No need to get upset Rock. If I worked for Lexus and for a better dealership like the one you probably work for I would be mystified by our comments too. However, I find it concerning that you feel as though you may be even vaguely objective. You do work for Lexus which makes this kind of hard. BTW Lash Lexus in PA (the dealership that cut their losses with me and one of my colleagues) would be a nice place for you to work for a few weeks. It might give you some needed perspective and objectivity about this topic.

Again to avoid bashing and anger, I currently am very happy with my Lexus dealer in Mechanicsburg. Very professional. But batting only .333 isn't that great. The real problem is that they are 2 hours away. This is why I won't buy another Lexus, not because of 2 very poor dealership experiences and what you said (and I agree) are generally minor reliability issues.

This forum, and most like it suffer from people who work for the Large conglomerate in question writing in as if they are regular car owners. If I worked for Lexus I would not be objective either, but I might not try to give the impression that I was just like everyone else.

Nothing is black and white. Take these comments for what they are, and remember that I really do love my LS430, and Lexus as a company itself. Just a few very unfortunate dealership experiences. This does not make me the enemy Rock. It just points to areas where the company can VASTLY improve!

Fred

 

One additional point about Lexus sales volume. Yes they have overtaken Mercedes and BMW in luxury sales in this country, but there is some fine print to discuss.

Mainly, the US government actually defines a luxury car as costing more than $38,000. That is when the luxury tax chimes in. A large portion of the Lexus sales volume in the USA is with the ES330 which is well below this price. I think of that vehicle as very nice, but not in the luxury ranks of many other vehicles. The other giant seller is the RX330, which is over the govt. stated range and qualifies for the luxury mark, but not by much My guess is that Rockville could provide more accurate estimates of % sales these two vehicles make up than I could, but I would guess that 70-80% of their sales are from these two.

You can't compare this to Mercedes sales record, unless the vast majority of their sales are all C-class vehicles. Again, I do not have the numbers for Mercedes (I actually don't work for a major luxury auto maker ), but you would have to compare apples with apples, and not ES330 sales with E-class sales.

Mercedes used to be the luxury king until reliability and dealership problems began to hurt them. Lexus has the priviledged position to have Mercedes mistakes to learn from.






Just things to think about, not things to get upset about.

 

Luckily we haven't had the ill fated luxury tax to contend with for a number of years since it was fazed out. The E Class is a relative volume car for Mercedes. I happen to like the E350 also. I guess there are luxury cars and there are luxury brands. Lexus was formulated by Toyota to compete with the European Luxury brands here in the US and now more and more worldwide. Believe me everyone scoffed at Lexus when it first arrived. Mercedes ML350's are part of their sales volume and they are starting to look more and more like the RX series. Not surprisingly because the RX outsells everything else in the Lux market. I think that Lexus improved the way that Mercedes treated their customers. The surveys tell the story and the Gallup folks have tabulated the results. Lexus wins again. I just needed to point this out. You have differences with your local dealer, not your car or the brand. My tone can be somewhat sarcastic but I'm not upset. Quality issues are sadly tarnishing the Mercedes reputation that took a hundred years to build. Same goes for Bosch electronics...

Rock

 

You got it Rockville, just as Diesel11 and I (usermel) stated it's not just the problems with the car. We know no car on this earth not even a $300,000 Bentley is perfect. The treatment is at issue hear, I mean Darcars by far is the worst Lexus dealership, no dealership period I have ever went to. The Va Beach dealer was no were near Darcars as far as bad treatment. I only had 2 bad things happen to me their in 9 years( Va Beach Lexus). I know 1 is enough, but people have there good and bad days. Darcars is a very unethical dealership Rockville. I understand all dealers won't offer loaner pick-up's and other perks. We have 2 Benz dealers in our area and only one of those picks up. I guess its dealer choice. Mostly our issue is treatment. When you purchase a car it's your 2nd highest priced item you'll purchase outside of your home purchase. Unless you purchase or start a business it's 2nd on your list. People who pay for these luxury cars pay not only for quality but treatment. A Lexus is made buy Toyota, we can get quality with a Avalon or Camry, but don't for the reward of even better cars and service.This plays into most of our decisions. If most people at these dealers had you mindset Rockville, they would make a mint off customers like me. Treatment I think is always the most annoying complaint because it's about person to person contact and conversation. Let's be real who among us likes bad treatment. Even at Taco Bell we don't tolerate it. O.K that's a $4 dollar meal, were talking with Lexus a $35,000 to $75,000 car so you'd expect better from Lexus. Little did you know Taco Bells employees would treat you better! Lexus is becoming "Bad Santa". ( Movie with Billy Bob Thorton and the late John Ritter) People like you Rockville will keep it from failing. THANK YOU FOR UNDERSTANDING ME AND DIESEL11'S PROBLEMS. Are you a dealer ROCKVILLE? If so keep up that way of thinking we do tell others when we run into dealers or salesman like yourself! GOD IS GOOD ALL THE TIME, BE PATIENT YOUR TURN IS NEXT!

