CtSFox

Luxus Enform stolen car recovery feature obviates the need for LoJack

Joe Z

iTrader: (10)

Do they still sell Full Rim & Tire warranty ?? On the East Coast, that can be very useful...

Extended Warranties can be purchased right before the 4yr and/or 50K Factory warranty expires... I picked one up for my ISF, when I realized I would be driving this one for a long time..

~ Joe Z

alexlude

How much did your extended warranty run you right before the 4 yr / 50k factory warranty expired? Would it have been cheaper if you were to purchase up front vs at the end or it was the same?

John510

While I was unloading the car seats from the 2013 I traded in my wife added the interior and exterior protectant in the finance room. DO NOT DO THIS!!!! it made my interior all slimy and I had to use simple green to remove it all. The plus side is that if my kid ever stains the seats they will fix/replace it for free.

PhoenixOne

I'm looking to do the same. LOL!

alexlude

Curious - john510 - so you have car seats in the new IS350? How do they fit.. pretty roomy or pretty tight fit?

John510

Way better than the 2IS I had. In the 2IS the backwards seat wouldn't fit in the middle. In the 3IS I have a forward facing one behind the passenger side and a car seat base in the middle for my 1 year old. I can also still have another passenger sit back there. It is tight yes compared to a Tahoe.

KeyserS

I had not heard of GAP and had to look it up. If you want it, you should be able to get it from your insurance company. As with anything else, it pays to shop around. The rationale for having it is a little confusing. Certainly it is true that IF the balance you owe on the loan is significantly greater than the book value of the car, you are at risk for having to pay the difference, to pay off the loan should the vehicle be totaled and you cannot collect from the other party. The situation where this is most likely to occur is if you pay a very low down payment. But, fundamentally it occurs because the book value declines rapidly right after you buy the car. Making a higher down payment will decrease the potential for you to be left owing the difference, but in this scenario you could still end up with nothing to show for the down payment. It seems to me not only that GAP is a good idea if reasonably priced, but also that if you make a large down payment, it is desirable to discuss with your insurance agent whether there is any way to protect loss of your down payment. Unless, of course, your preference is to take on the risk yourself, i.e., to "self insure".

Tone2002

As others I got the GAP insurance and the Tire/wheel protection.

Bass Mech

i disagree, GAP is a huge waste to buy from a dealer because even in a purchase your buying gap that cannot be removed even after there is no longer a gap to be concerned with. being an insurance agent for the past 10 years we sell gap for about 12 dollars per 6 months, thats 2 bucks per month and i can take it off any time i want to. the dealer charging gap costs a lot more than that and in many cases you end up trading the car in before it's paid off anyway.

on a LEASE you don't need gap because LFS provides GAP as part of your lease agreement.
as for extended warranty, I think it's a waste, manufacturers like toyota/lexus build quality cars with a lot of pride in their products. that said, the factory warranty is pretty sufficient, but if any of their cars exhibit a common problem Lexus usually steps up and does a recall or offers to extend coverage to include a defect after the warranty is up. GM on the other hand has has issues with the ZO6 corvettes LS7 engines dropping valves left and right and denies any manufacturer defect if they can weasel out of replacing or upgrading some 30,000 engines that exhibit this defect due to a machining error that they have quietly admitted to in the last year. they are simply waiting for the cars to expire warranty under the 5 year 100k mile warranty knowing full well many will fail within the first 10k miles actually drop a valve and grenade the entire engine. their hope is most people who own corvettes leave them parked in the garage most of the time and the 5 years will be up before the engine blows = no warranty (sorry now you have to replace a $17,000 engine out of your own pocket + r and r)
verses by contrast Lexus identifies they have a batch of bad valve springs that could possibly break causing the valve to fall into the engine and destroy it. rather than sit on a ticking time bomb they stepped up tot he plate and while 99.99% of the vehicle owners don't know what a valve springs is or why it could cause a problem, Lexus replaced valve springs in 3.5L engines for the entire fleet of tens of thousand's of cars at no cost to the consumer and no questions asked.

back on topic, there is NOTHING, NADA, ZIP ,ZILCH that the dealer can sell you in the finance office that benefits anyone but the dealer.
you spend 3 hours negotiating the best deal, work them down to their invoice cost, get the lowest payment and best terms! just to 5 minutes later walk into the finance office and be sold a bunch of worthless crap, services, protectants and extended warranties so they can re-coop the lack of profit you just spent all that time working to get the best deal. GUYS! the crap they offer in the finance office is just a BIG STUPID GAME to get another chance at making a little profit on every car they sell!
just like the dealer handling fee! i was at a honda dealer last week, they get 600 BUCKS for DH fee!! are you kidding me?
they say its to keep the lights on! BULL***** any dealer owner if you can get them to admit it will tell you they make NO money selling new cars, any dealer makes all their money selling USED cars at a 6-10k markup over what they paid and in service. Even warranty repairs the dealership makes money in service because the manufacturer pays the dealer for the warranty work.
the D and H fee goes directly into the dealership owners pocket or is given in part to the salesperson as a commission if you will for each car sold. it's nothing more complicated than that. everyone else who works in the dealership is paid on hourly or salaried and the money they make comes from the overhead operating expenses as a dealership. those funds come directly from used car and service sales!

