^^ Late Dec 2021 is when the 1st batch started arriving to USA. That is when there were the "Flippers" some folks actually re-sold for more $$$t. The day I took delivery Jan 2022 according to my dealer my Launch Edition car the 1st IS500 sold in Michigan.

 

Most dealerships are ridiculous on any given day; but back in 2022/2023, it was crazy pants. I had 3 deposits around the Atlanta metro and prepared myself for battle once the car came in. Luckily I found one at MSRP and no add-ons out of State. I don’t ever want to go through that again! 😂

 

Here in Honolulu MSRP was easy to find but they would try to get you on the trade-in. Their initial offer on my 20' NX300h was half what it was worth. It was a very painful experience to get it bumped up to a fair value. I expect and see as the OP posted that it'll be the same battle if I tried to trade in the IS500. Hopefully I don't get the new car fever any time soon!

 

I remember seeing used IS500's on autotrader for $75,000, and there weren't many for sale nationwide back in 2022.

I think its kind of in bad taste for them to give you a cash offer for your car when you never asked for one, and lowball at that. Are they just shooting low ball offers at every car that comes in knowing that one every now and then will stick? Just not the dealer experience I'd expect from Lexus.

All the more reason to buy your car and keep it for the long term. There were already big losses on cars from depreciation but now the transaction costs have gone up a lot too. Private party sales is risky business and the dealers know that, they're basically charging a service fee to deal with all the crap nobody wants to when selling private party.

 

Pretty much my opinion as well. And despite me telling them NOT to follow up in any way, that we WILL NOT consider their deal, they called my wife this morning anyway following up on the offer. She let it go to voicemail and won't bother to respond.

And yes, while I was sitting in the waiting room, they went up to at least 3-4 other people with "offers" for their cars. My sense is that they are doing this for any nice/decent condition/valuable car that enters their service bay doors. Poor taste, indeed. I'm actually tempted to send dealership management an email saying so.

 

My dealer in NC searched the country for the RC F as I spec'd, found one of three located in FL, and paid the freight to bring it in. They probably did some horse trading on inventory.

 

[QUOTE=gerryvz;11844927]Pretty much my opinion as well. And despite me telling them NOT to follow up in any way, that we WILL NOT consider their deal, they called my wife this morning anyway following up on the offer. She let it go to voicemail and won't bother to respond.

And yes, while I was sitting in the waiting room, they went up to at least 3-4 other people with "offers" for their cars. My sense is that they are doing this for any nice/decent condition/valuable car that enters their service bay doors. Poor taste, indeed. I'm actually tempted to send dealership management an email saying so.[/QUOTE

My wife and I purchased cars from that dealership 2020 RX350 and 2023 IS500. She did received calls from them about trading in her RX, our answer was big NO, I have not heard from them yet. Probably because I have not taken it back, I do my own oil changes / maintenance... I guess this is their practice how to get nice cars for low money.
Annapolis area has a lot of people with money who change vehicles often so obviously this strategy is working for them, since they keep on doing it. I absolutely dislike this action of theirs but than again I understand, business is business...

 

It’s a sales scheme.
If you trade in your old car, you’ll need a new one, and hopefully you'll finance it, keeping you on the wheel.

They really don’t GAS about your car, it’s a computer that makes the offer just like Carvana or Carmax. It’s not a personal transaction for them, so don’t make it one for you. Easy to say, but hard to do.

 

I agree and disagree... If they put their hands on clean low mile car which they will have to invest minimum like state inspection and wash, then turn around and sell it for $10K more, trust me they will jump on it in a heartbeat. This is win win situation for them...

 

I wouldn't have an issue if there was a personal touch involved. Like, for example, the dealership sales lady from whom we purchased our 2024 LX600 this past May, calling us and saying "Hey, I saw you had your 2023 IS500 in for service last week, would you consider selling it to us / trading in on a newer one" etc.

Heck, we received MULTIPLE phone calls during the pandemic from Lexus Annapolis pretty much begging us to sell them our 2017 IS350, and they were quoting prices that were damn close to what we paid for it (and the car had around 60K miles on it, carefully maintained). So I get that, and have zero issue with talking to your former/current customers and checking to see if they are interested to buy/trade/sell. But at least a phone call is a personal touch, and especially so if it is someone you've dealt with before at the dealership.

But what happened, is that a random sales assistant brought out a literal sheaf of "offer letters" in her hand, and started walking around the waiting room, person to person, handing them out to the respective vehicle owners getting their cars serviced.

It felt like they eyed up our IS500, saw that it was a) in splendid condition, b) relatively low miles, and c) completely loaded in a good color combo (Cloudburst over red), did a quick "visual inspection" inside and outside of the car, and then had their computer spit out the "offer letter" I posted. It was just IMHO pretty impersonal, and as said above, I believe unbecoming of the customer experience that one should have in a Lexus dealership. Why not a personal call a few days later?

And you can bet if they offered $49.3K for it, they'd be marketing it at $8-10K more than that, with an hour's mechanical inspection and a wash/detail. Pure profit.

 

Actually, I have more respect for the impersonal touch. I used to live in NC for about 25 years and dealt with a Chevy/Volvo/ Lincoln dealer for a succession of sedans, SUVs, trucks, and a Corvette...only some of which were purchased there. All were serviced there. Twice a year, like clockwork, I was contacted by someone in the sales back office about selling/trading. I concluded it was a part of their sales operation to get info from the service department, as leads, and contact customers. I expected it, it happened, and it was over with quickly. The fact that it was never a surprise made it easy to accept and reject.