Jedi

Hi everyone! I'm new to the forum and was hoping you guys/gals could help me out. Tonight my wife and I went to the Lexus Stealership..opps, I mean dealership... and test drove the new RX330 AWD which had the exacr packages I wanted, except for the adaptive cruise..it had the Navi package and DVD system, 18" wheels.......but I will hold out for a blk/blk as that is what I truly want and I wanted to research this car a lil more
.. The sales guys and I tried to negotiate a deal before the order was placed$1000. deposit of the car....which seem fair..........that way no suprises., .I HOPE. As much as I tried to get him to come down this guys was pretty firm on MSRP, yet I finally convinced? him to drop $1000. off MSRP.He says I got the best deal of anyody so far! LOL .. and he would sell me the Chrome wheels at cost....Which I honestly could care less about (it was the wife's input here) And they basically don't give you new wheels they just swap wheels for $1400.!!? Ouch! They said that they had no availaiblity for the chrome and I would have to wait a little longer after delivery of the car. During our discussions I asked to see the invoice, which he said he could not produce.....Oooooooooook. ( I was born at night, not last night) I really wanted the adaptaive cruise control option, however he said it was NOT available yet?? Really? Then why does Lexus list it on their site? Anyone else heard this?
All said and done, this Car/SUV is gonna run about 51K! We had looked at the MDX and I know the GSM who would have sold me the car for $500. over Invoice. However, I DO realize that the RX offers much more options and more luxury IMHO than the MDX.

....I looked on MSN's carpoint site and as equiped it invoiced for ~$41,500 and MSRP'd at $46,700 a difference of ~$5,000. minus my $1000. and that means I'd be paying about $4000. over invoice.......again....OUCH!

My question to you guys is , am I getting ripped off. I can always cancel my order and go some where else....which I will check around. What did you guys pay?

TIA

j4ydubs

You should get the 330 for MSRP or less. Don't pay more than MSRP. $51K is definetely a rip off (unless it's loaded with just about every option - but they're not building them like that yet).

John

lexuslover

i agree, $51k is a lot. i paid sticker for Nav/Lev + 18" wheels + DVD ent + towing. ($46.8k) it sounds like you are going for the same. so $51 doesn't sound right, unless that includes CA sales tax and doc/lic fee. i did get $500 above KBB for a trade in and chrome wheels at fleet prices. $1000 of MSRP is a good deal, by the way.

it is true - they don't have the factory 18"'s in chrome yet due to the new model, so they have to do a core exchange, meaning they have to send out some 18" factory wheels first and have them dipped, then you'll go in to exchange them, giving them yours to dip for the next customer, and so on. what this does require, however, is a dealer to take his/her demo and put aftermarket wheels on to get the 1st factory 18"s out the door. so that story works out.

Jedi

I guess I should clarify my postion....in my ramblings I lost some info. That price of ~ $51K was out the door price. And it was with a $1000. off MSRP plus the chrome rims at dealer cost (supposedly)...I don't know becasue they would show me the invoice price. But still, we are talking about $4K over invoice....is it just me, or does that seem like a lot to pay??

And they are allowing all package and options to be ordered, except the adaptive cruise control. Has anyone else ordered this option or have it?

Thx guys.

lexuslover

Jedi - ok, that makes more sense. i think $51 out the door is a good price then. don't worry about the invoice price, since it makes no difference at this point. most everyone is paying MSRP (sticker) for the higher demand packages like those with Nav or those with perf pkg. you can get basic invoice pricing on kbb.com, but it's useless information. at this point, everything is about supply and demand. sticker price is fair, and any discount (i've seen anywhere from 500-2000 off MSRP in So Cal, but that's for prem pkg FWD models) is considered a good deal!!

the RX MSRP is probably a several thousand above invoice, but this does not matter, since this is what the market is demanding, so you are not doing any worse than anyone else.

i haven't seen or heard of the laser cruise control out there yet. i know that in the U.S. west region, you can't build it yet, so maybe it will be a few months longer. since you are considering ordering additional options, you may not know the exact MSRP of whatever RX you are ordering until it actually arrives. just make sure your dealer sticks to $1000 of sticker price (which you of course will easily verify once it gets there), and you will be fine.

good luck, and keep us posted!

amontgom

Jedi - I special-ordered a RX330 last month with the Adaptive Cruise Control and the Levinson/NAV option. I expect delivery in 3-4 months, or somewhere around the end of June or early July. Apparently, the East Coast builds do not have the Levinson/NAV option, and no standard builds are available with the Adaptive Cruise. However, you can always special order the vehicle with exactly the options you want, and I felt that both were worth the wait. BTW, I'm paying MSRP for mine -- no discounts are available at ANY dealership in Northern Virginia.

