Have bought two new Lexus. First in 2008 (es350) and a new one couple days ago (RC F). Dealership practices were the same. Sales guy 1 takes you for test drive, you decide you want it. You go back to the dealership. Sales guy 1 leaves you alone (Time out). Comes back and you offer a price--have another time out while he leaves you alone. This could go on for a while. Sales guy 1 makes a point about Lexus reliability and warranty. Finally decide on a price. Sales guy leaves again to get your new car prepped. Time out again. Finally you get fobbed off on a "Business or Financial manager (BFM)" which would make sense if I were financing, but this is a cash deal....never traded a car in, so there would likely be more time outs for those negotiations. Anyway, BFM says words to the effect that the car won't last so you need an extended warranty (don't forget that sales guy 1 was telling you how reliable the car is. Finally you have spent 5 hours (or more) and get to drive your new car home after signing about 40 different forms.

How many of you have had this same experience?

Did you know there is a better way? I bought a new Lincoln 2 years ago and never saw the inside of the showroom. Car was delivered and I signed the paperwork in my driveway. Only had to sign a couple state forms and one bill of sale.

Buying a new car at Lexus (2 different dealerships) is a whackjob waste of time. Nice cars though.

 

Did you know you can say NO to everything that is offered?

 

Of course. And I did say no to everything except the car. Still took those idiots 5 hours to take 100K dollars from me.

 

It’s never taken me 5 hrs to buy a car. Ever!!! Been buying them for decades.

 

Just saying what I experienced at TWO Lexus dealerships in CA and for comparison, how streamlined it is at Lincoln. YMMV

 

Got ya....just amazing that it took the dealer 5hrs to let you test drive the new car and then try to sell you and extended warranty in all that time.

 

I bought my Lexus from a Jeep dealership and my experience was pretty much the same. About 4 hours from agreeing to the purchase price to finally driving away. Ridiculous.

 

This is not unique to Lexus. This is what buying any car is like if you do it the traditional way like you did.

You can buy a Lexus the same way as it was with your Lincoln, just negotiate the deal with the internet sales department. If you walk into a Ford/Lincoln dealer and buy a car the traditional way, it’ll be just like your experience at Lexus.

 

If you don't have your deal finalized and negotiated before you show up to sign the paperwork, you are doing it wrong. Yes Carvana et al. are shaking up the industry, and dealers have changed their practices because of Covid, but the last time I didn't have a purchased pre-negotiated before coming in to the dealership was 2001. I used these tools called internet, email and phone calls.

 

Yup, just experienced the exact same thing you mentioned when we bought our 4Runner at a Toyota dealership last month. It was an all cash deal with a price negotiated ahead of time and they still went back and forth with keeping us waiting for the finance guy to be available. On the contrary, I bought my GSF earlier this year from a private seller and went through my credit union for financing and the entire process took 20 minutes. Hopefully, I am done with buying cars through dealerships.

 

Did you buy them in Canada? I don't remember if you got your new 4Runner in Ontario or New York State.

Here in the U.S., if one buys the traditional way, yes, with a test-drive, inspecting the vehicle, negotiating, business-office, forms, etc...can easily take 5 hours or more. A friend of my brother once haggled till midnight on a new Honda Civic get the price he wanted....no, I wasn't part of that deal LOL. But, particularly with the endless number of forms that are signed today in the Business Office, (and I mean endless) , often by electronic pens and screens these days, not regular paper and ink pens, that alone can take a long time.

 

It’s astonishing to me how long it takes to buy a car in the dealership.

 

You can do what you did with Lincoln with a Lexus dealer. I bought my LC at a dealer far away, over the phone and email/text, then they fedex'ed paperwork which i signed and returned in 15 minute turnaround, and had the car shipped to me.



No kidding... but it's all part of wearing down the buyer to end up agreeing to things they might not have done if the life force hadn't been drained out of them over all those hours.

 

dealerships aren't going away any time soon and the process will continue to suck. it's an adversarial system where they have all the tools and psychology (and lies) to extract maximum money out of consumers. it's pretty much torture for most people who end up just wanting it 'over' and many do agree to things they didn't really want (or don't check the paperwork carefully enough to see what was added without agreeing to). It just sucks.

I just went through 2 deals in the last year so i'm done for at least almost 3 years (1 is a lease).

 

Yup, this sounds exactly like each one of my new car experiences.

We needed a new car and this is one of the reasons why we just went ahead and ordered a Tesla so we don’t have to waste our time with any of that BS. It’s extremely outdated and unpleasant. Don’t have time for that.