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Lexus ES 300/ES 330
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Comments
Try switching off the traction control and see if that makes any difference. Otherwise take the car to the dealer.
My '97 ES accellerates promptly from a stop, provided I have good traction.
Im looking to buy a 97-98 ES300 very soon. I need ideas on a good price (i've seen a 97 with 34K miles for $23500)reliability, and any input that owners may have. I'm relatively young and when I went to the Lexus deler to look at one, I did not get good service. THe salesman wanted me to initial an offer i made and hold me bound by it. The dealer was LEXUS OF ROCKVILLE in Maryland. Arrogance and poor customer service has me taking my business elsewhere. Thanks for the input.
If you purchase through the dealer you will expect to pay at least the median between wholesale and retail so somewhere around NADA retail but not quite KBB retail. If you purchase private party I'd look to pay up to 1/2 way between wholesale and retail, depending on the car. Expect to pay more than wholesale though, if it is a low milage, recent year model car.
If you purchase a car from a private party I would highly recomend you have an independant machanic who you trust give the car a complete physical, and expect to pay him for it. Purchasing a car through the dealer, especially if the dealer warrants the car would avoind the necessity of this. Only buy a car where all of the maintanance receipts are available and will be provided to you.
I'm glad to hear you didn't let the sales guy push you around. You did the right thing by walking out.
does anyone that owns a 2000 or 2001 have the same experience with your cars?
It seemed to be noisy inside my car this morning. I "burped" my car and it seemed to work.
The dealer has excellent customer service, but ya gotta pay for it.
The 2001 is a loaner, as my '97 (at 52K miles) has blown the main seal on the transmission and is at the dealer being fixed. They had to remove the tranny to replace the seal (groan). I hope it runs "normally" when I get it back....
How come I hear so many problems with luxury cars. I had a Tercel for 11 years without any problems. I never had to do any thing other than oil change, tune-up, and replacing the AC compressor when it was 10 years old. My brother has a Corolla that has 370K miles on it (he still has it now) and never has to do anything to it other than oil change and tune-ups.
Is it a mistake to buy a luxury car? It seems that they're not as reliable as ordinary Toyotas even though they're still made by Toyota. There seems to be a lot more maintenance needed to be done to luxury cars than ordinary cars.
I thought we paid the money up front to have a car that will never gives us any problems, that's why the car is so expensive. But now it seems like we just pay for the luxury and the name. Well, I know Lexus is still more reliable than other luxury car.
If reliability is your first concern, just be glad you went Lexus. MBZ and BMW deinately require more attention, and Jaguar, well you really need 2 so one is always drivable.
Similarly, if you went to a hospital patient website, you'd think everyone is always sick with some horrible ailment or disease, because that's all they discuss. Obviously not true for everyone, just the participants in that forum, but that's undoubtedly just a tiny fraction of the whole universe. I think the same is true for Lexus and other luxury cars. Where you look is what you'll find.
Al--
as an aside, I have been told by a Toyota dealer that they can and do work on Lexus, but cannot perform warranty repairs. Also, any parts on the Lexus that are not on regular Toyotas would not be in dealer stock...available, but not in stock. The only exception may be things like oil filters and simple stuff like that.
Most likely, the Toyota dealer would not roll out the red carpet like the Lexus dealer...the Toyota dealer around here has a bunch of arrogant, snotty people working there, the stereotypical people dealerships are known for...Cliffy, Isell, Mack and Brentwood would be ashamed to work in this place.
However, they charged me $117 to drain and refill the cooling system ($89 for one hour labor), which I felt was pretty expensive.
The dealer I use is Kuni Lexus in Denver, which not only loaned us the new 2001 ES (with only 12 miles on it) this time, but loaned us an RX300 the last time our car had to be kept for an entire day. They seem to be a pretty good Lexus dealer.
You should check the air in your tires at least as often as you check the oil in your engine (from once a week to once a month, depending on how much you drive).
BTW- it was nice to drive that 2001 ES for a day and a half. Aside from my '97 having a little more play in the shift mechanism, there was VERY little difference in the two vehicles (except for the hesitation in acceleration I mentioned previously). The 2001 also had HID headlights, and I was surprised to discover that the HIDs are ONLY for the low beams. The high beam bulbs are the same as my '97!
I'd be a little concerned that if I put the maximum psi in at -10F that I'd be way over pressurized once I had been on the road for 20 minutes and the tires were warm again.
But, lucky for me I do not live in a cold climate, these kinds of questions make my brain hurt like an ice cream headache.
I hope liev doesn't check tire pressures at -10. I would check them at something close to normal for his area (daytime median). Here in Denver, I would validate my tire pressures on a "normal" winter day (about 35 degrees) and then not worry about it any more. A 5-6 pound fluctuation would not be something I'm losing sleep over, IMHO.
Have some more ice cream!
1) Hourly labor charges are set at the regional level, to keep local dealers from under-cutting each other. There are 4-6 regions in the US, the Kuni rep didn't know for sure. Interesting....
2) The hour charged me ($89) for the drain and refill of my cooling system was for ELAPSED time (time my car was in the service bay), rather than ACTUAL time (the mechanic spent working on it). If I had asked for additional work to be performed (concurrently), the cost for the drain/refill would have been less (like 15 minutes). A lesson for all of us here. For some strange reason, '97 ESs take longer to drain than other Lexi (HUH??).
3) One "unit" of antifreeze ($17.34) equals TWO gallons, not one. Fuzzy math??? Maybe Al Gore can find a job as a Lexus service writer.
I've kept up with regular maintenance, change fluids when scheduled, run Mobil 1 Synthetic and keep the speed at a reasonable level.
I'm so impressed with my old Lexus that I passed on purchasing a new one in 2000. There is no reason to sell this one, except for maybe new car fever...that fades over time.
"these cars are made to go 300K miles"---my Lexus Service Rep.
I've found that this Forum is a great place to learn about Lexus and I count it as a valuable learning tool.
Any more high mileage stories out there?
Happy Holidays!
I don't like this new format. there's no placemark and the font in the message box is too small it strains my eyes. Can we go back to the previous format with the addition of the delete button that you have in here now?
Dealer's trying to sell me the interior and exterior protective coating product - pretty obnoxious process, actually.
I'm trying to figure out the real value. It's for $460 and has a 5 yr warrantee.
Should I or should I not?