Quote:
Originally Posted by noushy
BTW I agree with you on 2,5, and 8. Especially reaching back for the seat belt. I am used to the heated seat button because thats all I usually use. I guess its the little things that BMW didn't sweat out as mich as say MB or Audi or Lexus. But the vehicle dynamics and rigidity are 2nd to none and the interior although not super flashy is high quality with minimal to no plastic.
Noushy
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Totally agree on the little things as coming from a Lexus GS430 the LC 500 was on my shortlist. Interior wise an easy notch up from the M850i and so many aspects of the car are so well designed, e.g., the aka comfort aspect (standard in Lexus since 2006) with the LC 500 when it senses the key getting close the recessed door handle will pop out.
Styling wise (although controversial to some) I'd once again give it the thumbs up over the 8 series. The naturally aspirated V8 has a sound that is simply stellar and I could not get enough of it during several test drives. The Mark Levinson audio just like the one in my GS430 is top notch for a car audio system and was a notch up from my FLAC audio shoot out between it and the B&W in the M850i.
The downfall of the LC 500 came in two factors for me with one being the trump card. The lesser of the two were the fact that the front seats are so narrow even I did not feel fully comfortable in the driver seat. My wife commented on that as well (she was in the passenger seat on one test drive) and neither of us are wide per se and in fact I'm considered skinny at 6'6" and 215 pounds.
The killer though was the Infotainment aspect. If somebody asked me 10 years ago whether that would be a factor in a car purchase I would have laughed. However, the system is so bad in comparison to iDrive it sealed the deal on scratching the car off the shortlist. Irony is as a long time Car and Driver reader I remember when BMW first released the iDrive they bitched and complained about it endlessly. However, two decades of refinement put it at the top of the class along with Audi (based on my test drives) but the M850i won out over the RS5 and S7 (the RS7 wasn't available yet to test).
From a driving perspective the M850i won from both performance and feel over the LC 500, RS5 and S7. The Audi's were great with the Lexus being the lesser in the camp. I smile every time I just look at the M850i in the garage and 10x more so when I'm behind the wheel so I know I made the right choice for my needs.