mikeo

I Just took delivery of a 2005 Amethyst SC430, It was a gift for my wife as she has loved this car since the day she first saw it. And I must admit, however painful it may be that I have never seen her this excited in our 20 years together. :-)

It has been impossible to get new product info on the 05, and it was a bit of a gamble to wait for the 05, mainly because of the lack of negotiating power (price) on an 05 vs. 04, but I can now confirm the following new features.

The 05 has Gen 4 Navigation, voice command and bluetooth. As far as the driving impressions go I don't have vast experieice driving the 04, so I can't really give an evalutation other than to say it is the nicest car I have ever driven, and although I have driven an 04, and would like to think that the 05 drives better, I just can't imagine the 05 being that much better than the 04.

I have read that there was supposed to be some suspension changes but I do not have anyway to confirm that rumor because I do not know what to look for in comparison to previous model years. Let me know if anybody wants me to confirm anything else about the 05.

Guitarman

Moving this to the SC forum.

Gojirra99

Congratulations !! Great color choice too

JCtx

Hey, congratulations on the new ride.
'Old' cars ride pretty harsh with the runflats. My '04 got 'better' Dunlop runflat tires, but any runflat tire HAS to be pretty stiff to begin with; otherwise how can they support over 4K lbs of weight??

Could you tell us what tires your car has? Look at both the brand and model, if you will. And until you drive an '04 or prior back to back with yours, you can't tell if the new shocks made a big difference. They can make a big difference, so hopefully that's the case with the new shocks. If you don't feel any harshness on the ride, that's your answer.

Good day.

mikeo

My car has the Bridgestone Potenza's RE040 (245/40Z/R18) I did notice however that another 05 had the Dunlop's. Ride quality is excellent, however, if past harshness was contributed to the Bridgestones then I would have to assume the new shocks may be helping. But again I do not know if the suspension has been upgraded. There is certainly no mention of this on the sticker or any other offical Lexus documents. I would think that Lexus would be touting any improvements in the car, but that does not seem to be the case.

frank901

I am currently shopping for an 05 and I'm in CA as well. I was wondering what kind of deal you received on yours, if you don't mind me asking.

I'm also thinking about using autospies car buying service to negotiate the best deal, did you spend much time cross-shopping other dealers?

Thanks
Frank

JCtx

Mine has the Dunlops. Honestly, as I said, no runflat tire is going to make a difference in ride; they all have to be super stiff. There was an issue with road noise as the first Bridgestone's wore, but I believe they were upgraded as well, so both choices should be about equal. I didn't like the tread depth on my Dunlops; I thought it was ridiculously shallow. I can see the wear indicators like if the tires had 30K miles. I wonder how long they'll last.

Finally, the only change in the '05 was the shocks, which you could call part of the suspension system, but nothing else changed. By your response, and the writing on a magazine, Lexus finally put decent shocks on this car. My ex-vette had better ride, and it's a sports car. Wish they had done that in '04, but I guess I can upgrade the shocks rather inexpensively. I just want to hear from somebody who has driven both, before plunking down the bucks.

Take care, and welcome to the family.

mikeo

After much shopping in the Southern Ca area (6 dealers), I was able to negotiate a price of $59,450. This was 4% over the dealers stated invoice of $57,163. You will notice a difference in the invoice price I quoted vs. what you find on the internet. There seems to be about an $800 per car mark up for what the dealers call "regional advertising" I think they are using it as away to pad their profit, but I can't prove wether it is BS or not. Either way for an 05 this early in the model year I think I made out pretty well...but it was not without a lot of shopping around. This of course was all made more difficult because I needed the Amethyst color and Lexus only made 4 of them in September for the Western Region . So if you were to pick another color you might be able to do a little better.

Good Luck, Hope this helps

ekovalsky

What a great gift for your wife!

I think the SC looks best in dark colors and the Amethyst is gorgeous. Be prepared to spend lots of time or money keeping it clean! Here in Arizona where it rarely rains, I can usually get away with one $75 detail per month for my black SC, plus daily wipings with a California duster.

What wheels did you get, by the way?

wonjoon

Good for you and your wife who got the money and rich.

mikeo

Unfortunately I got the ugly stock wheels. I was going to get the star center caps but they were too expensive for a slightly improved look. If I found them for cheap maybe I would do it. So now I need to start shopping for wheels. I am partial to the Wald's

Doc C

Sounds nice!!! It has voice command?? I thought they weren't going to put the voice commanded NAV system on the SC, since it's a convertible and the wind noise etc. would interfere with the driver's voice. Must have got it worked out!!! That's excellent. Congrats on your new ride!!

mikeo

Thanks, I haven't tried it with the top down, but even if it doesn't work. You still have it while the top is up.

XZLR8

Mikeo,

Did you get a Bluetooth phone to integrate to the system yet? I've been following the LS430 forums related to Bluetooth as I am looking at getting a LS Sport this fall. It appears the BT choices and functionality are limited. I was curious what your experience has been, or if you've tried it yet.

I have the Motorola V710 through Verizon. Great phone, but it doesn't sound like it's going to be a great Bluetooth solution with Lexus, unfortunately.

bt430

Each carrier implements BT a bit differently. I know Verizon has about crippled the BT functionality in the V710. The issue might not be the car’s BT but how the carrier has implemented BT on the phone itself.