astrotoy

Dave, you bring up an interesting phenomenon. It used to be not so many years ago that all the new model year introductions were in the early Fall, usually spread over several weeks. At some point one of the manufacturers decided to introduce their new model in the Spring - some 8 or 9 months before the next year. The buyer had the "advantage" of having next year's car for the greater part of the previous year. This is what Lexus did for the 600 in the US, and I think also the 460 - where it was introduced much earlier in 2006 than the traditional fall date. Of course, the could have called it a late 2006, rather than an early 2007, but that wouldn't be so much fun.

Another change from years ago is that many cars go several years without any significant change in physical appearance. This was true for the LS400 and probably will be true of the 460. This would also tend to keep the resale value higher for the earlier cars, since they look the same or very similar to the latest car. I remember growing up in the 50's and 60's when every year there was great anticipation at what the new model Oldsmobile or DeSoto or Edsel or even Nash was going to look like.

BTW, going back to the thread, I don't like the missing middle mini visor - that I had in my old LS400. I also find the parallel parking assist pretty much useless and a waste of money. Larry

rominl

iTrader: (4)

yup. most manufacturers they release new model year around fall time, that has been the case for toyota / lexus (and most other companies) for a long time. check again, it should be 2008, especially if you got it in october.

when you sell your car, people will just look at the year. so yes, if you get it early in the model year, it's more "worth" it. but sometimes you pay more at the start of the model year compared to end of model year

Dave600hL

Man , I need to pay more attention to what going I think. LOL

I don't mind paying more if it means I get what I want sooner.

clemgrad85

On the slow trunk issue, on my wife's RX360 you can manually close the back "hatch" if you don't want to wait, I assume you can do the same on the 460 trunk? I mean, no reason that you have to wait on the trunk to close automatically?

Gojirra99

I think they deliberately make it slow to make sure there is little to no chance of accidents where someone would get hurt ?

rominl

iTrader: (4)

yes, you can always just swing down the trunk lid as fast as you want

twentyone

i'm only on page 2 of this thread so, maybe it'll be corrected in the next 3 pages but, you can't add mp3's to the hd at all?

rominl

iTrader: (4)

you can put in audio cds and rip the songs off to store in hdd. but you can't directly put in a mp3 cd or so and copy the files over