 

Diesel11 is right also about being objective. Your dealership I have never heard bad things about. Were most franchised companies run into problems is that in itself, FRANCHISED!!!!! Customers don't tend to separate one Burger King or Amoco Gas Station from another. Maybe some accountability like the NFL has with it's franchises is in order. Different owners but the same rules apply no one team coach or player is bigger than the league. The late great New York Giants owner Wellington Mara (think thats the last name spelling) said "The NFL is as strong as its weakest link". This is why Ron Artest in the NBA missed the remainder of the 2004 season. The league understood the fan is the supporter of us, we don't support the fan ( Fan was wrong for throwng the drink though). Lexus doesn't pay our bills we pay theirs, our business isn't a right that Lexus has, it's a privelage. Rockville, I understand were your coming from but it's that objectivenss that is why I think it's hard at these dealerships to discuss our concerns with you guy's.I'm not mad about what happened to me anymore. I'm dissappointed because I usta brag about Lexus being the tops of all luxury cars but now I can't say that. Rockville, Lexus seems to have forgotten that there success started with people like us who said we would try there product over the status symbols of success like BMW, Jaguar, Mercedes and Audi, all with names far more superior to Lexus when your company started, face it Benz is the Coca Cola of cars. Again I repeat product, if I sold hat's the customer would have purchased them in order for my company to grow. I owe not only the customer but the communities surrounding my place of business the respect I wan't them to give me. You know why? They made me rich with there dollars. People don't get rich buying there own cars. That being said, Lexus doesn't owe me a dime they came up with the concepts built the cars etc. I just wan't like all customers do, honesty and respect. Darcars behaves like a used car dealer with 4 cars on the lot . I respect you Rockville I wish you worked for me if I had a dealership . Your loyalty is respected and understood, take what I say with respect not with mean intent. Just being an honest customer whose purchased $219,000 worth of your companies product and wan't to be told the truth and not lied to and manipulated into like my last Lexus purchase at Darcars a.k.a THE WORSE. They told me when test driving my car they had the master keys in the office but due to policy I had to test drive with the valet key. After I sign the paper work they gave me the valet key and said here's your key we will send the original in 2 or 5 days. I would have never purchased the car under these circumstances and was unaware of any laws of not having to purchase the car after signing paperwork. I had a GS300 with nav/mark lev, and could have waited to purchase. The salesman even refused to give me my keys back at one time when i didn't agree on price, later we agreed. 3 weeks latter i got the key, not one, not two, 3!Thats not all the liesthey told, i just would be all day. Then I had to pay to get it programed(Keys) here in VaBeach Lexus, which they called and said to the Va Beach Lexus that I was there buying a car from them messing up any chance with buying at fair prices in Va Beach in the future. The General Manager at Va Beach Lexus told me he didn't want my business after buying from Darcars. Remember they told me more lies but i Won't go on. I will run out of space trying to type it in.GOD IS GOOD ALL THE TIME.THE FIRST WILL BE LAST AND THE LAST WILL BE FIRST!

 

Consumer Reports method of reporting results makes differences seem larger than they are. Even a "below average" rating for the transmission translates to a failure rate in the three to five percent range. They clearly do not include recalls, as these would send even the overall vehicle rating deep into "much worse than average" territory.

The ratings by system in the recent Auto Preview appear to be relative ratings once again, like the overall ratings are, rather than absolute ratings based on the percentage of cars with an issue. As recently as the 2005 Auto Issue a half-black dot meant an issue rate between 9.3 and 14.8 percent.

Result of the change: for a fairly new car it is now much easier to get a half-black dot for a specific system.

At the same time, this makes the system ratings much less robust. Even with a sample size of a few hundred, it will only take a handful of people to change a rating. One or two extra bad transmissions could do it. To report system repair rates with this level of precision they need a larger sample.

