Robert Pepper’s 2015 Lexus RC350 Sport F review with pricing, specs, ride and handling, safety, verdict and rating.
[review]
On the outside
Our RC350 is finished in what is perhaps the most beautiful red on any car in Australia. It is a lustrous, deep shade of rouge that had one of my helpers declaring she’d like to lick it like a toffee apple. In the interests of being loaned more cars from Lexus I put a stop to that, although the photograph would perhaps have been worth it.
Lickable or not, how anyone can say that’s not a good looking car? Certainly the 350 is better visually balanced than the RC F, silver wheels go nicely with the silver at the front and around the windows. I even found myself doing The Look with the RC350 – when you lock the car, walk away and give it an admiring backwards glance.
Room & Practicality
On the inside
Again, somehow this car seemed to work better on a style front than the RC F, perhaps because it doesn’t try as hard. There’s fewer colours used, in part because there’s fewer modes for the car. And this one doesn’t have cream seats, so it’s all greys and silvers which at least coordinate if not excite. There’s not much sense of luxurious ambience, but it does feel upmarket.
There’s less controls than in the RC F, so less button confusion. However, the dreaded touchpad to operate the infotainment unit is still there and works no better in the 350 than in the RC F. The only person that didn’t hate it was my 10-year old daughter but if I took her opinions into account every car would be 0% unless it’s blue.
The heated and cooled front seats work effectively, and the cabin heating is controlled by sliding your finger up and down a ridge. This is interesting, but not as effective as a simple dial. Form or function, you take your choice.
Touchpad aside, everything else is reasonably easy to use although we still have the low placement of the boot release.
As in the RC F, I found the side grabhandle in the roof kept touching my head. Irritating, for such a large coupe. There’s more or less the same information in the centre display unit too:
The infotainment unit is not the easiest to use. It took quite a while to find something as simple as the balance and fader controls, and in general the thing takes some learning. There’s a few too many button presses to be ideal. Owners would either figure it out or just not use it to its fullest extent. The mini-display on the dash can help too, and that at least is easy to use.
The instrument panel is pretty cool. The tacho slides to the right to reveal a pop-up screen…
….which has a nice array of gauges such as fuel consumption, navigation and the like. There’s no gauges for acceleration or braking as there are in the RC F, which is absolutely fine. The speedo is digital-only. This display is easy to use, quick to respond, nicely laid out and useful.
It is also possible to change the colour of the needle and turn the revcounter ring red when revs exceed a set amount. A nice little touch.
Overall, the RC350’s interior systems are adequately specified, useful and usable but certainly not class leading and could do with a bit more attention to detail here and there. But there’s nothing you couldn’t easily live with.
Performance, ride and handling
As a tourer and around town
We spent a day cruising the coutryside in the RC350 and it worked well for our family of four. There is sufficient room in the back for the children, although adults would be drawing lots. The boot is capacious enough for bags, jackets and the like. The car is comfortable on the open road, although a touch noisier than it should be. There’s plenty of power, and it is an effortless cruiser. Around town – it’s a big coupe which are never the easiest, but there’s front and rear parking sensors and a reversing camera. Rear visibility isn’t too bad considering it’s a coupe. The rear-steer on this F Sport model means a 10m turning circle, and that’s nice and tight thanks to the four-wheel steer.
As a sportscar
What’s it got?
Compared to the RC F the RC350 Sport F has very little in the way of sporting tech. The rear differential is open, which means it’ll hurt for traction out of corners on a track, and be harder than it should be to drift…not that we expect to see many RCs lining up for tandem runs.
Stability control is either on, or off. No sport mode. There are however Eco, Normal, Sport and Sport Plus modes which change the shift patterns and throttle response.
You can take control of the gearshift yourself via paddles, or shift via the gearlever for push-forwards change up, which is the wrong way around. Bad move for a Racing Coupe in 2015.
This F Sport model has Adaptive Variable Suspension (AVS), which according to Lexus which firms up the ride in the Sport+ modes, and it changes the electric power steering.
If you operate the paddleshifts while the gearshift is in D then you select the topmost gear the gearbox can use, and the car will choose the gear. For example, you can select 6, and the car will use gears 1-6 inclusive. If you switch to manual mode then the car will remain in the gear you select, so 6 means you’re in sixth. In manual mode it will remain in gear even if you floor it (no kickdown) and not change up even at redline.
How does it drive?