when I go to the finance office, I usually tell the finance guy ill give him 20 bucks if he doesn't ask me any questions about adding any extras, I want my paperwork written up exactly as the sales person and sales manager and I agreed before I walked into the office with NO CHANGES!

i hope someone finds this helpful! my fingers are tired! lol

isthree50

iTrader: (1)

Being that I sell cars I can tell you is some to most situations when someone is financing GAP is worth it yes it costs anywhere from $400-$800 depends on what dealer and yes of corse they make money on gap it is a business but when putting minimal to zero down you are right away in a negative equity position that only gets worse as you drive it I have totaled my g37 coupe a few years back and the difference between what the insurance company was paying out and what I owed was $6,000 so well worth the $600 I spent on gap it's peace of mind $600 is insignificant when protecting your investment and wallet as I said if you put a large amount down then No need for gap I guess we can agree to disagree

Bass Mech

if you read all of my post you will see that i absolutely agree you need GAP, just that buying it from the dealer is a WASTE! 600 bucks! mine costs 2 dollars per month to buy on your INSURANCE POLICY 60 months x 2 bucks per month is only 120 dollars and you get 10,000 worth of coverage.
you paid 6 times that much to buy from a dealer and after about month 24 or 36 you no longer have a gap! so you can simply remove it from the insurance policy at any time you choose!
but thank you for clearing up what a total waste of money buying through the dealer is. at 2 bucks a month for 36 months thats 64 dollars. that means the dealer pocketed almost 500 dollars profit!

i learned about dealer shenanigans way back years ago when i used to install a lot installed theft device called pro-lock it was nothing more than a harness with a relay and a plug. we had to cut the start wire and splice in the relay. unless you had the "key" plugged into the plug which was nothing more than 6 wires that could be jumped with a paperclip the engine wouldn't start. the whole part cost the dealer 20 bucks to have on the car including install.
at the finance office people were offered the anti theft device KEY's for 600 dollars!!!! if they chose not to purchase it was so cheap that it wasn't even worth the money to remove the device, so they simply stuff a small circuit board in the plug under the dash to complete the circuit (just like a paperclip) allowing the vehicle to start all the time as normal.
what a crock of SHI* thats 600 dollars minus 20 bucks in profit for a silly little device that would not only stop a thief with a paperclip but actually lead the thief directly to the wire to jumpstart and hot-wire the car!
we installed thousands of these little goodies and the dealers made a ton of money off it.

isthree50

iTrader: (1)

Some insurance companies dont offer gap I know mine doesn't I leased mine so gap is included through Lexus...... Do you really think it's wrong for a dealership to make money? I mean $500 plus some on the actual car I don't see a problem with that a dealership is an expensive operation..... I'm not saying that it's ok to make $10,000 on new cars but $1000-$2000 nothing wrong with that at all they do need to keep the lights on pay employees etc etc.

Bass Mech

not at all! i agree they should make money as a matter of fact, this will be my 4th car from this dealership. they have already all but said outright that i will be getting a special deal on the car. they know I'm not stupid. if i worked it hard enough i guarantee they would sell to me at their cost, you know why? because they will have a IS 350 RWD F sport in a state that NOBODY wants a RWD car. they would have to pay money to sell it to another dealer. i could threaten to walk away and make them refund my deposit just to be a jerk if i wanted to or even forfiet my deposit on a car they can't sell.
but likely what will happen is i will negotiate a more than fair deal making sure they get at least a grand in profit including hold back fee and anything else.
i may just split the total profit in half with them. I'm not trying to be unfair at all. but if your straight up with me, and you provide me full disclosure and not try to sucker me into buying a worthless extra like gap or pre paid service, or extended warranty we can do business.
the last 3 cars ive bought from the dealer i now go into the GSM office sit at her computer, watch her type in all the numbers, get the full disclosure what each is for and we together work out the payment.
we don't play the 4 squares game, we don't negotiate, we don't play the funny money game, we don't inflate trades, none of that crap. the best buying experience is when its win for both dealer and buyer. you treat me with respect and give full disclosure i am a client for life and send all my customers to them when they need a new car.
thats how it works! im not here to take all the profit away, but they don't make any money on new cars anyway! i make sure the sales person gets his cut and the dealership makes a profit and everyone is happy.
screw me and ill find another dealer! and you get NOTHING! build my relationship with your competitor and give them all my referrals.
if you cant tell already ive bought a lot of cars and my last was a 2012 corvette Z06 that i got for 15,000 off sticker! ordered it right off the assembly line, but thats a whole different story and for a totally different reason i wont get into.

Fizzboy7

I'd avoid all things listed. They are all high mark-up items that usually don't prove their use over the years. I think there was some survey a while back with Consumer Reports and it turned out the majority of people did not use their extended warranties or sold the car prematurely (It is human nature to plan on keeping a car for a while, but we almost always get anxious and trade-up sooner than planned). This would be especially true with a company like Lexus and Toyota. They are damn reliable and major failures are extremely rare.
As far as GAP, most insurance companies and car financing companies throw it in automatically on leases. Save your money.