Hello to all my new friends who helped me so much the past few days. This forum is wonderful. It was no small task to decide what to buy. Finally my wife and I decided that the IS350 would be just the perfect car for us. Problem? Not one available here in CA equipped the way we wanted it. I found a dealer who was very happy to work with me and yesterday was the day. 90 to 120 days from now (all things going well we hope) and we will have an IS350 in crystal white/sterling with LT, NV/ML, PCS, parking assist and the all important headlamp washers. Although we are in our early 60's and it seems that we are not in the IS target market we are sure we will be happy with this car.

Thanks again Club Lexus.

 

Wow congrats on your order. Welcome to CL and please do let us know when your new IS350 arrives!

 

Congratulations on your purchase!

Please elaborate on your experience -- I think there are a lot of people who are curious and interested in making special orders. Your input would be very valuable to many in this community.

 

Congrats!!! You are helping the rest of us lower the insurance rates on the IS you know.

You are the first one on CL to get a truly fully loaded IS, at nearly $48k right? Congrats again!

 

Congrats!! I hope you enjoy the car.

I guess I'll be the first to say this. We want pics when it arrives!!

 

I'll do the best I can to share my experience without writing an epistle so long one might lose interest. We came very close a few months ago to buying an '06 GS430. For many reasons we just couldn't quite "do the deal". Although we wanted a new car we didn't need one. So.....we did nothing. Then, along comes the all new '06 IS and bang, that was the one for us. We saw it first at a new car auto show we loved it.

Last weekend we went to 3 dealers to look at the car in whatever colors/interiors they had. I drove a 350 and that was the clincher. Had to have the 350. I knew that I wanted the Mark Levinson system and really wanted PCS as well. Call me what you want, I want my car as well equipped as possible. (also, the Lexus web site did a pretty good job of selling this old man on that feature) Oh yeah, we both would buy it with a manual trans too if that was a possibility. Any way the sales reps I talked to knew enough to know that ML system is "not being made" and "why would I want it anyway?" I mean "listen to this standard system, isn't it wonderful?" It was pretty good to this old man's ears but I want the up-grade. Also, PCS is basically an option that no one wants, is not being made and is not "worth it". I had one salesman tell me that in the past year not one GS that has come through his dealership has had PCS. That fact apparently was supposed to make me not want that option. (didn't work) All in all I heard some pretty inane comments from the sales reps. 'Course I understand, they wanted us to buy a car off their lot right then and there.

This past Monday, I called the Lexus dealer closest to me and after some visiting he and I got on the same page. He too told me no ML. I told him about the IS350 sitting in Omaha that was almost what we wanted. (it had ML) He finally agreed that I could more than likely get exactly what I wanted but that there would be a wait. He checked with the Lexus area rep and called me back yesterday and said that if I came down to his dealership fast he could get the order in by noon and the wheels would start to turn. I went there fast and we wrote up the order. I gave him a deposit and left with a smile on my face. He called yesterday afternoon and confirmed that the order was in!! How very nice to have someone who heard me and wanted me happy.

Hope this wasn't too long. I'm very new at all this. That is, posting on a forum. I'm sort of a techno peasant. But....I'll learn.

 

I'm with you. I wanted all the features available, including PCS. I think Lexus is going to learn a lot from all the people that have been forced to order their IS, because they obviously didn't learn anything from the so-called focus groups.

For every car that is special ordered, hopefully they'll make a few copies at the same time, because it's pretty likely there will be someone else wanting that same config somewhere out there.

 

Thank you for the story

I also special ordered mine yesterday... 350 sport pacakge and ML

Lets see who gets it first... hehe

 

Yeah, it's sad that Lexus touts this "advanced" PCS/ACC feature so much on their website and in their PRs yet their salespeople are forced to try to convince their customers that "it's not worth it".

I sure hope they'll learn from this after seeing the number of custom orders made.

 

Welcome to CL and congrats