cep55

Hi, all -

I'm new here, and doing some research because I'm helping my father-in-law shop for a new car. He's narrowed it down to an ES350, and the following options are his only must-haves.

Rearview cam
Blindspot monitoring
Dynamic Radar Cruise Control/Pre-Collision System (PCS)

The first two are easy, but my dealer said something about the PCS/Dynamic cruise being associate with a package that raises the price of the car more than just the base cost of those features. (And they don't order cars for inventory with PCS/Dynamic cruise due to lack of demand for that.)

So my father-in-law is considering placing an order, and I see this feature (PCS) as standalone (and not in any of the packages.) Basically, I'm wondering if it requires any of the packages to be ordered in conjunction with it, or can it just be ordered on its own?

I also appreciate any other info about ordering this feature, if there's any info that isn't apparent, or if there are exceptions/variations to what's on the Lexus site.

Thanks so much for your thoughts!

Christina

jollick

In the US PCS can be ordered as a separate option. I wanted it but as in your area, the dealers here were not ordering any ES models equipped with PCS. I waited 4 months from the date I ordered it to receive it. For me, it was worth the wait.

Nelexus88

The blind spot monitor is listed as a separate option on the window sticker, but I found it was almost always packaged with $2,600 navigation option when I was shopping for my ES.

lesz

The problem is that, even if, technically, some things are available as separate stand-alone options, in Lexus' normal production runs, they typically combine groups of options together, and those typical groups of options depend on whether the vehicle will have the premium package, luxury package, ultra luxury package, or no package. And the vehicles that end up getting shipped to dealers are going to be ones with those predetermined package and option combinations.

While it may be the case that you can special order an ES with just the options that you want, doing so may not be the best way, from a financial perspective, to buy an ES. I see that you live in California, which is the region where the highest levels of discounts from MSRP seem to be available; however, high levels of discounting are likely going to apply only to vehicles in the dealer's inventory, and you are likely to find that, if you special order a vehicle, the level of discounting is probably going to be, at best, minimal. Thus, if you choose to buy a vehicle from a dealer's inventory, even if it has a package or some options that you really don't want, the bottom line price is likely to be near or, perhaps, even lower than the price that you will have to pay for a special order vehicle with fewer options. Also, when it comes time to trade in or sell a vehicle, the used value of that vehicle is likely to be lower if it is equipped in a way that is less typical and doesn't have the combination of options that are most sought after by used car buyers.

jonmanch

My ES 300h has the PCS/Dynamic cruise. It was a non-compromise option for me. I was lucky though, because someone had ordered my car with the PCS/Dynamic cruise and then backed out of the deal. It was the only car in the NYC area within a 490 mile radius with the option.

As LESZ said, I have the Luxury Package, plus BSM, and all the other "standard" options found on most ES's. I do disagree with LESZ in that if you are going to be buying the car and going to keep it for a long time, then this option is not going to be that large a factor in a resale. The point about how large a discount will be if you order the car rather than taking one from stock is another matter altogether.

Logically, although this does not seem to be the case, you should get the normal discount as this sale is a slam dunk turn around for the dealer who does not even have to keep it on the lot for long.

I love the adaptive cruise control and use it every day. Good luck.

lesz

My point is that, if a car has one expensive option and is not equipped with the normal array of other options that used car buyers would expect to come along with that one expensive option, the presence of that single expensive option is not likely to be as attractive to used car buyers as it would be if it were accompanied by the other options.

While the dealer will certainly be happy to sell a car with a short turn around, the net cost to the dealer of getting a special order vehicle is going to be higher than it would be for other vehicles normally in their inventory. That is because holdback, other manufacturer-to-dealer incentives, and manufacturer-to-customer incentives are not normally going to apply to special order vehicles. With higher cost to the dealer and, thus, lower potential profit margins, the dealer is not likely to be willing to offer as large of a discount relative to MSRP on a special order vehicle as it is on a vehicle already in inventory and with a larger potential profit margin. Also, if you look at it from the point of view of Lexus, it is less expensive for Lexus to build a vehicle as a part of a production run of 5000 identical vehicles than it is for them to build a vehicle as a separate special order vehicle, and Lexus, in essence, passes that higher production cost on to the dealer who, in turn, passes it on to the customer.

cep55

Thank you all so much for the insightful posts, all of that information is very helpful.

It makes a lot of sense that even though it looks like it would be easy to order a la carte options at actual cost, they are actually grouped with more costly packages in the normal production runs. (Everything else made sense, too, but it this point in particular seems to be at play with my local dealer.)

Mostly I wanted to confirm all of this, to be able to explain it to my father-in-law, and this helps tremendously!

Thanks again,
Christina

jonmanch

An alternative although not as nice as an ES is the Toyota Avalon Limited. It comes with adaptive cruise control standard.

lesz

Today, I went to the Lexus dealer for the 10,000 mile oil change, tire rotation, etc. on my ES. While I was waiting for the work to be done, I amused myself by looking at the dealer's new vehicle inventory. I thought that it was interesting to see that, of the ES 350s that they had in stock, there was one with the ultra luxury package with a MSRP of a little over $48,000. Of the 25 or so other ES 350s, about half of them had the luxury package and the same combination of additional options with a MSRP of around $45,000, and the other half were more minimally equipped without a navigation system, and those all had the same other options and a MSRP of around $40,000. So, if you were going to buy an ES there today and you wanted the UL package, you had a choice of only one vehicle and one set of options. Otherwise, you were going to choose between a very nicely equipped luxury package vehicle or a more basically equipped vehicle. And you would then basically just be choosing the color your vehicle, and you would have had no real choices of option combinations.

I also thought it was interesting to see that, of the cars in their inventory, about 60% of them were either ES 350 or ES 300h vehicles. About 30% were IS vehicles. There were a few CT hybrids and a few GS vehicles, but there was only one LS. Similarly, with SUVs, almost all of their inventory was RX vehicles. There was one GX, and I didn't see a single LX on their lot. Just like with the cars, the RX vehicles had just a couple of equipment combinations and price points.

The high percentage of ES and RX vehicles on the lot is probably a pretty good indication of which vehicles make up the bulk of Lexus sales in this market and, probably, in many other markets, too.