About To Join the Club - Sanity Check
 

Hey Guys!

I'm looking to dump my Lincoln and join club. I'm hoping to get a bit of a sanity check and some advice.

I've been in the market for a 2014 (maybe 13) GS 350 F Sport with the AWD and the cold weather package for under 25k.

I've looked at a handful locally with 70k+ miles. I'm in the northeast so they all have started to develop pretty good surface rust on the underside. Price has been between 18.5 and 21.

I found a 2014 today in Ultra White on black (Not my first choice) with 49k miles. Went and looked it. From what I can tell it's in overall great shape. They're trying to get 25k for it and won't budge.

It's at a small luxury car dealer.

Issues:
Rear strut is blown out and leaked everywhere (Dealer agreed to fix)
Front brakes are smoked (Dealer agreed to fix)
Front bumper has 6 inches of horizontal gouges like it scraped a wall. Not super noticeable but will bug me
Bottom of the driver door panel has a few small rips
Has non color matched door edge guards (These are my OCD more than anything)

It was a lease until 2016. It was then sold as a CPO with 12k miles.

It has been serviced at the original dealer right along. Most recent was the 45k Mile service.

Looks like the powertrain warranty is still active.

Overall it seems like a decent car but I feel like the price is a bit high. Am I crazy? It's less than NADA but high when compared to similar cars I've seen on the east coast.

Is there anything else I should look at on it? I know my way around vehicles so I hit all the obvious stuff. I'm wondering about things that might be specific to this model.

Sounds like my have more dislikes than likes. I’d pass. I’d double pass if they saw those issues and didn’t fix them before putting them up for sale.

Keep looking. Cargurus, autotrader, cars.com, carmax. There are so many out there right now.

Hard pass given pricing and noticeable issues mentioned, even the cosmetic ones. What kind of repair will be done on the mentioned items? You know they'll be sending to their local garage that does volume work for them..

Thanks for the input guys. I'll probably pass it up.

The difficulty is there are zero locally. This one is a 3 hour drive so I was able to physically check it out.

There's a bunch on the east coast that hit all the right marks (AWD, Cold Weather, BSM), but it means buying sight unseen which worries me.

All the ones I've physically looked at so far look great in pictures but have issues you can't see in pics.

The northeast community in the regional subforums is one of the more active (NELOC). you could post there and see if a member is willing to check it out in person for you.

For what it's worth, I test drove many here in Dallas to get the feel for the car, but bought mine sight unseen from the internet and had it delivered. It's a CPO from another Lexus dealer across the country, so I know it's a good deal. If you can find the car you're looking from from a Lexus dealer (even if it isn't CPO), you're going to be fine.

I think one of the areas you may be getting hung up is personally driving the car. When you're searching for absolute price, you're searching independent dealers. This is usually a mistake. This is where a physical drive and inspection are necessary. If you're willing to spend a touch more, you'll get more peace of mind by getting the car from a large dealership (preferably Lexus, BMW, Merc, Audi) because they normally have reputations to rely on. I know I can buy any car from a Sewell (Texas) dealership and trust it is good to go.

I thought about buying my car from an independent dealer until I realized how little they actually knew about the car, and how little they cared. That, by itself, was all I had to realize.

If this is the car your looking at I checked the service history and whoever had this hit all the wheels and had ding repair and a couple of other red flags. I would honestly keep looking. If you really want it tell them $22K if not just walk out.

https://www.cars.com/vehicledetail/d...9961/overview/

That is the car.

Where'd you get that info? Am I able to call any Lexus dealer with the VIN and get service history?

I appreciate you checking on that.

So Lexus offers a service history on http://www.lexusdrivers.com for every owner. Allows us to see what was performed on the vehicle.

You can make an account on Lexus' website and check the VIN there.

That's super helpful, I had no idea.

The history on that car doesn't seem too bad. It comes off as well maintained to me.

I had actually noted the rims because they looked to be in near perfect shape. The others I had seem were pretty beat

I'm going to toss them an offer of 22k and leave it at that. Keep up my hunting.

Definitely pass on it. If it helps you, I found a 2015 F Sport with 37k miles on Black on Black in flawless condition for $26k from Carmax. After said and done, it was around 27.2k out the door. 1 Owner and that was a corporate car.

That car sounds like a dumpster fire I would run away, fast.

-Mike

I would pass on that, too many issues. Sounds like it was abused. I think you could find something in much better shape around that price range.