Mcb345

I have a 2015 GS 350 F sport that I'm leasing for 3 years and my 1 year of free Enform expires in the next couple of weeks. I was curious if anyone has been able to negotiate a discount with Lexus (and if so how did you do that) or if anyone knows if you can just pay for remote start and no other Enform features?

From what I can tell on their website the only plan offered for the Enform Remote also included the Safety Connect plan, for $219.95 per year. Safety Connect alone is $139.95 and I have no desire to pay for that service.

Has anyone been able to just get the remote service or somehow weasel their way in to a discount, perhaps by paying for multiple years or just being overly friendly with a sales rep on the phone?

The remote gets used for about 2 months out of the year during cold days so I don't really think it's worth spend $438 for the next 2 years of my lease for the few months of remote starting that I'll use.

Side note - I saw in the NX forum someone mentioned perhaps the key fob remote starting procedure might continue to work (where you press lock 3x and hold for the 3rd time to remote start the car). Has anyone that let the Enform subscription lapse been able to continue to do this 3 click remote start on their key fob or will that cease to work?

mcomer

You seem to understand it perfectly, the SC is the connective mechanism for the LER to work. As you
correctly ascertained you do not have to pay the $125 extra for the Destination Assist portion to have
the Remote Starter features. Experience shows that the fob press will work for a bit longer after the
phone displays "inactive". Two or three weeks seems to be the norm.

Recall that the Safety Connect ($140 of the $220/yr.) get you the 3/4 watt phone when you carry a
1/3 watt phone plus the Stolen Vehicle tracker and better Road Side Assistance when your phone
is out of cell range or has a dead battery. Ford's Sync system just dials for help using your phone...

Mcb345

Is there noway to pay just the $80ish for the Remote Start feature of Enform alone? I likely already know the answer and assume Lexus wants to rope us in with the remote start and make us pay more for features we might not care much about in order to get the one feature we do care about...

As for Safety Connect - I live in downtown Chicago and with the exception of taking I-90 to Cleveland once or twice a year my car doesn't leave a 15 mile radius of downtown so the safety connect phone isn't something I see myself needing since I always have service and if I were to get in an accident there are usually dozens of people or cars nearby to place a phone call. As for the stolen vehicle tracker, if a thief steals my car that's my insurance company's issue at that ponit, perhaps they should have subsidized the whole cost of that system to begin with...

dchar

The car needs the Safety Connect subscription for a data connection to process the request from the Enform Remote app, so you're stuck with paying the $219.95/year.

The key fob starter feature works for a few weeks after your trial, and will stop working until you renew your subscription.

You should be getting a discount from your insurance for having Safety Connect. Some insurance require proof of an active service while others take your word for it. Make sure you're getting this discount, and it'll pay off part of it.

Mcb345

Not certain if I'm already getting a discount. "Anti-Theft Discount" is pretty vague and I'm fairly confident even my previous car had that discount even though it didn't have tracking abilities like the Lexus. I'll have to give my insurance company a call. Thanks for the heads up.

mcomer

Covered in many threads already but the LER was the Lexus answer to the old
Lexus Remote Engine Start (RES) for $500 upfront or RES+ for $1000.

RES was '80 fob start only and RES+ added a phone app for $8/month

You can spend $440 for the balance of your lease. How often to you valet park
in Chicago and want to monitor the drivers?

Mcb345

Not too concerned about the valet taking a joy ride but good point. Lexus needs to do a better job of informing customers what the free enform system entrails and what the paid sybstription gives you. I've had nothing mailed to me or emailed and it expires in 2 weeks. If I was to buy this car outright I'd be a little upset if I had to dish out $200+ per year for eternity for remote start... That will have to factor in to my decision about returning or buying the car after my lease.

djkidd

Has anyone tried calling Lexus directly and tried to negotiate out a lower price for the Lexus Enform Safety pack? If so, would you mind sharing what price you received and what exactly did you do to get that price?

mjeds

technically the service is provided by Sirius not by Lexus.

djkidd

If that's the case, negotiating should be easy, right? For radio, they're always willing to negotiate (sometimes to ridiculously good deals).

The email I received said:

Doesn't seem like I'd be calling Sirius. Have you tried that?

bclexus

You can easily get the SiriusXM Select (140+ Channels) package for $24.99 for 6 months. The SiriusXM sales reps will first offer you 5 months at $24.99, but when they're told that you are aware of the same price for 6 months they'll agree to that deal right away. After the small music royalty fee and sales taxes it comes to about $30, which is only $5 per month, which is not bad at all in my opinion...

The SiriusXM business model is different - it's much like a game of sorts. They treat their subscriptions like the service is a utility (electric, natural gas, etc.) with their auto-renewal requirement. The key is just before the subscription expires you MUST call and tell them you want to cancel, otherwise they will auto-renew at a much higher price. When you call to cancel you can easily renegotiate a new deal.

The key to always getting a good deal is to be absolutely sure to call and cancel your service a week or so before it is schedule to expire. When you call to cancel, just renegotiate a new low price deal - otherwise the agreement (* shown below) states that your service will automatically renew at the rates in effect at the time of renewal (which are much higher).

Click Here ► How to Get a Discount on Sirius XM Radio Subscription

*IMPORTANT INFORMATION: Your subscription service(s) will automatically renew on the date(s) above for additional periods of the same length as the Plan(s) shown above at the rates in effect at the time of renewal until you call us at 1-866-687-4213 to cancel.

mjeds

http://www.edmunds.com/car-buying/ho...criptions.html

yardie876

Lexus Enform and the Safety package are not provided by Sirius, but by Lexus. The real time traffic, weather, and stocks are provided by Sirius however.

mjeds

Connected Services are provided by Sirius, Safety Connect is operated by Sirius, while Lexus operates the customer service center the service is provided by Sirius, Sirius XM Connected Vehicle Services Inc. gives customers access to a suite of safety, security, and convenience services including automatic crash notification, enhanced roadside assistance, remote door unlock, remote start, stolen vehicle recovery assistance, turn-by-turn navigation, and more.

ENFORM is a Lexus product that is provided by Sirius, all the services are provided by Sirius, Toyota/Lexus merely operate the customer service center for their connected vehicles just like Infinity, BMW, Subaru, Jaguar etc. operate theirs.

http://investor.siriusxm.com/investo...s/default.aspx


press the SOS button on your car and ask, I have. They are Sirius employees that work in a department specific to the brand in which you are connecting from.

Afrosheen

Wait, didn't they switch to HDRadio data streams for traffic starting in '14 or '15? I thought XM/Sirius was no longer a requirement for those services.