YSE Car of the Week: 2005 Lexus LS430

Justin Crenshaw
by Justin Crenshaw

Your Shitty Economy (YSE) Car of the Week: the 2005 Lexus LS430. The LS has to be one of the most boring cars in the biz. To paraphrase Jonny Lieberman, grab the wheel and you’re driving Muzak. Handling, sportiness and excitement are as far from the LS430’s vocabulary as Hungarian is from Creole. But even enthusiasts can respect the LS’s superb NVH engineering, which make it one of the best interstate cruising cars on the market, period. The LS’s exterior styling apes the 1990s Mercedes S-class—in the sense that a used bar of soap apes an identical new one. With Toyota parts bin pieces littering the interior, everything fits and we’re finished. Small prices to pay for understated elegance and supreme reliability in the best Cadillac Cadillac never built. Go ahead, ditch the new Camry and treat yourself to this certified LS for only $24,995. Note: narcoleptics need not apply.

Justin Crenshaw
Justin Crenshaw

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  • Biturbomunkie Biturbomunkie on Aug 07, 2009

    interesting caption considering the fog light seems broken.

  • Caraholica Caraholica on Aug 07, 2009

    It might be a bit of a snooze, but it's a really NICE snooze with better road manners than you would think. BTW, did I mention that you wont go broke owning one?

  • Flashpoint Flashpoint on Aug 07, 2009

    I've owned my S550 for around 2 years and I have NEVER had a problem with it. I'm sick and tired of people claiming Benz' reliability is bad. The old S500 was the worst Benz ever made...every company has a bad product.. but the S550 has none of those problems if you buy it brand new and it didn't have any glitches off the floor.

  • Improvement_needed Improvement_needed on Aug 09, 2009

    FlashPoint: "...but the S550 has none of those problems if you buy it brand new and it didn’t have any glitches off the floor." That's entirely the point. If it doesn't have any glitches off the floor, it's a great car... However, what percentage are like this? It's not 100%, probably not even 75%... Also, your car is 24 months old and [most likely] still under warranty. What will your cost of ownership be like when your car is 7 years old with 150k miles on the clock?

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