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Speaking as a Lexus driver who used to drive a Toyota... yeah it's a rebadged Toyota. It feels just like a Toyota to drive expect more horses under there. The interior fit and finish though is on a completely different level, and on par with BMW and Mercedes. Bells and whistles like sound and electronics aren't really. But then I wasn't that impressed with the Benz I test drove recently either from the standpoint of flashy technological crap, to be honest - Ford beats both of them. If you actually care about that.
The point of buying a Lexus or Acura or Infiniti, all rebranded Japanese cars, is that you get the perks of the lower-badge car (read: reliability and safety) with a nicer driving experience. I just don't trust dat Benz and Audi is hit and miss.
Surprisingly really nice cars right now that might not be the first brand to come to mind? Volvo.
I would sort of agree with this. In the sense that it does not feel like a performance automobile in terms of its road output. There are a few BMW models that fall into this category, too, though, like the X5. It's just not a brand for people who are car-heads, it's a brand for people who like quality and comfort and don't really care about cornering, basically. I've test driven more or less everything in the small to mid-size luxury SUV class and they all have their high and low points. Audi interiors right now are not up to par with their competitors and the accoutrements are so behind the game it bugged me even though I don't really even care about that stuff, but quattro feels fantastic to drive. Acura's interior in a lot of cars feels like an unnatural fusion between utilitarianism and luxury which is just off-putting but they're fun as hell; best performing, most fun car in that class by the way? Acura RDX. Re-badged Honda. Lexus RX gives you a smooth, comfortable ride in every way imaginable, but the tradeoff is it's in no way exciting to drive. SRX feels like they haven't changed anything inside in the last 5 years. Land Rovers are great for interior finish, but pretty clumsy to drive and have a terrible track record for reliability etc. etc. etc.
I don't think it's accurate to pick any "Luxury" brand and say it's not on a level with the others because each one of those brands has a customer they're aiming at so they do different things well and compromise in other areas.