I've just begun conducting what will be much more useful reliability research. To make the impact of differences in reIiability clear, I'm going to be reporting times in the shop and days in the shop. I haven't started collecting data on any Lexus model, but will as soon as I have enough of a model / model year enrolled. I don't plan to report system-level rates any time soon, because of the sample size needed.

 

I have a 90 LS400 and 02 LS430. I would say definitly quality had declined and this is what I noticed:

Paint on the new cars can easily chip, the old one is solid like a rock.
Body trim is loose on the new models. I already lost the front windshield moulding, it flew away.
The sheet metal of the 90 is thicker than 02, it has more of a solid feel.
The 02 has a rattle in the dashboard which is obvious and annoying.
The 02 breaks keep squealing, the dealer thinks if I replace the breaks will fix the problem even though my current brakes have more than fifty percent.

Both are great cars but I like the 90 more, it has more personality and feels more solid.

1990 180,000 miles
2002 63,000 miles

 

indeed, however how many extra features does 02 have? How much faster and more luxurious is it?

Problem with paint and brakes is enviromental - since then, they had to start using more ecological materials (lead free paint, azbest free brakes).

Luxury vehicles can be best built, they can be the most luxurious, a lots of other things, but they can not be the most reliable. Luxury car with thousands upon thousands of features simply can not be as reliable as econo car. In Europe, in most of surveys, it is Toyota's that are most reliable and Lexus drivers that are the happiest. LS430 can never, ever be as reliable as an Yaris, but then again, Yaris does not have self closing doors :-).

As to the dealership, huge amount of attention has been given to dealerships and aftersales departments by Toyota/Lexus. I do feel that Toyota and Lexus dealers are the best out there, if you check surveys, both Lexus customers AND Lexus dealers are the happiest bunch out there.

Of course, it is all in statistics - the fact that Lexus is the most reliable brand does not mean that cars dont break. The fact that dealers are the nicest, doesnt mean some of them arent really bad.

 

I have had a 93, 2000 and 2004 LS. No problems with the 93. Minor problems with the 2000. The 2004 has not been reliable. Transmission replacement. Fuel pump replaced twice. Passenger mirror folded backward and had to be replaced. Quality seems to have gone down. My wife has a 2004 Jaguar X Type which has had no problems. Will probably not purchase another LS. it is not worth the money they now charge.

 

When I read this...what strikes me is that the dealer service techs are obviously not capable of fixing the problem. This isn't just with Lexus but across enough of the dealer service bays. As Lexus has become more popular, service has gone down and I've heard it with some frequency sitting in the waiting rooms and on CL.

Good service technicians are hard to find. When I had my Cressida, there was a tech at the dealer that was really good. Anytime I had the car in, I requested that he perform the service. I wasn't let down. He had been a Toyota mechanic privately and with the dealer for 28 years. When I got the Lex, I wanted to bring it to him. Because he was now at the Toyota dealer, the service writer discouraged my brining the car there. The tech said he could perform service but it would make waves for him there and he was not equipped to do it outside.

Back to this discussion, if warranty service through Lexus is not cutting it, go outside and find a good technician to fix it. You hate to pay for some of this warranty stuff but sometimes an outside source can fix what the air heads at dealer miss. It may cost a few $$ but then you can get back to enjoying your car.

These smaller annoyances tarnish an otherwise fine automobile. Many of what I read should be easily fixable in competent hands.

Obviously, YMMV.

 

I took my car to the dealer four times till they got my Airconditioning fixed. Every time it worked for less than a week and then it quit. Guess what the bill was $3800

 

With all the doodads on our LS430s, there's going to be more things to break. I do hope that Lexus remains steadfastly commited to reliability and that it wasn't just a shining moment in automotive history where we all one day say "remember when...?"

Has anyone heard the expression "take it with a grain of salt?" For those who haven't, it simply means that you shouldn't believe what you hear without giving it some thought. As for Consumer Reports, I'd say to take their information with a huge BLOCK of salt... they can be a valuable source of information, but they are INCREDIBLY BIASED and give more opinion than scientific fact. The truth is they bite off more than they can chew and they do quite well all things considering. But they just don't have the ability to give truly balanced opinions that are tempered by experience and enough knowledge. I would say that if someone wants to consult Consumer Reports about a purchase they plan to make, then give them a 10% stake in your choices and find more information to get the other 90% of your impression from. I would advise that a good 50% come from your own personal experiences, as nothing can really beat that!

