Preowned vs L Certified
 

Other than the extended warranty from Lexus, what is the benefit to buy L Certified instead of Lexus Pre owned? I can buy an extended warranty myself. What other benefits/assurances do you get with L Certified?

"Peace of mind" lol I guess the 161 point inspection

I agree with Albo. PEACE OF MIND. When I purchased my L/Certified, it was about a $2.5K difference in price to a regular used one. L/Certified also gives you some free vehicle maintenance services and extended bumper-to-bumper coverage.

If I were buying a used car I'd save the $2500.- $3000. extra charged for a certified car and simply have the used car checked out by my favorite independent mechanic. IMO with these cars an extended warranty isn't necessary, especially at an extra cost that's charged for the certification. Plenty of very nice cars out there that aren't certified.

^^^This

FYI, be aware that some dealerships will sell you an L-certified that's had previous crash damage and not tell you about it... https://www.clublexus.com/forums/mai...ged-car-2.html

I am a strong believer that some of the worst car buys are one and two year old CPO vehicles. Since there are many people who believe that they are buying an "almost new" car at a price much lower than that of a new car, demand for those 1 and 2 year old CPO vehicles is high. Also, though, since not many one or two year old cars have yet come back to dealers as lease returns or trade-ins, the supply of those 1 and 2 year old cars is low. The combination of high demand and low supply leads to inflated prices.

And the dealers tend, for the most part, to hold to those inflated prices because they know that many buyers have no idea just how much discounting is available on new cars. Because many buyers don't realize that they could buy a brand new car for not much more than a 1 or 2 year old CPO vehicle, the dealers know that someone will eventually come along and pay the inflated asking prices for those CPO vehicles. When I bought my 2017 UL ES right at the beginning of the model year, the same dealer was selling 2 similarly equipped 2016 UL CPO ESs, and the asking prices for those two cars were virtually identical to what I paid for my brand new 2017 UL ES. And, yes, the dealer was able to sell both of those cars to less than savvy buyers for within a couple of hundred dollars of those inflated asking prices.

Further, since a CPO warranty is not transferable, the $2500 or so premium that you are paying for the CPO warranty will mean that, when it is time to trade-in or sell the CPO vehicle, it won't be worth any more than a similar non-CPO vehicle.

Also, the 161 point CPO inspection is not as impressive as it might at first seem. Most of those 161 points are things that any of us could easily check on our own in less than an hour. Most of the 161 items are things like making sure that the car starts, that the lights all work, that the door locks work, etc. Even with things like brake pads and tires, a car will meet CPO minimum requirements if it has tires with as little as 1/3 of their usable tread left and brakes with as little as 1/3 of their useful life left, which could mean that, after only a few months, a CPO buyer could be spending $1500 or more for new tires and brakes.

Also, even cars that have had collision damage can qualify as CPO vehicles. On the various CL boards, threads are periodically started by people who bought a CPO vehicle and who later discovered that the car had had collision damage and that the repairs were done in a sub-standard manner. Others have reported buying CPO vehicles whose bumpers were refinished to fix minor cosmetic damage, but the refinishing was done in a quick manner that lacked quality.

The bottom line is that, while people think of a CPO vehicle as being an "almost new" vehicle, that is not necessarily the case. As an alternative, I would look for a non-CPO vehicle and have it checked out by a qualified mechanic. And, if I did consider buying a CPO vehicle, it would be one that was in the 3-4 year old range because there is higher supply and lower demand for those vehicles than there is for the 1-2 year old CPO vehicles, which allows for better pricing for the buyers.

this is me the stupid :( as lesz may know from my old posts..... and my CPO was full of undisclosed issues and one of them a pretty clear front bumper panel gap that made it through their certified 161 point inspection! go figure haha (though mechanically theres been absolutely nothing wrong so far).

but for me i think it ended up being kinda worth it, dragging on with the bumper issue, i was in a new loaner for nearly 6 or more months and the car is now completely re-done where i'd say im about 90% satisfied. had it been a pre-owned, none of that could have been remediated and i'd have been s*** out of luck. They really take care of you when you buy that CPO and if it has any issues.

of course not all CPOs are created equal, but dealing with used cars just not knowing what the crap could be up with it, and if its a L-certified, I'm now pretty confident that you'll at least get your money's worth at the minimum.

However, if you had checked the car over carefully, or even better had it checked by a qualified mechanic, you probably wouldn't have bought the car in the first place. Therefore you wouldn't have needed any extended warranty... The dealer shouldn't have even sold the car in that condition. ESPECIALLY being certified... And even now you're only 90% satisfied...

precisely. hence me, the stupid :(
but because i know there are more stupids like me out there (maybe not....that'd be seriously depressing), CPOs can be worth it....

but its been quite some experience, being in like 6 different cars evey other week etc. people that dont know me well nor familiar with loaner programs think i have a garage full of new, different lexuses

You can rest assured that you aren't the only one. If you pay visits to the other Lexus model forums at CL, you will find, every month or two, one or more people on most of the boards who post saying that they had an experience similar to yours. And that is the point. Many assume that a CPO vehicle has been carefully checked out, that it has never had any paint or collision repair work done, that all systems and components on the car work like new, etc. And that is simply not the case. Unfortunately, some have reported that, when they did become aware of problems similar to what you have reported, their dealers were not as cooperative in making things right.

Most shops will look over a car for a minimal fee. You just need to ask the current owner of it's ok if you take it to a shop to get looked over. There are also several decent videos on YouTube on what to look for when buying a used car.

I've already started noticing that the L/certified 161 point inspection they did on my car either wasn't very thourough, or that some specific points aren't included in the 161 points. Granted, I haven't looked at exactly which specific points are actually checked out in this 161 point inspection. But on my car for example, I'm missing the insulating "floor" for the front interior door handle grab in the arm rest (I e-mailed them about it, but never got a response). And also I believe the driver's side door seal rubber is slightly deformed -allowing for some very minor wind noise at highway speeds. Also, I had 3 specific scratches that weren't addressed initially. 1 was actually very noticeable & deep, which they just smothered some touch-up paint on. Another they polished out. And the third one they forgot about -but they sent me a small bottle of touch-up paint for it though.

I honestly expected a little more attention to detail in a CPO Lexus vehicle, but I'm still happy overall. Not sure if I'll go CPO again though.