Despite what Lexus may claim, the RC350 not a sportscar, it is a sports tourer. Sportscars must be fun not just fast, and the RC350 lacks the requisite driver involvement. It is completely viceless, and I rather get the impression there’s not much in the way of depth to explore.
The 3.5L V6 pulls well, but doesn’t quite have the immediate urgency you’d like in a sportscar, you don’t feel as if your right foot is ready to unleash the fury of wild horses. The gearchange is not particularly snappy, and the steering, while direct, is too light and lacking in feel. The engine note is pleasant enough but not the best of the V6s.
It is however a rapid car on public roads, not really hurting for grip, although it lacks the surety of powerful all-wheel-drive sportscars under power.
Some comments from one helper:
8 speed gearbox is very smooth. You can find yourself ‘playing’ with the 8 gears on a quest to find the ultimate gearing for your specific driving condition.
Sports – Don’t bother – go straight to Sports+.
I felt that I had to continually work to achieve any satisfaction in performance. In most situations you are constantly dropping your speed not to exceed the road speed limit. I found this the total opposite with the RC, you are constantly working the pedal to stay on the speed limit.
Quality
Pricing & Equipment
Safety
A tyre pressure monitoring system is standard but is is disappointingly basic. Doesn’t tell you which tyre is low, and if there is a readout for the pressures for each tyre I couldn’t find it. The tyres are the same front and rear, unlike the RC F, and there’s a space-saver spare.
In the back both seats have ISOFIX child restraint points and tethers for childseats.
2015 lexus RC350 F
PRICE : $ 74,000 (+ORC)
WARRANTY : 4 years / 100,000 km
SAFETY : not ancap tested
ENGINE : 3.5L V6 nA
POWER : 233 kW at 6400rpm
TORQUE : 378 Nm 4800 rpm
0-100km/h : 6.3 seconds
TRANSMISSION : 8 speed automatic
DRIVE : rear drive
BODY : 4695 mm (L); 1840 mm (W), 1395 mm (H)
TURNING CIRCLE : 10.0 m
WEIGHT : 1740 kg
SEATS: 4
TOWING : N/A
FUEL TANK : 66 litres
SPARE : space saver
THIRST : 10.9 L/100km ADR81/02 combined cycle
FUEL : 95 RON
We have also compared the RC350 against the RC F, and the RC350 against the Toyota 86.
RC350 range
The base model is the Luxury. Our test car was the F Sport. Here’s what’s different:
Luxury ($66,000 + onroads)
• Drive mode select (three modes: ECO, NORMAL and SPORT)
• LED head and fog lamps
• Four-way power steering column adjustment
• Power front seats with heating and ventilation and one-touch entry for rear passengers
• Smart entry and start
• Satellite navigation, seven-inch multimedia display
• Reverse camera
• 10-speaker audio
• DAB+*
• Advanced Bluetooth®^ and USB^^ input
• Parking sonar front and rear
• Five-spoke machine finished 18-inch alloy wheels
• 60:40 rear fold seats
F Sport (in additon to features from Luxury, $74,000 + ORC)
• 19-inch twin 10-spoke F Sport alloy wheels
• Four mode Drive Mode Select (ECO, NORMAL, SPORT S and SPORT S+)
• Adaptive Variable Suspension
• Variable Gear Ratio Steering
• Dynamic Rear Steering
• 17-speaker Mark Levinson audio
• F Sport steering wheel
• Power front seats with memory function
• LED high grade headlamp
• Blind Spot Monitor with Rear Cross Traffic Alert
• Lane Change Assist
Enhancement pack one ($2500)
• Moonroof
Enhancement pack two ($7300)
• Pre Collision Safety System
• Active Cruise Control
• Moonroof
• Lane Departure Warning
• Auto High Beam
• Smart Key Card
Sports Luxury (in additon to features from Luxury, $86,000 + ORC)
• 19-inch 10-spoke alloy wheels
• 17-speaker Mark Levinson audio
• Adaptive Variable Suspension
• Semi-aniline leather-accented interior
• Power front seats with memory function
• Shimamoku interior ornamentation
• LED headlamps with auto high beam
• Pre Collision Safety System
• Active Cruise Control
• Blind Spot Monitor with Rear Cross Traffic Alert
• Lane Departure Warning
• Smart Key Card
• Moonroof
There’s some good features there but it’s a lot of extra coin considering many other cars have the same features for less money.
That photo of the dash is the issue I have with the RX350 I am driving, small “range” around 520km when the tank is ful and then it starts to go down too quickly 🙁