VAttorney

My mom suggested I wait for the dealership to call me. I had them take it to the shop for the inspection and I paid for the inspection but I've not spoken to them since..

Could be completely reasonable that while the car is in overall good condition that I was kind of scared off by the repairs AND the mileage? I could probably give them til Friday or Saturday, at least, to see if they call? I used to be in sales.. there is a time when the first to speak loses as they say. This isn't exactly that kind of moment but I think it's reasonably close.

VAttorney

I assure you.. while it may tell me everything I'd need to know, it's not a language I am fluent in.. not even a little. So presuming said valve cover is pulled - what would the possibilities be and how would I tell them apart?

VAttorney

You will get a chuckle out of this. As previously posted, I got the VIN and went to the Lexus site. To get the service history I had to list it as 'my' vehicle. Well I didn't bother to remove it once I had the info.. so later (next day perhaps) the Lexus dealer prints out the service history for the used car dealer and at the top it indicates that I am the owner. Well I guess Lexus dealers in TN aren't as clever as in other places because they were flabbergasted that I could access the info and told the used car dealer that the info was supposed to only be accessible to Lexus Dealers.

Not sure how that reputation might help... nor am I sure it's a good reputation in their eyes, but I've definitely gotten their attention! LOL

Rainbird

The service history is listed under the "My Lexus" header. It should be obvious to them that the owner would have access. In fact owners can input your own service history such as service at private garages, tire replacement, etc.

hypervish

A valve cover is fairly easy to remove, but I'm not sure if the dealership would allow you to have someone pull of the valve covers to check for sludge...what's the point, the engine isn't known to be prone to sludge, and it look's as if the car was maintained properly... It's not worth the trouble..

Carver

I disagree with mom. Now is the time to take control, they know you are interested after all this. You need to go at them with an offer and make them do the negotiating.

hypervish

x2, I agree with Carver, you need to make an offer. They think your going to buy it, especially after the service history report showed your name as the owner, because you were looking for background on the car.

kitlz

Girlfriend, you're in so deep now that you're going to break a few hearts here if you don't buy the RX

Carver

LOL, I'm pretty sure her heart is the most at risk.

VAttorney

Guess I will be testing my 'poker face' tomorrow. Then I go out of town tomorrow evening and probably won't have access to the internet til next week.

I'll try to get back on next week and let you know what happens.

lexus114

Dont mess around too long,it might sell before you make up your mind. At least that is what would happen to me anyway. That`s just MY Irish Luck.

VAttorney

Sheesh.. I really expected someone to express how tough it would be to wait all weekend to hear about the results. I'm just glad to see that you all have more to do with your lives than worry about what some stranger does with her car purchase!

Anyway, they ended up calling ME today. I found that interesting. I figured they'd wait til I got in touch with them. The rep said he'd reduce the price to $10,200 and I kept talking about how between the high miles and the work it needed I really didn't know if it made sense at all. I suggested they do the work needed and he said that we'd need to come up with best price and then they'd just add the price of the work to the sales price (oh yea, that's just great... please). So I kept talking about how stupid it seemed to buy a car and then have to leave it the shop for a week... blah blah blah (you would have been proud I was so noncommital).

He started talking about how they could just take it to auction to get rid of it (seriously, what would it bring at auction? $6K maybe?). Then he offered to let me take it overnight.. I went down and got it, still didn't make any offer. Figured I would when I took it back (presumably tomorrow but my schedule looks crappy tomorrow and they are over 30 minutes away so it may be Saturday). Course this was also based on the advice of a friend of mine who is much savvier than I at car shopping, but then who isn't?

Of course, on the drive home and then while perusing the manual tonight, I discovered that she seems to have ALL the bells and whistles and they are all (at least as far as I've tested so far) in perfect working condition - automatic back door, heated seats, navigation (but you knew that), - I dunno if she has the 18" wheels - not that it's something I care about just trying to do the inventory.

I was thinking about going tomorrow and offering them something like $9400 and I take care of the maintenance. Mechanic is doing a more exact estimate for me tomorrow on the 90K maintenance work, so then I'll be a bit better educated on where in the $1000 range it falls.

VAttorney

Don't worry.. they will be hardpressed to sell it out from under me as it is parked in my driveway tonight!

And yes, I do hope to provide pics sometime tomorrow... tho tomorrow will be one crazy crazy day!

ripster

I am going to buck the trend, having owned some high mileage cars, and they all ran very well, thats a bunch of miles, Lexus is nice, but that kind of mileage and now 7 years old, they need to really reduce the price, so that if you have to invest, you don't exceed the trade in value. If they want to sell, they should take 7k if you have to spend money to get maintenance done. Some would say that will not happen, try and see, very few will purchase at that mileage and they will call you soon enough. If you have to spend 1000k then that puts the car at good trade in after spending your money. Otherwise walk. Just my 2cents.

VAttorney

Where are you referring to find that as a trade-in value? I'm just asking cause I thought I'd done a pretty good job of finding the online sites that would designate such info and so far I've found that the trade in (yes, with those miles) is around 10K. That rather shocked me as I couldn't understand why they had it priced so far below retail (and yes that is taking the miles into consideration AND considering it poor condition as a result). In fact, I'm pretty sure I even left off some of the options in coming to that conclusion..

By the by, I don't think you are bucking anything, it seems everyone has a sense of how I might approach this. Carver suggested that I should be willing to insult them. Perhaps that is what I should do tomorrow when I take it back... give them a number and drive away.