Huberrrt

Let me start off by saying as a lurker, Club Lexus is a great community. Lot's of detailed and useful threads. A great community of people sharing information and experiences.

Now, as the title stated...I'm a former 2001 Toyota Avalon owner. I loved the car, it gave me minimal problems. Poor mans Lexus. The car is now totaled. I also own a 2015 Toyota Sienna Limited AWD, which I love as well.

I'm very very close to closing a deal in purchasing a 2008 Black on Black Lexus GS350 AWD this Friday. I would great-greatly appreciate your thoughts and opinions as it seems most of you have owned your GSs for quite sometime.

1) $14,997 asking and is the $16,600 out the door price on a 2008 Lexus AWD at 95k? I am getting a good deal here? Market value says I'm almost 2k under.

2) Reading through the threads, the rattling and dashboards issue seems like a nightmare. I have drove a couple of 2006 GS300s and 1 2007 GS350s. The GS350 made minimal noise if any. I have not test drove the one I'm potentially purchasing but again I'm hoping that the refinements of 2008+ Lexus has taken care of.

Is it worth purchasing with these issues? Considering I'm left without a warranty now. I plan on lowering the vehicle as well. Or Should I just walk away and save myself the potential headaches? I'm really traumatized by the major issues that Lexus has not addressed. IE: Rattles, Car Jerking at low temp.



I greatly appreciate it guys. Thank you in advance.

gridlock13

iTrader: (1)

1. can't comment on the price since i'm not sure what other GSs in your area are selling for. how is it compared to others listed on autotrader/cars.com?

2. the rattles never seemed to be fixed even as the years went by. you can stuff black felt between the window and dash to try to keep things quiet though.

also, the 3GS is not happy with lowering. a lot of people experienced wobbling after it was done. however, if you're planning to go really low and always run 19s then you can get sage rca blocks to lower the car. springs/coilovers have been headaches with many other owners.

Huberrrt

Thanks Gridlock!

Yeah, it seems I'm getting a great deal. Again, I've test driven 3 2006 gs300 vehicles and 1-gs350. Out of the 4, only the 2007 had no rattles at all. All with 100k+ miles on it.

I love everything about the 3gs...I'm afraid that it may become a money pit with it's flaws that Lexus has not owned up too. Just curious if the 3gs members would advice me to walk away and look at another car if they were in my position to buy a used car at around 16k.

ez12a

Ditto some of the advice here.

Take it to a shop to get checked out. Have the shop itemize each repair with a price, and a total to get it fixed. Subtract total from negotiated price for more savings.

As far as the price goes, sounds about right. 07-08 3GS are hovering in the mid teens at around 100k miles (+/- 20k). I paid something like $15.6k for my 07 GS (wasn't crazy about the price but i had insurance payouts that softened the blow significantly, ended up paying like $4k out of pocket).

Huberrrt

I wonder if I could do that. Take the car out of the dealership to have another shop or Lexus look at it. I have not driven it, but I will this Friday. Salesman said not a creak hear and thats is cold Chicago winter. Are you getting creaking or vibration noises? What are your thoughts of now owning a 3gs? Thanks for your reply.

Huberrrt

Wheel Gurus: I'm dealing with a seller that is selling is wheels off of his 2007 RWD Lexus GS350. If I end up purchasing the 2008 AWD GS35, I'm considering picking these up too while I'm in the area. Below are the specs he gave me about the wheels, will these just be plug and play on my gs350? Does it matter if its originally set up for RWD or not? Will I have any rubbing issues? He's giving me a great deal but I don't want end up spending more money to mod these to fit in the end.

This is all the specs:

20" Cor Cypher
5x114.3
Front tires 245/30/20
Rear tires 295/25/20

He doesn't know the offset or the width. I just need confirmation from the Wheel Gurus here if this set up will work. Thank you in advance!

RXPhil

Just want to chime in on lowering the car. I bought my 3GS back in November not knowing anything about the wobbling. Car drove EXTREMELY smooth when I bought it no wobbling what so ever. I wanted to lower the car just to get rid of the god awful reverse rake (front higher then back) on the AWD. Did research found out I could ruin the ride if I did, found the RCA blocks and I decided to get the 20mms since my winter rims are the factory 17inch wheels and I cant go any bigger. So the front end is only lower by 20mm and before the RCA blocks the car drove like it was brand new, no sarcasm. Now, car vibrates at idle, car wobbles from 0-20MPH, humming noise from 40-50MPH, then a very slight humming noise on the freeway. Now I've had multiple people in my car and they cant even feel it. I will probably leave it as it is because it looks SOOOO much better with an equal gap between the front and rear, but well see. I feel like I'm slowly going insane, because I hate how it drives but I love how it looks, but if take out the RCA Blocks I will hate how it looks and love how it drives!

