PhillyPhan

Well I guess technically my wife is the new owner since it's her car, but I love it. First off thanks to everyone for their insight and offering up their experiences to everyone on this forum. I think I would've spent $3-$4k more on my purchase if it wasn't for all of you. This is the 6th or 7th brand new car I've purchased and after the first two all of the rest have been through email and email only. After I know what vehicle I'm after I will never step foot on a dealership property. All negotiating is done through email and if they won't agree to communicate that way I scratch them off the list of dealerships I talk to. The only time I step foot on the property is when everything is finalized and I'm there to just sign paperwork, go over the features and drive off.

My wife and I were strictly looking for a white with black interior luxury package ES350. My wife hated the panoramic roof and I wasn't a fan of the 18" wheels so the UL was not an option. The premium package was an absolute no as we didn't like the nuluxe seats. I went to every dealers website in Arizona and submitted a request online for a white ES350. Unfortunately there were none in Arizona and if the colors were right they only had the premium package. I was offered several prices with them getting the car with our options and configuration, but we had to pay for shipping here which according to them was $1000. After reading several threads from members I decided to look into dealers in other states. I ended up finding the car with our exact configuration/options at several dealerships in Texas, so I sent inquiries through their websites and started working on numbers. MSRP was $45,954 on the build we wanted. I'd get one down to $41k. Then another down to $40k. Back and forth I went between three dealerships. Finally it came down to Sewell Dallas offering me the best deal at 18% off MSRP with a sale price of $37,990. It was $38,240 after some small fees for Texas, but I already saw that factored in the priced sheet she had emailed me. I also wanted the rear spoiler so they added that for free. The sales lady I worked with was awesome. She had everything laid out for me and after I was comfortable with the offer I gave her a call and verified the deal. Before we flew out this past Friday to pick the car up she was texting me and making sure I had everything I needed and even sent me pics of the car after they installed the spoiler. They sent a driver to pick us up at the airport. When we got there we spent about 30 min going over all the features of the car and they made sure my wife knew everything she needed to know about the car. When we got to signing the paperwork it took us no more than 10 min. There was no pressure to sign extended warrantys or maintenance plans. Everyone at the dealership was nothing but nice and professional.

We started the drive back home to Mesa, AZ and I don't know if I've ever felt a 15 hour drive feel so comfortable. The car is just awesome. We broke the car in a little easy. Probably not like we should've, but we didn't go over 65mph until we hit 500 miles. Then we varied our speeds between 65 and 80. Hand calculated MPG for the trip was as follows and in order. 29.18, 32.07, 29.84, 29.53, 30.7. The car calculations were pretty accurate most of the time and only varied by as high as 1mpg.

Loading a couple of pics, but I'll get some better ones when the tint is installed this weekend. Before I forget the car only had 6 miles on it when we picked it up. I think what helped us with our deal was that they had a total of 13 of these exact ones on their lot. I probably could've got a better deal if I waited a little bit more, but we just sold my wifes car and I was comfortable with the price we got. My goal was 18% and we got it.

gmanusmc

Great job! I know how hard you worked on this. All the effort paid off with a great deal and a beautiful car.

Congrats and enjoy your new ES!!

Lexusel

Congrats! Did any AZ dealers come close to this deal?

Mike728

Congrats on the new ES!!!

jollick

Congratulations!

bc6152

Though you didn't go to the dealer showrooms you did some fancy dealing anyway. Shows that it can be done without the added stress.

Good job and GOOD LUCK with the new wheels!

Fillykonk

From one "Phillyphan" to another, congrats! Your ES is very similarly equipped to my 2014 according to MSRP. It's even the same color combination but your hard work paid off in getting a much better deal. Enjoy your new ride!

PhillyPhan

All the dealers in Arizona seem to carry were Premium package cars decked out with options that took the MSRP close to $46k. When I went to the Lexus website and built the car we wanted the MSRP was close to if not cheaper than what the AZ dealers Premium package cars. I got one dealer here, Lexus of Chandler, that was willing to sale one at $39,330. That was the price before finding the one we were looking for and having it shipped here which according to him would've added another $1000 to the price.

PhillyPhan

Exactly! This car purchase has actually been a year in the making really. Last year my wife was sold on getting a Cadillac CTS, so I got online and looked at comparable vehicles and told her lets go down to all these dealers and test drive each one. All we have to do is go to the dealer and when we get there tell them today we're visiting a bunch of different dealerships to test drive specific vehicles. I was shocked that we didn't get any pressure for the sales people. We test drove the car, thanked them for their time and moved on to the next dealership. The order of cars my wife liked before test driving were the Cadillac CTS, Infinity Q50, Acura TLX and the the Lexus ES 350. After test driving her list completely changed. ES 350, Acura TLX, Infinity, CTS. Amazing what happens when you actually get behind the wheel. The CTS was horrible. So she decided she wanted the ES 350, but I wasn't able to find the one we wanted last year. Never thinking to go outside of the state.

Gekko

Congrats! why didn't the wife like the panoramic roof? what's not to like?

tnpats5

What turned her off about the CTS? Why did she think it was horrible?

PhillyPhan

It just wasn't very comfortable and the back window was very hard to see out of for her, but mainly the comfort level wasn't even close to the Lexus.

PhillyPhan

I think she was worried about there being more heat coming from the roof since we live in AZ and she also didn't like the roof basically being black and taking the white away that she loves so much.

morgan1819

Nice choice. ( I also own a Starfire Pearl with light gray perforated leather seating). Should be a great car for your household.

GoHuskers

Congrats on a nice ES. Your hard works turned out to be very rewarding.

A compliment: You're one of a few Vietnamese I know that write "perfect" English. I enjoyed reading your post.