The 2021 Lexus IS 250 is a compact luxury sedan that has been tested and found to be an impressive vehicle. The test model, which is actually a 2015 Lexus IS 200 with a different engine but similar power levels, was used to compare the new car's performance and features.

One of the standout features of the 2021 Lexus IS 250 is its fuel economy, which is significantly better than that of its predecessor. The car is rated at 25 miles per gallon in the city and 36 miles per gallon on the highway, making it a more practical choice for daily driving. In comparison, the Lexus IS 200, which starts at around $37,000, only achieves an estimated 22 miles per gallon in the city and 31 miles per gallon on the highway. The difference is quite remarkable, especially considering that the new car has less power than its predecessor.

Another advantage of the 2021 Lexus IS 250 is its lightweight design, which makes it more fun to drive. Weighing in at around 1,700 pounds, the car is significantly lighter than many of its competitors, including the Lexus IS 200, which tips the scales at over 3,300 pounds. This weight difference is noticeable on the road, where the IS 250 feels more agile and responsive to driver input.

The performance of the 2021 Lexus IS 250 is also noteworthy, particularly when considering its price point. The car has a range of power levels, but the most common configuration starts at around $28,000 and features a dual-clutch transmission that provides quick acceleration and smooth shifting. While it may not be as quick as some of the more expensive luxury sedans on the market, the IS 250 is still capable of delivering impressive performance for its price.

In terms of handling, the 2021 Lexus IS 250 feels very comfortable and refined. The steering feel is light and responsive, but there's a noticeable lack of feedback from the wheels themselves. This is typical of many modern luxury sedans, which often prioritize comfort over sportiness. However, the car's suspension is well-tuned to absorb bumps and irregularities in the road, making for a very smooth ride.

One of the most interesting aspects of the 2021 Lexus IS 250 is its advanced technology features. The car comes equipped with a range of amenities, including adaptive cruise control, lane departure warning, and blind spot monitoring. The adaptive cruise control system is particularly noteworthy, as it uses a combination of sensors and cameras to adjust speed and distance from other vehicles on the road.

However, there are some potential drawbacks to consider when driving the 2021 Lexus IS 250. For example, the adaptive cruise control system can sometimes be overly aggressive in certain situations, such as when another vehicle is merging into your lane. In these cases, the system may brake more abruptly than necessary to maintain a safe distance. Additionally, there are some minor rattles and creaks in the cabin, particularly from the sound system.

Overall, the 2021 Lexus IS 250 is an impressive luxury sedan that offers a unique blend of comfort, performance, and practicality. While it may not be perfect, the car's many strengths make it a compelling choice for anyone in the market for a compact luxury vehicle.

The test drive experience with the adaptive cruise control system was quite interesting. The system seems to work well most of the time, but there were instances where it overreacted and broke aggressively to maintain distance from other vehicles on the road. When this happened, it was noticeable that the car's speed would drop more suddenly than necessary, which could be a bit jarring for some drivers.

The sound system in the 2021 Lexus IS 250 is actually quite good, with clear and balanced audio that fills the cabin nicely. However, there are some minor complaints to note, such as some rattles from the speakers themselves when the sound level is turned up high. Despite this, the overall audio experience is very enjoyable.

One final aspect of the 2021 Lexus IS 250 is its handling dynamics. The car's suspension provides a smooth ride and plenty of comfort, but it also sacrifices some steering feedback in favor of a more relaxed driving experience. This can make the car feel less engaging to drive than some other luxury sedans on the market, particularly those with sport-tuned suspension.

However, this is somewhat mitigated by the car's lightweight design, which makes it feel very agile and responsive to driver input. The dual-clutch transmission provides quick acceleration and smooth shifting, making the IS 250 a lot of fun to drive around twisty roads. Overall, while the car may not be the most sporty or engaging to drive, its unique blend of comfort, performance, and practicality makes it an attractive option for anyone in the market for a compact luxury vehicle.

As we test drove the 2021 Lexus IS 250, we encountered some bumps and potholes on the road. The car's stability control system did kick in at one point to help stabilize the vehicle, but overall the ride was smooth and refined. Despite some minor rattles and creaks from the cabin, the car felt very comfortable and refined on the road.