Huberrrt

Yes, looking at high the it sits makes me cringe. As I always on every car and also my sienna soon, has had at least a moderate drop. But the horror of lowering the gs350 is really starting to take it's toll on me. I'm hoping that a simple lip kit will kind of break that eyesore.

As far as the comforts of driving the vehicle, it sounds like both you and I were looking for luxury vehicle that we can enjoy during winter time. It just seems like we can't have the best of both worlds even on slight moderate drops. I was shooting for the DF210 drop, then NF210 with the slightest drop...but with your experience. I don't think I'm even touching suspension and wheels. Just a lip kit hopefully will do the trip. lol. Thanks a lot man for your sharing your experience and advice.

TRD_Power

To be 100% honest, the 3GS is a great car, but as you mentioned, there are some issues (though, this can be said about any car). Parts of me wish I had purchased a 4GS, and I also get the occasional envy of the IS-F owners (mostly because I want an obnoxious exhaust and 400+ hp), but do I regret buying the 3GS? Not at all. The price you're going to pay is definitely fair, but the rattles will eventually happen. I remember when I first bought my car, I was like "whew! No rattles like everybody else!" That lasted MAYBE 2 weeks, haha. Just crank up the tunes and it won't be as noticeable I've taken my 460 on a few road trips, and I can honestly say I've never been able to go the whole way without stopping several times to get out and stretch, until I did these trips in my GS. Super comfortable, lots of power, very smooth ride. Not to blab on, but just figured I'd share my life story. Be sure to post pics if/when you get it! Best of luck.

RXPhil

No worries.

Huberrrt

The ones that I have test drove...they were fancy. Seats were super comfy, really had a nice luxury touch to it. I love the simplicity of the vehicle exterior wise and the chrome touches which are just right. I can't wait to test drive the one I'm looking at purchasing. I definitely appreciate your life story. That's what car forums are for. I'm trying to keep in mind, that I'm buying this car as my daily runner. I think I got way too caught up in modifying and not sitting back and just enjoy the ride. haha.

ThomasGS4

iTrader: (19)

You won't be disappointed with the 3GS, especially a 2008+ with updated styling and technology features, such as AUX. I'd be weary about lowering an AWD, though; it's more hassle than it's worth.

TRD_Power

+1 to ThomasGS4's statement. It's obviously your car, so mod it to your preferred taste, but it will take away from the smooth ride a great deal. And as others have mentioned, the AWD cars get the dreaded wobble once lowered, so definitely keep that in mind. When I swapped over from run-flats to regular tires, the ride improved quite a bit, and that took all though of possibly lowering my GS. Tinted windows is enough for me now Maybe I'm just getting old...

haromania

Price seems fair, not a smoking deal but good luck finding a smoking deal on these cars, they don't exist.


Transmissions are a legitimate problem though, no way around it. At some point, and yours is almost there, the tranny (torque converter) will shudder at low speeds in 4th gear and Lexus will want to sell you a new transmission at about $6,500(ish). Sucks, really sucks.


I just went through it. Bought an 07 AWD with 133K on it, which is more miles than I have ever bought before but per the Lexus registry the car had never, ever, missed a 5K mile oil change at the Lexus dealer and in reading through all the service done to this car nobody ever mentioned any problems what-so-ever with anything. This car was maintained as well as you could possible maintain it so I pulled the trigger ($12,750 for an '07 350 AWD w/133K). Then I discover the transmission problem and to be honest, I would not have bought this car had I noticed it on the test drive. Previous owner had just had trans fluid flushed (not a drain and fill, but full flush) which at the time I thought "SWEET", but now I know why he did it. He was chasing the shudder problem and that didn't fix it so he sold it to me, thanks a lot.


So now what do I do? I am not going to sell the car like that to somebody, and if I trade it back in to a dealer for a newer one with less miles I will lose my shirt, so I'm stuck.


So keep that in mind. Dash rattles are fixable, somebody smashed some felt between w/shield and dash and mine hardly makes any noise at all, so don't let that bother you.

Lukas99GS

My gs460 is now at 144k and shifts so smooth I can almost not feel it, although i believe my car has a different transmission than the 350s, also my car has never rattled (previous owner brought it to Lexus 3 times and whatever they did seemed to permanently fix it) best bet would be to pay an extra 1500 or so like I did and get a 3 year warranty so you won't have to worry about major components failing.