Andi

gzkrutoy

Navi, perform. package and black on black for $45,500.
They are ripping you off, my friend.

lexuslover

gzkrutoy - is your 45,500 figure MSRP, discounted MSRP, or out the door? and is yours AWD or FWD?

don't forget that Jedi is looking at additional options (incl $1400 wheels), and CA sales tax amounts to 7.5 - 8.5%, making the out-the-door price exceed $50-$51k on a lot of the upper end packages.

Jedi

Thanks for the input guys/gals. I went online to Lexus, and sent a message to my closest dealers (within 100 miles) and told them what I was looking for and what was the best deal they could get me. At thte very least, it will let me obtain a piece of mind.

bububee

The only offer I got was $1200 off MSRP from Riverside Lexus until I visited Crown Lexus in Ontario, CA. If anyone is looking to buy a RX330 or any Lexus model in Southern California I highly recommend Crown Lexus. The salespeople there are friendly, not conceited and are willing to deal. My salesperson's name is Chad. I made him a promise with my deal not to disclose the price, awesome trade-in offer, and all the extras perks including a finance rate that will give any bank, including PeopleFirst.com, a run for their money. I originally got my '99 RX from Longo Lexus in El Monte. They gave me a smoking deal. MSRP was $37 and I walked off with $32,800. The salespeople were friendly and down to earth. Naturally I went to them first and was terribly disappointed. The saleman said it would be 4 years before any dealer will sell the RX330 less than MSRP! He said it wasn't the dealer but a restriction set by Lexus. I told Chad this and he said it was a lie. Basically each independent dealer buys the cars from Lexus for a set price and after that Lexus could care less what they sell the car for because they already made their profit.

I highly recommend kbb.com to get dealer cost on everything and about 4%-5% profit would be a good target to start bargining with. When I made my first deal four years ago for my '99 RX I had many dealers laugh at me and hang up on me. Longo pretty much gave me the same response, they told me the car was too new, too hot to sell for anything less than MSRP so I told them, "This is the price I want, I know my offer is giving you a decent profit so here is my number and you call me when I can get that price and when you want to sell that one extra car for the month." The salemanager called me back with in 15 minutes with the deal mentioned above. I know I could of paid full price but why should I? How could I knowingly pay a 5 to 6 thousand dollar markup? A lot of people will and have in the past, but not me and I made this clear to Chad at Crown Lexus and as a result we cranked out a deal in no time!

I took delivery of my '04 RX330 FWD silver/black with premium plus and 18" alloys!

smalcom

Very interesting thread. All dealers at least 90 miles away from me (Delaware shore area), except for Atlantic City - 55 miles as the crow flies, but there is a bay and ferry between me and the dealership - (70 minutes just for the ferry ride).

Lexus of Wilmington is selling me the car at MSRP, with NAV/Premium Plus/18" Wheels/Heated Seats and Rain-Sensing Wipers. I also wanted Adaptive Lighting and Laser Cruise Control. They don't come that way, and dealer said cannot special order cars yet. (Put my deposit down two weeks before the unveiling). They were dragging a car from dealer to dealer in a moving van, so that you could see it. Finally drove the demo and it was everything I expected.

Picking it up today!!!!!

j4ydubs

Congrats on the car and the deal. I think the biggest reason you were able to get the deal you got is because of the configuration. It's a lot harder to get a deal on a AWD w/Nav or Performance. Not impossible, but harder. It's all about suppy and demand.

After it became obvious that my dealer wasn't going to budge from MSRP (I did try), I tried a different tack. I haggled with them on my trade-in value and the loan rate. I came away happy with the deal and basically consider the extra money from the trade in my discount from MSRP.

John

j4ydubs

Congrats. What color did you get?

John

apwoodr

An informitive web site to check out is carbuyingtips.com lots of FREE information on car shopping

Another site is fightingchance.com, although you do have to pay for their services. The tactics they give probably won't work too well on a highly coveted new model such as the 330.

I'm waiting until the fall to see what kind of deal I can get on a new 330 then!

flint330

I picked up my AWD (Flint Mica/gray interior) three weeks ago and paid what LexusLover paid - MSRP.
It has all options, excluding the laser cruise and even came with the DVD which I didn't really want.

While my husband always likes to get a good deal, he knew going in that since the car is new we had to pretty much pay the MSRP. My previous car was an Acura TL. While I thought that the TL was nice, I find the 330 to be so much better in luxury and performance. I only wish that it would stop raining in the Bay Area so I can take my car out of the garage and drive around (I hate getting it dirty). I did put clear mats over the lexus mats to keep them cleaner.