I've run across people who rely on CR for EVERYTHING and take them to be gospel no matter what... a very unwise choice. Maybe it's a coincidence, but the same people also seem to be mentally unstable and not very smart or able to discern the truth on their own. CR is a good source of information, but you have to be able to tell when they're giving opinion over fact. Their opinion is as good as anyone's, but they don't seem to be honest enough to tell you when it's just their opinion and they say things as if God Himself proclaimed them. Note: When I say "their opinion is as good as anybody's" I mean that you should get MANY opinions, because one opinion can often be wrong (and theirs is often very wrong and in scary ways), but getting a wide base of opinions gives you a safer foundation for making decisions.

I'll give you a quick example. They review a product each year that I am intimately familiar with. This product is actually the best made and therefore costs more than average. CR, each year can't seem to get it through their thick heads that a product you buy once and never have to replace is a far better value than one that you replace many, many times, especially when the quality product actually does what it claims to do and NONE of the other products they compare it to actually even do the job they're sold and promoted to do! To me, if I spend my money on something and it doesn't do it's job, it's worthless. To me, if that product also costs me 5 times as much in the long run, I feel very cheated. But CR takes on too many projects and can't do their homework to find out that what they are reporting is BS. This is, of course, the worst of examples for them. But it's so frustrating that they would give such strong opinions when they really don't know what they are talking about! They do people a great disservice by not simply saying "Hey from what we can tell, this is the way it is" instead of "we've covered every angle and we just KNOW this is the way is MUST BE!" They DON'T cover every angle and they really don't need to... that would be excessive for most things. We, the public, just need a little more humility on their part and a lot less arrogance! CR... if you want the last word on a subject, stick to one subject and know it well and we'll listen. But CR... if you are going to continue biting off whale size bites of a million different products, of which NO ONE could be an expert at more than two or three, then admit that you are just throwing in YOUR TWO CENTS and not the exhaustive reference manual of what to do for everybody! And CR... when it comes to cars, we all appreciate your input and you have some valuable things to consider, but it's so clear that none of you are car guys or gals and you just don't understand certain things>please admit it!

Everyone, thank you for reading MY opinions here and I hope I have given some clarity of thought to you. If you get nothing else out of this, take this with you... form YOUR opinion on the opinions of true experts (in this case mechanics and owners of the car themselves) and don't get input from one, but from many sources. In my opinion, CR is a good place to go for one of those sources and it should not be left out, but don't weigh their input in too heavily and for goodness sake DON'T make a purchase on only what they say; it's the dumbest thing you could possibly do. I guarantee you'll luck out sometimes and regret it other times; they are far from consistent!!!

 

Excellent post. I agree. CR is biased (so is everyone to some extent). One might argue that they are less biased because they don't take advertising money, but that is like saying the members at Club Lexus are not biased. We are.... most of us love Lexus.

My problem with CR is their methodology. They only survey their subscribers, who are not a representative sample of America. They are a small group of people who generally favor Japanesse cars. I include myself in that comment ). This is not to say subscribers are bad people, just not representative of the population. They get about a 10% response rate, thus you get a small portion of a biased sample group. Not a very scientific approach. JD Power has a slightly better approach, but ultimately the questions of reliability and durability are tough ones to answer.

Ultimately there are 2 kinds of people: Those who find out the facts and then form their opinion, and those who have their opinion and find the facts to support their idea. Most of us are unfotunately in the latter group. Japanesse car lovers will find much support and positive feedback from CR. But it sure isn't the gospel.

 

I disagree. CR may not be perfect, but you use it FOR EVERYTHING, you'll end up with better products OVERALL than if you try to guess on your own. It's like democracy...it's not a very good system of government, but what's better?

 

My 2003 LS has been rock solid for 3 years and 32,000mi. Only problem was a bad tire which was taken care of in the first week. In fact the car still has the original set of brakes which look like they will EASILY last till 40,000 miles. My Original Dunlop All Seasons (summer tires) have about 22,000 on them now and should easily go one more summer, before I replace them.

Yes I have a couple of paint chips, but thats not the car, it's the tree huggers, and sanding trucks.

ABSOLUTLY the best and most satisfying car I have ever owned. I TRULY enjoy this car a little more every time I drive it.

Frank