorful on this navigation system, and we like the interface, but it lacks advanced features.

The Lexus IS-F uses a touch-screen interface, with hard buttons on either side of the LCD to access navigation and audio. It's a very intuitive interface with an aesthetic design. The maps for the navigation system are rich and full-color. But while this navigation system was cutting edge in the 2006 Lexus IS 350, now it offers only a minimal feature set. The maps are stored on DVD, although we didn't find it particularly slow to redraw maps or calculate routes. You can enter destinations by the usual means, such as address, point-of-interest, and telephone number. It offers a choice of three routes when you put in a destination.

But it lacks traffic reporting, a feature quickly becoming de rigueur for luxury cars. There is no text-to-speech, where it would read out the names of upcoming streets. And competitors are already adding features such as weather reporting and gas prices to their navigation systems.

Although its Bluetooth hands-free phone system is also the same as that in the IS 350, it's not bad. We had no problem pairing it to our Samsung D-807 phone. But transferring our phone book to the car would have involved pushing each entry one at a time from phone to car. Other phones allow pushing the entire phone book at once.

The six CD/DVD changer reads MP3 CDs, so you can load it up with quite a bit of music.

Having gotten used to cars with iPod and USB drive connectors, we found the in-dash six-disc changer in the IS-F kind of quaint. The only means for connecting an MP3 player is through an auxiliary jack in the console. The changer can play DVD-audio discs and MP3 CDs, so you can load it with quite a bit of music. XM satellite radio and an iPod connection are available as dealer accessories, but we wouldn't expect the integration to be very good.

What music we could play came through an impressive 14-speaker Mark Levinson audio system. This system has a centerfill in the dashboard, tweeters, mids, and woofers on each side in front, tweeters and woofers on each in back, and two mids and a subwoofer in the rear. The 300-watt digital amplifier and digital signal processor create 5.1 surround sound. Clarity is excellent with this system, although the bass isn't particularly strong. We found the system well suited for orchestral works, where detail is important.

Our car also came with a couple of driver aids, the most prominent being the adaptive cruise control. This system lets you set the car's speed, but will match the speeds of slower cars ahead. We tested it on a freeway with moderate traffic and found that it worked very well, even to the point of not overreacting when a car cut in front of us. Our only complaint about the system is that the controls are on a small stalk below the steering wheel, making it hard to see how you are supposed to activate it. Further confusing the issue, the button to adjust your following distance is on the steering wheel. We would prefer if the cruise controls were all on the steering wheel. The IS-F also has a back-up camera, which comes in handy, but there aren't any advanced features, such as guidance overlays.

Under the hood
The whole point of the 2008 Lexus IS-F is the engine, a 5-liter V-8 monster with variable-intake and variable-exhaust timing, using direct and port injection for efficient and smooth running. The result is 416 horsepower at 6,600 rpm and 371 foot-pounds of torque at 5,200 rpm. As we noted in our acceleration testing, the engine makes a beautiful sound out of its quad exhaust pipes when the tach needle gets above 5,000. At lower rpms the engine takes on a luxury car character, barely intruding on the cabin, due to the port injection taking over at lower speeds.

The engine cover is marked by the F logo.

Lexus built some high-performance tricks into this engine; for one, using oil and transmission-fluid coolers to keep overall heat down. Likewise, a cylinder head-oil pump pushes oil back into the pan, preventing loss of oil pressure during repeated high G cornering.

The IS-F's transmission is pretty remarkable, an eight-speed automatic designed for quick shifts. In automatic mode, it shifts up pretty quickly, ensuring low engine speed and good fuel economy. Press the gas down hard and it delivers upshifts at around 5,000 rpm, and with this engine you won't get above third gear under these circumstances unless you have a long, clear straightaway. But we also found that automatic mode isn't useful for sport driving, as the transmission doesn't aggressively downshift. Hit the brakes before a corner, and you will probably be in fourth on the way out of the turn. Manual mode is required for any aggressive driving. Change gears using the shifter or the steering-wheel mounted paddles and you're treated to very fast gear changes, maybe not on par with the Mercedes-Benz C63's automatic, but still very workable.

In the corners, the IS-F responds like a rear-wheel-drive car should, giving just a little drift from the rear wheels so you can pivot quickly on a turn. We observed similar behavior from the BMW M3. The IS-F uses Lexus' collection of road-holding gear that goes by the acronym VDIM, which stands for Vehicle Dynamics Integrated Management. VDIM uses vehicle stability programming along with antilock braking technology and the electronic power steering to adjust the car's performance based on sensor input from the wheels and body. VDIM is adjustable, with a rocker switch letting you choose from Normal, Sport, or Snow modes. Snow will give you the safest ride, while Sport loosens things up considerably, letting you drift the wheels out closer to the edges of control. If you are really proficient and confident, you can also turn it off entirely.

Hit the switch for Sport mode, and the IS-F lets you push it closer to the limits of control.

In practice, the IS-F was more than able to work the turns. We ran it over our local roads, places where we could challenge it with some hard cornering, and it handled like a dream. The steering was precise, and on the sharper corners we could feel the rear wheel drift. On public roads, it is very hard to tax this car--it will be at its best during hot laps on a track.

Usually, this type of performance comes at a price. We're used to fuel economy of around 15 mpg from cars of this caliber. But the IS-F gets a rating of 16 mpg city and 23 mpg highway from the EPA. We observed a tank average of 18.3 mpg while we had the car, and an overall average of 20.1 mpg from the car's previous 5,000 miles. Those are impressive figures, and largely can be attributed to the eight-speed transmission. Even more impressive, the car gets a ULEV II rating for emissions from the California Air Resources Board.

In sum
As a high-performance model, there are few options available for the 2008 Lexus IS-F, but Lexus does make you pay for the cabin tech. The car's base price is $56,000, but the navigation and audio system package adds $3,990. Adaptive cruise control costs $2,850, and destination charge is $765, putting the total for our car at $63,605. You will pay about the same for a Mercedes-Benz C63 AMG, and probably a little more for a BMW M3, but the IS-F will cost less for gas in the long run.

We like this car's looks, the performance additions to the standard IS body showing that it is something special. And the electronics interface in the cabin is usable and aesthetically pleasing, earning the IS-F a good mark for design. It also earns a top mark for performance, a rating helped along by the decent fuel economy and emissions rating. But we do have to ding it for not having aggressive automatic downshifting on the transmission. Cabin tech is the only area that lets this car down in the ratings. The stereo sounds great, and it has all the right pieces, but most are far from cutting edge now.