'13 LS 460 vs '17 ES 350 HELP!!!
 

Looking at 2 cars here.

2013 LS 460 with 51,000 miles for $36,500 MRSP

or

2017 ES 350 Luxury pkg. with 2,340 miles for $37,500 MRSP

My current car is 2008 ES 350 with 198,500 miles. Still runs great and looks great!

My question is simple, if I'm gonna spend approx. $37,000, which way should I go??
any advice would be greatly appreciated!!

LS 460. Higher class of car.

If it was me, I would find, regardless of price, very little appeal in a car the size of an LS, in a car with lower mpg, etc., but, ultimately, only you can decide which car has more appeal to you. One financial advantage of the LS, though, is that it has already gone through its 3 or 4 years of greatest depreciation, and the ES still has those large depreciation years ahead of it.

That said, I'd suggest considering another option. Sedan sales, including those of the ES, are way down. With large factory incentives and with dealers offering very large discounts in an attempt to reduce their inventories, people on this board have reported buying brand new 2017 ES Luxury Package cars for prices that are right in the same range as the price that you are being offered for that used 2017 ES. Some are reporting paying even less than the price you are being offered for the used 2017, and, worst case, people are paying only slightly more for new Luxury Package ES than the price you are being offered for the used ES. Further, as we move toward the end of the summer and into the early fall, advertised and unadvertised incentives for the ES are likely to get bigger, and buyers should be able to purchase a new ES for even less than the excellent prices that people are being offered now.

Even though that used ES only has 2300 miles on it, if, for about the same money, I could buy a new one with 0 miles miles on the odometer, one with a full new car warranty, one that I knew had not been abused in any way, and one that I knew was in absolutely perfect condition, it would not be difficult for me to choose to go in that direction. Plus, at resale or trade-in time, a 1-owner car is always going to be worth at least a little more than a 2-owner car. An additional advantage of going with a new ES would be that you would have a greater choice of colors and options that you don't have with the used ES that the dealer is selling, and if I still was interested in the used ES, its price would have to be much lower than what you are being offered to make it a better choice than a new ES.

Good luck with your choice.

I'd go with the LS. For starters, it's the flagship. Check the VIN but most as I understand are built at Lexus best plant in Japan. It's goi g to be faster, bigger, and more comfortable. Lastly, I just read that '17 ES's are being recalled for a problem where the steering mechanism can fail.

The LS may well be the better choice for the OP, but 2 points should be noted related to what you have said.

First, the LS is now officially a "previous generation" car. That doesn't mean that it is a bad car, but it does mean that its appeal on the used car market will be depreciated, and its infotainment and safety technology is now 4-5 year old technology. That older technology may not be important to some, but, for others, it will be important.

Also, the 2017 ES recall only applies to a small fraction of 2017 ES vehicles. The recall applies only to about 8% of 2017 ES vehicles that have already been sold and to a much smaller percent of 2017 ES vehicles that have been built. Before buying a 2017 ES, new or used, the buyer can check to see if the recall applies to a particular ES by entering its VIN number here.

https://www.toyota.com/recall

One additional point for clarification. In their most recent tests of each, C&D recorded a 5.8 second 0-60 time inan ES350 and 6.0 secon#s in an LS AWD. Granted they do drive differently.

Picking up a brand new 2017 ES 350 Luxury Package (MSRP $46,363) with 9 miles on it for $37,990 this Friday. I'm with Lesz, I'd go brand new for those prices.

Depends on your automotive needs; the LS is my choice as it is across all aspects (interior quality, ride quality, powertrain superiority, arguably even reliability) better than the entry-level (but respectable) ES. If this is your daily driver and you drive 40 miles one way daily, the ES would be the way to go with regular gas and better mpg in the long haul financially.

That said, the LS is the better car, plain and simple.

Fair enough. I'm a Lexus fan, so you cant go wrong with either really IMO. Biggest thing for me anyhow is that the LS is made in the Tahara plant. That is the most advanced car manufacturing plant in the world. Check it out. The workers at that plant operate under the tightest manufacturing standards of anywhere. The place looks like a surgery ward, it's that clean.

i like the 2017.

Congrats! I'm glad that things worked out!

So questions to ask....

1. How long are you going to keep the car?
2. How many miles a year do you drive?
3. How tight are your finances, can you handle a somewhat costly repair?

First off, the LS is the better car. It rides better, its more substantial feeling, its quieter and more refined, interior is nicer, paint is nicer, its just better...which it should be considering new it was twice as expensive as the ES. BUT, theres another side to that. They are extremely reliable, but everything costs more. They have 8 control arms in the suspension. If it has air suspension thats $1,000 per corner to repair, and they do fail, and before 100k miles. Power door closers, power trunk closer, is it AWD?, auto folding mirrors, lots of potential points of more costly failure than on the ES. You're 4 years into its life. Is the LS certified?

Lexus dealers charge more to service the LS. It holds 10 quarts of synthetic oil, the ES holds what like 5? Thats $75 just for the oil to change the oil. It has two engine air filters, etc

So, its not as simple as "they're both $37,000". The LS was once an $80,000+ car, and that engineering costs more to maintain...how tolerant are you to that reality in exchange for the benefits of the better car?

So thats really the question. If you tell me you're going to put 20k miles a year on it, bear in mind that in 2 years it will have 91,000 miles on it, the ES will have 43,000 miles on it and still be under the factory bumper to bumper warranty.

In addition to those higher maintenance costs that come with the LS, there likely will also be a couple of other additional costs with the LS in the short term.

If the LS has 51,000 miles on it, it is likely on its 2nd set of tires, and it could be as much as half way or more through the tread life of those tires. Similarly, it is likely that it is more than half way through the usable life of its brake pads. So, if the brakes and tires need to be replaced within, say, a year, that is like adding $1500-2000 to the initial cost of the LS.

Also, if the LS has 51,000 miles on the odometer. that means that it will be reaching the 60,000 mile recommended maintenance level relatively soon. I'm not familiar with the LS maintenance schedule, but, if it is similar to that for most other Lexus vehicles, the 60,000 maintenance will be more expensive than most other service intervals. So, that should also be factored into the cost of the car compared to that of an ES with 2000 miles on the odometer.

I'm assuming that the LS is a CPO vehicle. Many make the mistake of thinking of CPO cars as being "almost like new". That is not necessarily the case. For the 161 point CPO inspection, most of the items that are checked are things that any one of us could check in less than an hour. The list includes things like making sure that the car can start, checking to see that all of the light bulbs work, checking to see that all of the power windows work, etc. For the checks on normal wear-and-tear items, like tires, brakes, batteries, etc., if those items have as little as 1/3 of their useful life left, they will meet CPO minimum standards, and that means that the buyers of those CPO vehicles often will end up having to spend money on those wear-and-tear items within a relatively short period of time after they buy the car.

If its CPO it likely has new tires and brakes, at least front brakes. In any event, I just replaced my tires and replaced my front brakes a while back. Tires were about $900 mounted and balanced, front brakes parts and labor were about $350 at my independent shop, and that was with new rotors. So, $1,250 total there, perhaps $1,600 if it also needs rear brakes.

This is true, and the scheduled package services at a Lexus dealer are more for the LS than the ES. I'd find a good independent dealer for sure. 60k service on the LS460 includes spark plugs.