"WEBVTTKind: captionsLanguage: enhello everyone and welcome in this video we'll be checking out the 2016 acura ilx this is an entry-level luxury sedan starting at about 28 000 while the vehicle we're testing today is just under 36 000. with three separate packages decking it out in tech as well as interior and exterior features under the hood is a 2.4 liter inline 4-cylinder engine dual overhead cams with variable valve timing lift and duration for the intake valves the engine has a compression ratio of 11.6 to 1 producing 201 horsepower at 6800 rpm and 180 pound-feet of torque at 3 800 rpm one of the ways they were able to increase low-end torque was by using a dual stage intake manifold there's a set of four butterfly valves which are used to actuate the process at low rpm the air travels through a set of long runners improving low end torque at higher rpm the system switches over to a short set of intake runners for increased high end power this works in combination with the vtec system where at engine speeds above 4 900 rpm the intake system shifts to a high lift long duration cam profile for more top end power engine torque is sent through an 8-speed dual clutch transmission to the front wheels as far as the interior there's plenty of space in here for me as the driver i'm about 6'1 and i've got plenty of space for my legs i don't come into contact with anything you've got these cloth seats with leather bolsters they're pretty comfortable they've got a nice amount of cushion to them as far as the steering wheel you've got all kinds of control on that for your bluetooth your audio and your adaptive cruise control system you also have these two screens here as far as navigation infotainment climate control you do have dual zone climate control down here as well as heated seats for the front driver and passenger and so overall up in the front i don't really have any complaints as far as visibility looking out the front it's somewhat narrow but not too bad looking to the sides is fine checking your blind spots fine and out the rear a little bit cramped back there but not too bad overall as far as visibility the downside of the interior of this car is when you get into the back seats there's not too much leg room and there's really not much headroom at all for me i wasn't really able to sit back there my head was coming into contact with the ceiling so what's it like to drive well one of the first things i noticed is once i let my foot off the brake pedal uh when i turned the vehicle on and had it in drive is that it was very smooth to start accelerating much like an automatic transmission and usually this isn't the case with dual clutch transmission vehicles they kind of hesitate uh to engage that first gear and start engaging the clutch for the first gear and they're kind of lurchy uh at low speeds and so that was kind of a strange to me and so then i went up to a stop light and i started accelerating and another thing that's common with dual clutch transmissions or manual transmissions is that you match the transmission to the engine speed directly so as you press on the gas the rpms go up directly with it but what i noticed was this was that if i put my foot down the revs can spike up and that's not something typical of a dual clutch transmission so i'm thinking to myself this is really a dual clutch transmission this doesn't make any sense well acura is more clever than i am and so what they've done is they've fitted a torque converter to the dual clutch transmission so you can have a difference in speed between the engine and transmission by using a torque converter in between and so what that allows you to do is you can have a very smooth engagement in low speeds so you don't have to use slip in the clutch pack which is typically a rough process it can have additional wear and it's not going to be all that smooth and so you can have that slip in the core converter and have that clutch pack fully engaged and so it's much smoother the other advantage of using a torque converter with the dual clutch transmission is that what it enables you to do is have torque multiplication so at a stop when you you know you're flooring it and you're starting to launch or whatever you're going to do to accelerate fast you have torque multiplication through the torque converter and you can get better acceleration so this will actually be faster from a stop than if it was just purely a dual clutch transmission and you had to slip that clutch and then start going so that's pretty clever too what they've done with that and it all seems to work out pretty well and a very smooth experience and at the same time you get the benefit of the dual clutch transmission with of course the very quick shifts so quicker shifting than an automatic transmission but just as smooth and also good at launching now as far as the ride itself it's pretty comfortable in here pretty quiet as well you know some there are certainly luxury vehicles which are quieter we have to keep in mind this car is starting at eight thousand dollars so overall the interior is pretty quiet and the ride itself is pretty smooth now you can put it into a manual mode and one of the cool features is called this double kick down so i'm coming into the corner here i tap the left paddle shifter twice and it slams it down into the second gear so it skips over third from fourth you don't need to go into each individual gear it skips over and gets directly into second which is pretty cool because it saves time does a quick shift and gets you down into the gear that you want now in these corners i honestly haven't noticed too much under steer oversteer it seems pretty well balanced uh when you push it pretty hard of course front wheel drive so if you do floor it you're going to start to understeer as the front tires spin but overall it seems to handle it pretty well and actually it's a pretty light car it's only 3 100 pounds so even though it's only got 200 horsepower power to weight ratio is actually pretty close to something like a