riknchar

Hello Lexus Forum! I'm a current owner of a SC430 (2009, Pebble Beach Edition, 12K miles, purchased last fall), and am about to purchase a used 2010 LS460 AWD.

I've been looking for the perfect LS460 for the past couple of weeks, initially starting my search in the Omaha NE area (my home town), and eventually expanding my search nationwide.

I discovered what appeared to be a really good deal on a 2010 LS460 AWD from a dealer in Milwaukee. The car has the Comfort Pkg w/Nav option, but no Mark Levinson (bummer!). It has 56,000 miles, and so is out of bumper-to-bumper warranty at this time. The price was great, though, just $33K. The color was not to my liking, though (Mica Blue -- too dark since I live on a gravel road). Despite the lack of the Levinson stereo and the dark color, I was about to pull the trigger when I found another LS460 AWD in a Toyota Dealership in Souix Falls SD (3 hours from Omaha). This one is white (good color for me), has the Comfort Package, Cold Weather Package, and best of all, only has 28K miles. It's still covered by the full Lexus Warranty for another 3 months or so, which means it's eligible for the Lexus Platinum Warranty, also. The price for this one is $38K.

Anyway, after doing some digging, I found the white LS460 has a Clean CarFax, showing two owners. I was able to use the MyLexus web site (using the VIN) to review the full service history, which turned out to be very extensive (5 pages). Everything looked good, but I saw an entry saying that a Body Repair had been made by Lexus of Omaha in 2013. I actually was able to track down the Lexus body shop, and found that they had replaced a front bumper last year. The body shop tech said it looked like a fairly minor repair, and that the headlights were fine, and there was no paint work done on the fenders or anywhere else. The parts charge was $650,but the labor charge was $1800 (lots of expensive labor!). Total repair cost was $2400.

This raised a couple of interesting questions:
1. Why didn't the CarFax reflect the body repair?
2. Should this type of repair cause me to run away from this deal?

I spoke with the dealership selling the car, and they didn't seem too swayed by the repair (as far as dropping their price any further). I did get them to agree to provide a Lexus Platinum Warranty covering the car for 8 years or 75,000 miles for the amount of $1850. This was the price I was quoted by Troy Dietrich from Mass (one of the guys who sells discounted Lexus Warranties -- I read about him on the forum).

So the bottom line is I'd own the 2010 LS460 AWD with 28K miles for a total price of just under $40K, including the Platinum 8 yr warranty.

Just looking for opinions from the forum on whether this is a good deal or not... Or should the front-end repair scare me away?

Thanks!

sktn77a

iTrader: (2)

Go for it! A minor front end bump is nothing serious but it's amazing how much good bodywork costs these days!

Edit: One more thing: Study the TSBs carefully and get anything that needs done completed before the 4yr/50k warranty expires as most of the TSBs aren't covered under the extended warranty.

Mitty

I'm partial to CPO cars. You pay a bit more for them, but they come with zero issues and I get the piece of mind with the coverage.

caha14

I beg to differ, big time, but that's a separate discussion!

To the OP, if it's really just a bumper, and everything else checks out like it seems to be, you should be in good shape. Having said this, are you able to get a 3rd party inspector to check out the car closely?

peteybabes

I had to laugh when I saw this!!

I've taken bumpers off of several different Lexus vehicles, and it has been 10-20 minutes of labor to pull off and about 5-10 minutes to put back on! So about $3600/hr for work at that shop! lol

sktn77a

iTrader: (2)

The labor may have been more than just removal of the bumper - repair of any damage that was concealed, paintwork, replacement of bumper, etc (paint "materials" are also frequently billed as "hours".... no idea why).

