I’m going to go real talk now:

The IS500 is a great car aside from these early manufacturing issues. But I think the culture at North America Lexus blows. Sorry. And I think that trickles down to areas in the service department and sales. Yeah there are good salespeople but there are also bad ones at Lexus. You know, the ones that play games, use sales cliches and pitches, Equally there are good techs but also bad ones. In Japan, I don’t think they’d let the bad ones slide. But they’re not here to hold Lexus North America’s hand. When you have an issue like this gasket, it’s serviced at the dealer and communication has to go upstream. I think not enough GOOD techs, managers, etc have escalated this issue. Furthermore, they have to get to the GOOD execs for them to get anyone in Japan to do something. Pretty much we are small scale to them, and we haven’t filtered through the crappy chain of communication yet.

 

I think you can also add. There are good Lexus dealerships and bad ones too. For example on my search for a second LE, Lexus of Orlando were one of the worst dealerships I reached out to. Totally different experience than I had even in west palm beach.

 

I think the inconvenience is being overblown. I've had to go twice, one of which was the normal 1600 km check-in. My CEL is very intermittent and seems to be absent more than it's present. It's annoying I suppose, but not so much that I don't enjoy the car or regret buying it.

 

^^^this

CEL or no CEL, I don’t regret my purchase.

 

Oh snap! Did you get yours at Lexus of Palm Beach? If so, I'm 99% sure that your car and my car came on the same truck and arrived together.

 

haha no I didn’t. I almost did. They were super great to me no markups MSRP etc and I was ready to fly in and buy. Lexus corp reached out at the same time and said they were sending me one to my local dealer. So I just had to be a little patient.

 

Ah shucks. We could've been truck brothers lmao. Did you struggle to get them down to MSRP? There were advertising them with a 20K ADM when I went.

 

So you would enjoy driving 8h to have a gasket replace knowing it could be done in advance, plus missing a day's worth of work and spending 200 in gas?

 

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I wouldn't enjoy it, but I'd do it for this car. I'd try to coordinate it with the 1600 km check-in service.

 

I'm glad you enjoy the car and it doesn't bother you much but the truth is you've lowered your standards (or they were already low). This is not what Lexus is about. You might even have the same sense of complacency I was pinning on the "bad" North American Lexus people. From what I've seen, the Japanese Lexus culture of otenamishi is pretty much non-existent at North American Lexus dealerships, and I bet it's that way because that's how it is at the exec level too.

 

That would be an option I guess, but I have my service done locally at a toyota dealer as it's just oil and filter but I could go to another lexus dealer. Still annoying that they couldnt just try and adjust and re torque the exhaust to try and reduce the likelihood of the error to come up, I have no patience for non logical decision or willingness to make some exceptions based on the circumstances

 

In a quick summary.
they said 20 and I said thank you but no thanks
they said 10 and I said I know someone will pay it but it just doesn’t make sense for me
they said 5 and I said again I know someone will pay it. The car is well worth it and I appreciate how hard they worked . my heart says yes but my brain says no.
then they said MSRP no add ons and by then lexus corp had reached out and I thanked them for all of their hard work and left them a 5 star review.

 

Wow impressive. When I spoke with the inventory manager back in November to ask her about my car, she was hard set on the IS500 commanding $20k and the RCF Fuji commanding $35k. So good on you for getting them down that low even if you ended up not getting it.

 

My particular dealership has been good.

I suppose I don't see the point in getting my panties in a bunch about something I cannot control. I don't own Lexus. I have no way to force them to do anything. I see little value in making my life stressful by trying to make Lexus change their corporate structuring or systems.

What am I going to do, write a letter talking about how frustrated I am? That's gonna do sweet nothing. Lexus knows about the issue because I've relayed my concerns to them already at the dealer level.

​​​​​Then I have to ask what I want out of this. Really, it's just for the CEL to be gone. My gaskets have been ordered. My problem is being addressed.

If you want to pick a larger fight with Lexus, knock yourself out. I don't because it's not going to make my life any better.

​​​​​If you thought this was lowering your standards, you wouldn't still have your car.
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Oh you're part is ordered and you're getting it fixed?

I thought you were ok driving with the CEL coming on every once in a while forever. That's what you made it sound like.