mazda miata and so when you do put your foot down you've got a decent amount of torque and it goes pretty quick strong brakes as well the thing with the brakes is that they are pretty touchy so if you were to map for example uh the amount that you press the brake in versus the amount of braking force that you get it will kind of spike initially and then taper off so you get a lot of braking in the initial touch of the brake and then it kind of gets a little bit more linear as you get past that point as far as a dual clutch transmission it does seem to work pretty quick rev match downshifts and up shifts are also pretty quick my one complaint and this is fairly small is that you know if you're driving around the city or something like that and you do do an up shift it does kind of have a little forward jolt to it it's not super smooth and this is kind of similar to what i felt in the mitsubishi evo with the dual clutch transmission where the transition isn't all that smooth uh when upshifting downshifting seems to be pretty good you do get a decent amount of engine braking of course but with that torque inverter it kind of helps mitigate any roughness in there and it kind of smoothens it out so honestly downshifts do feel pretty smooth and overall i mean it seems to handle pretty well a light car i mean it seems fairly large on the outside but it's honestly pretty light what's interesting to me is if i was to compare this to the lexus is 250 which i tested which of course is a 2015 model they have since released the 2016 is-200 which is different has a different engine but my point is this has almost the same amount of horsepower almost the same amount of torque very close like within five horsepower and five torque uh and it's significantly lighter over 300 pounds lighter it's not quite as quiet on the inside but you know basically same power levels with a lot less weight so it is definitely more fun to drive and what's also impressive about this is the fuel economy the lexus is 250 honestly it didn't make sense how the fuel economy wasn't that great in it to me this is rated 25 in the city 36 on the highway it's rated five miles per gallon combined better than the lexus is-250 this of course is front-wheel drive and the lexus is rear-wheel drive but regardless the fuel economy that you can get on this is pretty astounding and considering you know the lexus didn't really have any more power it wasn't necessarily quicker it's kind of unfortunate that it didn't even get good fuel economy so you know at least this excels in fuel economy and it's somewhat decently quick because it is lightweight now the lexus is 200 comes with a different engine different power levels uh different experience altogether but remember you know that car starting at around 37 000 versus this is starting at 28 000 so it's not exactly a fair comparison okay so we'll get a quick zero to 60 in i've got the traction control off i'm going to put it at about 2000 rpm uh the torque converter of course will be spinning up a bit and then let off hopefully we won't get too much wheel spin and we'll get a decent time in i'm just going to leave it in sport mode let it do the shifting so we do have some wheel spin there and 60. seem to be decently quick so driving on the highway i've got the adaptive cruise control set at 65 it'll do all the adjustments for me if we get into traffic and you know uh not too much noise in here a little bit of tire noise a little bit of wind noise not too bad overall looking at about 76 77 decibels better than some of the cars i've tested but worse than some of the luxury vehicles i've tested two other things worth mentioning the adaptive cruise control system uh when you are in traffic like we are here it it can kind of overreact in certain situations so if someone merges into your lane it tends to break pretty aggressively in order to set the gap versus some systems i've been in you know they kind of check the speed and if the speed of the car in front of me isn't that much different even though they're pretty close it'll slowly back off versus being really aggressive about it not a huge complaint i mean it's going to do the trick it's just going to kind of break a little bit more aggressively than you probably would on the highway the other thing i wanted to mention was that the sound system in this is actually really good and although i do have a few rattles uh which you know for an entry-level luxury sedan i guess i wouldn't want to have that there's a few rattles in the back when the sound system's going off but the sound system overall is very good very good job of balancing uh deep notes as well as the higher frequencies together so you get a very crisp sound system sounds excellent the one complaint of course just being that you do get some rattles in the back when i've had the sound system up pretty high now as far as steering feel it is pretty light and there's not a whole lot of feedback but i'd certainly put it on par with the other luxury vehicles i've tested basically what happens here is you start to sacrifice steering feedback and replace that with comfort and it certainly does that it's definitely a comfortable experience another thing is the body roll itself you know coming into a corner hard you do get a decent amount of body roll as you change the steering angle um once again kind of typical with luxury vehicles because you have a softer suspension typically where you know you absorb bumps pretty well and overall the ride experience is very comfortable versus sporty that said you know this is actually a pretty fun car to drive for being in this segment um power levels aren't all that excessive but as i mentioned it's a really light car the dual clutch is fun to drive and so in these twisties i mean you put your foot down it's pretty fun going around these corners so thank you guys for watching if you have any questions or comments feel free to leave them below getting a little bumpy all right how's it doing the bump wow stability didn't kick in usually it