freeheeler

IMy wife and I went to the car show in San Francisco this week.

We were looking to buy her first car and we had in mind the Ford Focus and Mazda 3 Grand touring.

Then, we walked past the Lexus area and spotted a red CT200H. WOW, both of us made a beeline straight towards it. We sat in it and instantly fell in love with it.

Obviously it was quite a bit more than we were wanting to pay for a first car but not entirely out of our range as I had been initially been looking for a CX9 but due to fuel prices here we wanted something more economical.

How has this car been performing for it's owners? Is the economy as good as it is supposed to be?

We drove past the Lexus garage in Serramonte yesterday and saw one in daybreak yellow which looked really nice but i wondered how I may feel about the color in a couple of years time.

We won't be buying one with any of the packages as they are not really necessary and we will need to keep the price down. All i will be looking for is roof bars

Any feedback from owners would be appreciated.

Kostamojen

Well your situation was about the same as ours, including the model we were looking for. Originally trying to stay under $25k, but after seeing the CT200h that was the car to get.

Anyway, the car is great so far, 40+mpg no reliability issues, and almost zero maintenance for this car (10,000 mile oil changes). The extra ~$5k you might spend on this car can be made up in the long run via the cheaper maintenance and better MPG, so think of it that way, LOL!

We got the $29,995 model with ZERO options to keep the cost down too. It turns out a lot of dealers don't even have these on hand, but the port down in L.A. does. They had to special order one from the port, took two weeks to arrive, and even managed another $1000 off. Don't be surprised if there is a $250 package on top of that $29,995 (it has the bumper protector, cargo net, and one or two other things in it, so its not bad).

freeheeler

I have been checking through the Lexus site in preparation for probably purchasing a CT200 sometime in the New Year.

Am I correct in thinking that you cannot get the Yellow or Red in the premium version unless you purchase one of their Navigation packages? And then the blue, only if you purchase the sport package or the Navigation package?

SBCsx

I think your local dealer could answer your questions.

Tom59

Local dealers say things to make you buy a car, here people tell it like it is good the bad and ugly.

Buy it. Car was given Best New car in reliability : Consumer reports. Also got extremely reliable in the hybrid section. We are getting 43.33 mpg on the first check. Mostly driven in normal mode. I'm quite sure after breakin and synthetics added we should see 45mpg.....

Lexus has a excellent rep for reliability and re-sale. I am VERY happy with our SE .....I'm sure if you try hard you can get the price down some now. Lots are starting to get more and more. Also they only average 8 days on lots so they sell like crazy.

Dealers most anyway can walk you through a test drive and options - but rarely do any of them own one. Go drive it..... I was pleasantly surprised in handling and egonomics. The base version handles very nicely.