I know there are plenty of factors involved, but in terms of which vehicle to focus my attention on, is an 05 with fewer miles more attractive or an 06 with higher miles?

 

the *** (based purely off the title)

 

Yeah, no LS430s with saggy back ends.

I think service history and condition are more important than both age and miles. As for the age v. miles question, it has a lot to do with your planned annual mileage and retention plans for the vehicle. I drive a lot of miles, so I would buy the lower mileage vehicle with the intention that it will have about average annual miles in a few years when I'm ready to sell it. If I drove a low number of mile, I would consider buying the newer car because it, too, would have average miles when I would be ready to sell it.

That said, the price difference between a 5 v. 6 year old car is greater than, say, the price difference between a 8 v. 9 year old car three years later.

 

Service (& accident) history! Check the Carfax and the Lexus service records - easy to get if you're buying from a dealer or the owner. In my experience, a vehicle with regular maintenance records indicates by and large that the owner was a mature driver with the intention of either keeping it a long time or with an eye to higher resale. Older drivers rock...along slowly. The 2005 and 2006 both had the six-speed transmissions so their performance and gas mileage should be equivalent.

 

With the years that close especially on this car it doesn't matter. 05 vs 06 - they are virtually identical cars and may have been manufactured with a couple of months of each other even though they are different model years.

It gets to be a more interesting question if decision was between was a 2002 with 30k miles versus an 06 with 80 k miles.

 

I would take the lower mileage car in most cases. It really depends on which car has all of it's work done and if it has the records to prove it.

 

+100000

+1
Get the better maintained one. They should drive the exact same (make sure to try them out both though). Also, the cleaner one (ie fewer/no dents, scrapes, scratches) is a good indication of how much the prev owner cared about the car. Like many have said, there were no changes MY 2004-06. Good luck, post up some pics when you pull the trigger

 

Don't forget are they HWY or CTY miles and what Cadman said.

 

Do you normally call the Lexus dealer and get the service history from them? Or is it possible to do it online and the lexus website?

 

I think yu gotta call the dealer They are always happy to do it when I call. You can get a descriotion off the Vin on the net.

 

We're talking one model year, age won't matter much when it comes to say rubber rot or any sort of sun damage. I think in your case, go with lower miles a/o better maintenance records. If choice was low mileage '01 or high mileage '06, then that would be a tough decision.

 

Go to the owners section of lexus.com and register. Then enter the VIN as your car and you can view the service history. You can then delete the car from your registry. It's been mentioned before that it's probably best not to do this too many times as you can supposedly be banned by the admin for abusing the system.

 

What does front/rear body generally mean in the service history?

 

The front and/or bumper covers may have been refiinished / repainted to repair surface scrapes. This is very common on used cars. Unfortunately, the paint may not match the rest of the car.

 

In my case, I had passenger side mirror motor problem (cannot adjust up and down). Fortunately, my extended warranty covered it and dealer replaced the whole unit couple months ago. It shows “FRONT/REAR BODY” in my online service records. On my paper invoice has all the details though. FYI.