kicks in therehello everyone and welcome in this video we'll be checking out the 2016 acura ilx this is an entry-level luxury sedan starting at about 28 000 while the vehicle we're testing today is just under 36 000. with three separate packages decking it out in tech as well as interior and exterior features under the hood is a 2.4 liter inline 4-cylinder engine dual overhead cams with variable valve timing lift and duration for the intake valves the engine has a compression ratio of 11.6 to 1 producing 201 horsepower at 6800 rpm and 180 pound-feet of torque at 3 800 rpm one of the ways they were able to increase low-end torque was by using a dual stage intake manifold there's a set of four butterfly valves which are used to actuate the process at low rpm the air travels through a set of long runners improving low end torque at higher rpm the system switches over to a short set of intake runners for increased high end power this works in combination with the vtec system where at engine speeds above 4 900 rpm the intake system shifts to a high lift long duration cam profile for more top end power engine torque is sent through an 8-speed dual clutch transmission to the front wheels as far as the interior there's plenty of space in here for me as the driver i'm about 6'1 and i've got plenty of space for my legs i don't come into contact with anything you've got these cloth seats with leather bolsters they're pretty comfortable they've got a nice amount of cushion to them as far as the steering wheel you've got all kinds of control on that for your bluetooth your audio and your adaptive cruise control system you also have these two screens here as far as navigation infotainment climate control you do have dual zone climate control down here as well as heated seats for the front driver and passenger and so overall up in the front i don't really have any complaints as far as visibility looking out the front it's somewhat narrow but not too bad looking to the sides is fine checking your blind spots fine and out the rear a little bit cramped back there but not too bad overall as far as visibility the downside of the interior of this car is when you get into the back seats there's not too much leg room and there's really not much headroom at all for me i wasn't really able to sit back there my head was coming into contact with the ceiling so what's it like to drive well one of the first things i noticed is once i let my foot off the brake pedal uh when i turned the vehicle on and had it in drive is that it was very smooth to start accelerating much like an automatic transmission and usually this isn't the case with dual clutch transmission vehicles they kind of hesitate uh to engage that first gear and start engaging the clutch for the first gear and they're kind of lurchy uh at low speeds and so that was kind of a strange to me and so then i went up to a stop light and i started accelerating and another thing that's common with dual clutch transmissions or manual transmissions is that you match the transmission to the engine speed directly so as you press on the gas the rpms go up directly with it but what i noticed was this was that if i put my foot down the revs can spike up and that's not something typical of a dual clutch transmission so i'm thinking to myself this is really a dual clutch transmission this doesn't make any sense well acura is more clever than i am and so what they've done is they've fitted a torque converter to the dual clutch transmission so you can have a difference in speed between the engine and transmission by using a torque converter in between and so what that allows you to do is you can have a very smooth engagement in low speeds so you don't have to use slip in the clutch pack which is typically a rough process it can have additional wear and it's not going to be all that smooth and so you can have that slip in the core converter and have that clutch pack fully engaged and so it's much smoother the other advantage of using a torque converter with the dual clutch transmission is that what it enables you to do is have torque multiplication so at a stop when you you know you're flooring it and you're starting to launch or whatever you're going to do to accelerate fast you have torque multiplication through the torque converter and you can get better acceleration so this will actually be faster from a stop than if it was just purely a dual clutch transmission and you had to slip that clutch and then start going so that's pretty clever too what they've done with that and it all seems to work out pretty well and a very smooth experience and at the same time you get the benefit of the dual clutch transmission with of course the very quick shifts so quicker shifting than an automatic transmission but just as smooth and also good at launching now as far as the ride itself it's pretty comfortable in here pretty quiet as well you know some there are certainly luxury vehicles which are quieter we have to keep in mind this car is starting at eight thousand dollars so overall the interior is pretty quiet and the ride itself is pretty smooth now you can put it into a manual mode and one of the cool features is called this double kick down so i'm coming into the corner here i tap the left paddle shifter twice and it slams it down into the second gear so it skips over third from fourth you don't need to go into each individual gear it skips over and gets directly into second which is pretty cool because it saves time does a quick shift and gets you down into the gear that you want now in these corners i honestly haven't noticed too much under steer oversteer it seems pretty well balanced uh when you push it pretty hard of course front wheel drive so if you do floor it you're going to start to understeer as the front tires spin but overall it seems to handle it pretty well and actually it's a pretty light car it's only 3 100 pounds so even though it's only got 200 horsepower power to weight ratio is actually pretty close to something like a mazda miata and so