MellonC00

I think you'd want to check out the wind noise issue on any 2010 model coming from the side mirror area. I'd do that first before plunging.....

riknchar

Thanks for the advice! I've done more investigating -- actually tracked down the used car sales manager at the local Lexus dealer who had sold the car last year. He said that the car had actually arrived in pretty bad shape. It had apparently had some sort of accident in the back, and had been repainted poorly (color didn't match). This was in addition to the front bumper problem that I had already heard about. He said they had to spend another $1800 to have the rear end repainted to match the car. He did say they had sold the car (after all the body repairs) as a Certified Pre-Owned (which sort of calls into question the whole CPO program, in my mind).

Anyway, I'm starting to get pretty skittish about this vehicle.

I did locate another 2010 LS460 AWD in Kansas City Lexus which may suit me better. It is a better color for me (Silver with the gray interior, which I love) and has a much "cleaner" history. It's a 1-owner that was originally sold by Lexus of Kansas City and has a complete Lexus service history. It was recently traded in on a new LS460. It has 61,000 miles (a bit higher than I wanted), but has the CPO warranty. The dealer just completed the 60K mile service, and showed me an invoice detailing everything they did to the car to get it ready to sell, which included new front brakes and the replacement of all Lower Control Arms (at a cost of $2800 - YIKES). They've dropped their price to $37,900, which seems reasonable for a 1-owner CPO.

Any advice on other things to check for before I sign on the dotted line? How can I check to make sure all TSBs have been done on the car? Or will that be a sure thing, since it's Certified? Would anyone be concerned with buying a CPO LS460 with 60K miles? Are there other things that are likely to start failing soon?

Thanks!

sktn77a

iTrader: (2)

I'd take anything the used car salesman said with a pinch of salt - "yeah, we had to put a lot of money into that car"! I'd go get it checked out by a body shop if that's all that's bothering you. You'll probably be OK with either car but do not assume that all TSBs have been done - most of them say "carry out only in response to specific customer complaint".

lexgolf

I'd stay away from anything that has been hit. No matter how hard they try, it is not possible to get everything right back to a normal level, IMHO.

There are plenty of used LS's out there. Keep looking.

shrikelex

Agree with Lexgolf, keep looking, plenty out there, just like ice cream

thegov3

I live in KC and have my car serviced at the ONLY Lexus dealer in town. The key being, the ONLY Lexus dealer within 200 miles. They are great to work with for service, but I could not them to be reasonable on the price of any used 460 AWD they had over the course of a year. I ended up buying my 2009 AWD LS in Ohio. I saved about $8K over what they wanted in KC for a comparable car. If you can get the car for a good price from them, buy it because I know firsthand they typically have excellent cars on the lot.

riknchar

Another wrinkle in my LS460 hunt. I had pretty much decided to go forward with the purchase of the 2010 AWD model in Kansas City (61K miles, CPO, $37,250). I decided to call the local Lexus dealer one last time to see if they had gotten any fresh trades. They hadn't, but when I told them I was heading for Kansas City tomorrow to buy the 2010, they decided to drop the price of a 2011 AWD LS460 from $48K to $40K (supposedly to keep my business in town).

This suddenly made the local (Omaha) deal pretty attractive. The car is Deep Sea Mica (which will be tough to keep clean) with a black interior, so not my first color choice, but it only has 33K miles and is a 1-owner vehicle bought, serviced, and traded in locally. It's basically a year newer with half the miles for an additional $3K.

I did notice that it didn't have the button on the console to adjust the suspension height -- does that mean it does not have the Air Suspension package? I think that came standard on the 2010 AWDs -- did it become an option on the 2011s? If so, and the car doesn't have it, should I be concerned? Or perhaps happy in some ways, since it's one less thing to break over time (and I've heard the air suspension repairs can get pretty pricey)? What's the general consensus on whether the air ride is a must-have or not?

I'm going to go take the local 2011 LS for a test drive over lunch tomorrow. If everything looks good, that's probably the route I'll take. The deal seems too good to pass up...

Any opinions from the forum on whether that's a good deal? Thoughts on the possible lack of the air suspension system? Thanks!