I'm very close to buying a 97 SC300 w/ 94k miles from a used car lot, but I need some advice. Carfax is very clean, 1 owner, nothing but passed emission check records, but they have no records for the car. The guy at the lot said they got it from the dealer (Longo) after the original owner traded it in. I don't know if the car has had its 90k mile maintenance done yet and I haven't owned an SC before so I'm not sure if there are any symptoms to look for re: the timing belt and water pump. The car seems to run fine and is in very good shape overall, but I'm wondering if it would be advisable to buy a 3rd party warranty. Any advice is appreciated, thanks.

 

I don't know much about 3rd party warranties, if they're a good deal or not, does it cover maintenance? How much are they asking for the SC? My SC had the same thing, one owner, general CarFax information, etc. Dealerships, especially used car dealerships, can be very sneaky. They will sell cars that need $1,000 or 2 in maintenance. I bought mine from a used car dealership also. I was so excited about having my first Lexus, thought I wasn't going to have any or many repairs/costs because it's a Lexus/Toyota, then found out it needed a major tune-up/maintenance...$1,850 later and my bank account and savings (for wheels) empty... Dealerships seem to only clean the car and make it look good...so I've tried to make a promise to myself not to buy another car from a dealership. Wish I had bought mine through craigslist, one that had been maintained somewhat recently, if possible. I would browse your local craigslist.org classifieds and see how much SC's are going for in there.

 

Third party warrantys are good if they are backed by a reputable company. READ the warranty and more specifically find out the exclusions and do the math. If it seems like most of the parts are covered that the SC's are known to have issues with then buy one. I did and mine was a 92 and its fairly comprehensive but wont cover everything. No after market will cover maintenance at this age.

With respect to your question on whats been done. If it was traded at a Lexus dealer presumably they might have had some work done there. You can do 2 things both of which I did. Ask them to pull the service records for the car if ANY work at a Lexus dealer has been performed it would be in there. SECOND, have them do a prepurchase inspection. They pointed out things for me, mostly minor, which I was later able to use as negotiation when buying the car or deciding if the warranty was a good value.

Read the forum here for known issues with the car and make sure when you bring it to dealer you have them specifically check those areas and a full inspection of the car. I knew the servcie manager at mine and he turned it over to his SC "expert" for review.



Good Luck!