DiggerJim

But you'll live with the car for a very long time (hopefully) and if it were me, every time I looked at the car I'd be thinking of the compromises I made and how it wasn't what I really wanted. I went through the same thing before I got my 600 - I was looking for a 460L with things like the 4 zone climate control, reclining rear heated/cooled seats, ML, adaptive cruise, etc. I thought I found one in CA (on Cars.com) and went back & forth with the dealer (a Mazda place in San Jose that had it in trade). It was a 2010 with 55Kish miles and low 30s. Made a deal, put the deposit down and even wired the money. Flew into San Fran and took an Uber down to SJ and knew as soon as I opened the door it didn't have the options I wanted. I pointed it out to the sales guy and got a blank look & a "I dunno....". I figured I had come all that way, was planning on a cross-country ride back so I took the keys and went to get some gas (they were delivering it with 1/4 tank! sheesh). As I was filling the tank I just kept thinking it wasn't what I wanted and even though it was still a really nice car it wasn't the car I wanted. So I drove it back, dropped the keys on the salesman's desk and told him I wanted my money back. A lot of "why" and "what exactly isn't right" and then the sales manager and I talked and I got my refund. A week later they were still advertising the car on both their website and cars.com with all the options I told them were missing.

I Ubered back up to San Fran and flew home. While I was sitting in the airport I started looking again on cars.com and cargurus and saw a couple of 600s and sent some emails and a week later ended up in my 600 only 100 miles from my house and all the options I was looking for in the 460L. I could have taken the 460 but wouldn't have been happy. Left it and got a 600 I couldn't be happier with Sure, I "wasted" the money & time going to CA and bailing out but I would have felt I wasted 33K if I had kept the 460.

NickTee

That's why I tell the dealer to write a statement that they'll cover my expenses if they failed to disclose something major, such as options. If they refuse, clearly they're hiding something and it's not worth my time.

Gbp

Oops, I became kind of busy and forgot the link:

http://www.fresnolexus.com/VehicleDe...-CA/2528010573

As it happens, I am buying the above-linked vehicle this morning, assuming it has no door dings. It's actually a CPO car. Not what I would call a great deal; the dealer went down from $36,971 to $35,000. OTD: $38,309.95.

Options: Comfort Plus package, Luxury Value Edition With Mark Levinson, but without Advanced Parking Guidance (self-park). Preferred accessory package with rear bumper appliqué.

I drove 175 miles in a rental car, arriving at my hotel at the stroke of midnight. Exciting times!

enoch861

Looks beautiful! That red is definitely something else!
Glad you found a car and hopefully your deal goes though! Advance congrats on the new car!
And I completely agree how the drive to go pick up your new car can be awesome.. In my case I got off work at 10PM. Had about 2 hours of sleep (I can't sleep on demand) to wake up at 2AM to be on the road by 2:30AM and was at the dealer by 7:30AM by 9:15AM I had the car and was back on the road and arrived back at 2PM to go to work by 2:30PM... Fun times indeed.

R Z

It pays to wait it out and find what you want. A great looking car and that red will certainly command many speeding tickets. Enjoy that beauty!

roadfrog

I'm having trouble remembering what car had what and what price, but as long as you're happy!

Hope it all goes as you planned. I know you'll love the car regardless. Congrats!

As for the self-parking, I always thought it useless and basically a semi-entertaining party trick, at best. However, I'm glad I have it, just for the Vais Tech module I added.

Devh

Good luck with this deal. I would still look over it like a hawk to make sure it hasn't been in any accidents especially for the price they are asking.
To add to what roadfrog comments about the self-parking it would seem that although Lexus innovated it, it''s behind the times as far as how much better they are on newer cars.

Gbp

Thanks, all, for the good wishes. When negotiating price with the pre-owned sales manager, I had neglected to ask for the most current map update for the navigation, a strategy I read here when buying a CPO LS460. I discussed this with the manager while in transit, and he said he'd see what he could do.

When I arrived at the dealership yesterday morning, they had the car in their showroom. It looked awesome. The manager said they'd do the update for free. I was told the most recent map update was 2014, but I figure that's better than 2010! As the manager and I walked around the car, opening doors, he pointed out some of the features and explained the history of the car: the one-owner car (titled in his company's name) had been bought and maintained at his dealership and had just been traded in.