when you do put your foot down you've got a decent amount of torque and it goes pretty quick strong brakes as well the thing with the brakes is that they are pretty touchy so if you were to map for example uh the amount that you press the brake in versus the amount of braking force that you get it will kind of spike initially and then taper off so you get a lot of braking in the initial touch of the brake and then it kind of gets a little bit more linear as you get past that point as far as a dual clutch transmission it does seem to work pretty quick rev match downshifts and up shifts are also pretty quick my one complaint and this is fairly small is that you know if you're driving around the city or something like that and you do do an up shift it does kind of have a little forward jolt to it it's not super smooth and this is kind of similar to what i felt in the mitsubishi evo with the dual clutch transmission where the transition isn't all that smooth uh when upshifting downshifting seems to be pretty good you do get a decent amount of engine braking of course but with that torque inverter it kind of helps mitigate any roughness in there and it kind of smoothens it out so honestly downshifts do feel pretty smooth and overall i mean it seems to handle pretty well a light car i mean it seems fairly large on the outside but it's honestly pretty light what's interesting to me is if i was to compare this to the lexus is 250 which i tested which of course is a 2015 model they have since released the 2016 is-200 which is different has a different engine but my point is this has almost the same amount of horsepower almost the same amount of torque very close like within five horsepower and five torque uh and it's significantly lighter over 300 pounds lighter it's not quite as quiet on the inside but you know basically same power levels with a lot less weight so it is definitely more fun to drive and what's also impressive about this is the fuel economy the lexus is 250 honestly it didn't make sense how the fuel economy wasn't that great in it to me this is rated 25 in the city 36 on the highway it's rated five miles per gallon combined better than the lexus is-250 this of course is front-wheel drive and the lexus is rear-wheel drive but regardless the fuel economy that you can get on this is pretty astounding and considering you know the lexus didn't really have any more power it wasn't necessarily quicker it's kind of unfortunate that it didn't even get good fuel economy so you know at least this excels in fuel economy and it's somewhat decently quick because it is lightweight now the lexus is 200 comes with a different engine different power levels uh different experience altogether but remember you know that car starting at around 37 000 versus this is starting at 28 000 so it's not exactly a fair comparison okay so we'll get a quick zero to 60 in i've got the traction control off i'm going to put it at about 2000 rpm uh the torque converter of course will be spinning up a bit and then let off hopefully we won't get too much wheel spin and we'll get a decent time in i'm just going to leave it in sport mode let it do the shifting so we do have some wheel spin there and 60. seem to be decently quick so driving on the highway i've got the adaptive cruise control set at 65 it'll do all the adjustments for me if we get into traffic and you know uh not too much noise in here a little bit of tire noise a little bit of wind noise not too bad overall looking at about 76 77 decibels better than some of the cars i've tested but worse than some of the luxury vehicles i've tested two other things worth mentioning the adaptive cruise control system uh when you are in traffic like we are here it it can kind of overreact in certain situations so if someone merges into your lane it tends to break pretty aggressively in order to set the gap versus some systems i've been in you know they kind of check the speed and if the speed of the car in front of me isn't that much different even though they're pretty close it'll slowly back off versus being really aggressive about it not a huge complaint i mean it's going to do the trick it's just going to kind of break a little bit more aggressively than you probably would on the highway the other thing i wanted to mention was that the sound system in this is actually really good and although i do have a few rattles uh which you know for an entry-level luxury sedan i guess i wouldn't want to have that there's a few rattles in the back when the sound system's going off but the sound system overall is very good very good job of balancing uh deep notes as well as the higher frequencies together so you get a very crisp sound system sounds excellent the one complaint of course just being that you do get some rattles in the back when i've had the sound system up pretty high now as far as steering feel it is pretty light and there's not a whole lot of feedback but i'd certainly put it on par with the other luxury vehicles i've tested basically what happens here is you start to sacrifice steering feedback and replace that with comfort and it certainly does that it's definitely a comfortable experience another thing is the body roll itself you know coming into a corner hard you do get a decent amount of body roll as you change the steering angle um once again kind of typical with luxury vehicles because you have a softer suspension typically where you know you absorb bumps pretty well and overall the ride experience is very comfortable versus sporty that said you know this is actually a pretty fun car to drive for being in this segment um power levels aren't all that excessive but as i mentioned it's a really light car the dual clutch is fun to drive and so in these twisties i mean you put your foot down it's pretty fun going around these corners so thank you guys for watching if you have any questions or comments feel free to leave them below getting a little bumpy all right how's it doing the bump wow stability didn't kick in usually it kicks in there\n"