The New Lexus ES 350 F Sport Excellent Ride Quality

All three powertrains are available with the F Sport Design upgrade, which adds 19-inch five-spoke wheels and an F Sport exterior kit. Speaking of rims, the 2024 ES comes with a refreshed range of alloys, starting with standard 17-inch wheels. Above them, there’s a new set of 18-inch wheels with a five-spoke design and Vapor Chrome finish available as an option on the Luxury trim and standard on the Ultra Luxury trim.

When the Lexus team invited me to spend a week behind the wheel of the 2023 Lexus ES 350 F-Sport Handling Sedan, I was eager to get the keys and take it for a spin. Our snowy winter even eased a bit so I could zip around on safe, dry roads. In sport mode the 3.5L V6 engine – with 302hp! – offered plenty of zip, making it a really fun drive. Here’s a photo of the beautiful Ultrasonic Blue Mica exterior:

On Lexus SUVs, the front grill pattern can look a bit dorky, but with this more aerodynamic design, it works really well, even with the grill design extended to the side air scoops. The Lexus naming scheme takes a bit of study to understand, but the “ES” is the sedan lineup, and the 350 refers to the larger engine (the ES 250 is the entry level alternative). There are then five trim options for the ES 350, with the awkwardly named “Handling” the top-of-the-line. In other words, the vehicle I drove was the swankiest and highest performance sedan in the Lexus lineup.

The ES 350 offers two drive modes: Eco and Sport and given that it included the F-Sport optional features, the sport really was great fun. By contrast, Eco mode lacked a bit on the pickup from a stop, causing me to often switch into sport mode to get up to speed, then eco mode once I’d attained the target speed on the road or highway. In terms of fuel efficiency, well, the ES 350 EPA rating might be 22/31 but my experience after a couple of hundred miles of mostly highway driving was a paltry 23.8mpg, quite disappointing, even with fairly aggressive driving.

The design was an interesting mix of traditional vehicle elements – like the gear shift – and very modern features like the main gauge display and the climate control buttons. As is common with Lexus vehicles, the knob sticking out of the top right of the dash is the drive control:

The other trademark Lexus element is an analog clock, though this one is smaller and less obtrusive than most I’ve seen. Perhaps Lexus is starting to consider that it might not be required in all models? Maybe by 2028…

While there are a lot of controls, the overall design of the dash was simple, without me ever having to hunt to find a control, whether it was a car seat warmer or to adjust the headlight setting. In fact, the seat warmers (and coolers) had a dedicated row of buttons that made it ridiculously easy to ensure you were always comfortable.