The car certainly looked in mostly pristine condition: no door dings <g>, no signs of road chips, no scratches that I noticed, no paint swirls. The exterior had been detailed well. From the records, they sent the car out for detailing. The inside of the car looked great. There were some loose spots and fold marks on the leather (if that's the correct ter), but none of the creasing and wrinkling you'd see, particularly around the seat bolsters, when the leather has dried out.

Edit: over the last couple of days (as I've come to know it better), I've noticed some worn places on the leather, particularly on the center armrest, and I've noticed some paint swirls and micro-scratching.

Naturally, there was a complete set of manuals, 2 keys with fobs, first aid kit, tool kit. Even the two (flash light?) batteries, probably original, where in the trunk in their place.

To be continued....

Gbp

After looking at the car, a salesman and I took it for a test drive, on a variety of surfaces and att different speeds, from local streets and roads to the freeway. The ride was somewhat firmer and road noise slightly more prevalent than in other LS460's I've test-driven. I didn't notice this until yesterday, but the tires are Bridgestone DriveGuard's, a run-flat tire. That might account for the slight differences in ride and road noise. My next set of tires won't be run-flats.

TBC...

roadfrog

Guaranteed that the run-flats are the cause. It's a common complaint among BMW owners. Switching to a regular tire will make a difference.

SW17LS

I'm sure its the tires. Tires make a BIG impact on how this car rides.

My LS has 300 miles on it and I'm considering replacing the OEM Bridgestones because they're not a very good tire. If I were you I would replace the tires with a set of these:

http://www.tirerack.com/tires/tires....utoModClar=AWD

Those are the tires I'm planning on getting. I'd do it now if I were you, no reason to suffer through the car not riding the way it should.

roadfrog

That's a good choice. Great reviews. Might give 'em a try next time.

Gbp

Thanks for the tire recommendation!

To conclude my purchase experience, after the test drive, I went to the finance department. Since this was a cash purchase, i didn't want my credit reports run, which would have generated one or more hard credit inquiries.

(When negotiating payment terms with the pre-owned sales manager and asked if he could take a personal check, he asked what kind of credit I had -- I guess this would ease his comfort level with accepting a personal check, and I replied it was excellent, supporting it by emailing my credit reports and FAKO scores from a credit monitoring product I use. The manager accepted this and said I could put $5K on my credit card if I liked.)

The finance manager did a low-key sell on the paint and fabric protection (I deferred that decision and am looking for opinions on whether it's worthwhile), a 3m wrap package to protect the front bumper, hood, side mirrors, door handle areas (I deferred this so I could compare pricing), and extending the CPO warranty by 1, 2, or 3 years, at the current 100K miles or bumping it to 125K miles.

Although I could have and arguably should have deferred my decision on the extension to ensure their pricing was the best -- as you know, Lexus changed its policy, removing the restriction to buy a CPO extension at the time of purchase; one can now do so at any time before the original CPO warranty expires -- I purchased a 2-year extension, retaining the 100K miles, for about $1600. The finance manager allowed me to put $10K on my credit card instead of just $5K. More hotel reward points! I wrote out a personal check for the remainder, and since this was past their Friday cut-off time, the check wouldn't get processed until Monday.

I then spent about an hour with the product specialist, going over the features of the car, front seats to back seats. We also set my coverage area for the maps, and uploaded my mobile phone's address book to the car, and set my home destination. Even with the tutorial, I'll need some time before becoming familiar with everything! This car is much more technologically advanced than our other car.

While going over the car, I noticed the door on the front console storage compartment (where the ashtray would be) wouldn't open upon pressing it. The car was whisked back to service, brought out again, and I tested the door. It worked intermittently. Back to service. This time, it took a bit longer. It turns out they had to remove the console to fix the hinge. Now, the door worked.

So in the late afternoon, I left the dealership with the car for my 175-mile drive home. All was well with the world.

enoch861

Congratulations on your new car! Sounds like you went over every inch of the car and made sure everything was up to snuff. Purchase experience sounds like it went smoothly also.
How was the drive home?

roadfrog

Ain't it exciting? Congrats.

Good choice on deferring the fabric and paint protection. I also would have deferred the 3M wrap as you did. In fact, I removed all of my wrap on my car (hood ). I didn't like the clouded look of it and prefer to polish out any bugs, scratches etc for a nice shiny finish. Others will disagree with me, but I prefer the pureness of paint. Besides, you will likely get a better deal from an independent shop if you do decide to go with it.

Looking forward to some pics!