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Lexus ES 300/ES 330
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Comments
The ES 300 sales record for a calendar year was 1997, when 58,430 cars were sold. It looks like that record will be shattered by the time the end of 2002 rolls around.
Once you get into the $30,000+ price territory you don't see huge volume sellers. While the ES' August sales of 7,700 are a lot for this car, it pales in comparison to the whopping 48,000 Accords also sold in August.
It's just nice to know that others beside myself appreciate what the ES 300 has to offer compared to the competition and bought one.
You might decide that the "normal" transmission problem is acceptable, but if your car is behaving outside the norm, a new transmission might be less expensive than what you would lose by selling your car. If you can demonstrate to your dealer that your car indeed behaves in a worse than normal way, you might get a transmission replacement under warranty.
Good luck. I am rooting for you and your lovely Blue Onyx vehicle.
Then I check on the ES 300, which sales in Michigan for MSRP, for maybe the same reason, selling only $300 over invoice in CA.
Is it the competition? has anyone in the Michigan area bought ES300 near invoice? I think for $3k, it is worth it to buy it in California and drive it back.
When I find the time, I will take another test drive and make a more detailed comparison.
They are offering great deals rite now in Los Angeles!
Me - You know, the ES300 and the Camry V6 have the same engine!
Him - Pretty much, but the Lexus is a little different.
Me - Really, how so?
Him - Well, the Lexus is a little more intricate and will require more labor hours to replace the timing belt, not to mention that it requires a Lexus specific timing belt!
Me - Bullsh1t! The timing belt is the SAME and the belt replacement procedures from the service manuals are IDENTICAL.
Him - Do you need the free loaner vehicle?
Me - Nope.
Him - Do you want your Lexus washed and detailed afterwards?
Me - Nope.
Him - I'll knock a few dollars off of the price for you.
And there you have it! The difference between Lexus service and Toyota service. The fluff!
Another major problem is the transmission. This also has existed from day one. This apparently also is not unique to this car. Shifting between 1st & 2nd gears is sloppy - both up & down. Between 40 & 70 mph, it shutters when you let up on the accelerator. When accelerating over 30 mph, you feel little jerking motions like the torque converter is not locking up, or is searching for another gear. The service mgr. says that he has word from the Lexus factory that they are working on this problem with a modified transmission computer program that they hope to have ready in Nov. 2002. However they have to get EPA approval before they can make the actual modifications. A by-product of this current aggravation is, I believe, a reduced mileage performance significantly below the stated Lexus EPA levels.
I also have experienced some skid control problems with the SCD in the winter when on ice. I get an unusual sensation of wheel spinning that I have never had in my 50 years of driving on Minnesota winter roads. Works great in the summer however!
Other than these problems, I love the car. It's just a matter of how much patience I can sustain until they get the problems worked out. Right now - I am on the edge of having them replace the car.
A couple of months ago my front brake rotors warped. 27k miles and only 50% of the original brake pads used up. The dealer would not consider trying to work this up as a warranty issue and wanted $300 to turn the rotors and put in new pads. I performance tire shop I use did the same job for $125.
But you get a loaner and a car wash!
Absolutely ridiculous. Fact is that most if not all dealers make more money in the shop than they do on the lot. And some of them are getting greedy.
I happened to notice that you are interested in the 2003 RL. What, if any, changes are on the 2003 vs. the 2002? I see that one can get an RL for about $35K and that is approx. the price of the ES300. How do you see the ES300 vs. the RL?
No need to leave it in 4th after you've gotten onto the freeway and am cruising. If you're planning on going 75mph+ on the 405 for a long stretch, you wouldn't want to stay in 4th gear as it's harder on your engine (not to mention the worse gas mileage you'll get by not using 5th gear). But for around town driving, having the shifter on "4" is perfectly fine.
With the new 5-speed transmission, the 4th and 5th gears essentially become overdrive gears. Going down a hill, I have to switch to 3rd if I want any effective engine braking.
I am considering a new ES300. What is the best prices people have gotten when purachasing new. If you purchased the Nav system better yet (thats what I am considering for as a consultant, I travel to many new places in a week), Thanks in Advance!
Mike V.
New to the forum - great info here!
Looking to buy a new 2003 ES300 in the next week or so. Have been shopping around a bit here in the Southern California area. The best deal I've found is:
2003 ES300
Premium Package
* Leather Trim Interior
* Lexus Memory System for power driver's seat and outside rearview mirrors
* In-dash 6-disc CD changer
Additional Factory Options:
* High Intensity Discharge (HID) headlamps
* Wood & Leather Steering Wheel and shift knob
* Cargo Net
* Trunk Mat
* Wheel Locks
MSRP $35,521
for a price of $33160 plus tax and license.
Is this a "great" deal?
Have people gotten better deals and if yes please share!
I would also like to puchase an ES300 soon. would you please email me some info?
stuckwi@yahoo.com
Thanks
Although they say the interior is like that of a $70,000 car, they have a few bugaboos. Two of them I disagree with:
1. They do not like the fact the front headrests do not articulate. I thought they do, but from the bottom instead of the top. Edmunds may have made a mistake on this one.
2. They wished the car had an exposed, open storage bin. I'm glad it doesn't! To me, those are so cheap looking.
"Owners of the redesigned ES 300 have complained long and loud about the transmission. During our testing, we found when driving normally the five-speed automatic shifted imperceptibly. But when exercising the car or driving aggressively, the slushbox responded with harsh upshifts and soggy, delayed downshifts, behaving as though it were utterly confused about what the driver wanted it to do."
As the article stated, the interior is exquisite and I have yet to see an interior of a car (except the Maybach) that equals the simple elegance of the ES300.
LENSCAP - you are correct - the headrests do articulate; they swing out at the bottom to cradle the lower portion of your cranium. I actually prefered the ones on my Solara as they tilted from the top and provided better support.
Anyway, it sounds as thought the car hit the mark even though the transmission is a bit cranky.
Regards -
M. J. McCloskey
During the same period that my body work was being done, I had my 5000 mile service and am very satisfied by Lexus of Cerritos from both perspectives (body work and service). I had gotten some ink on my dash and I rubbed a small hole through the leather (vinyl?) and Lexus of Cerritos fixed it free of charge as part of my 5000 mile service.
Complain if you folks like about the price of the service, but it sure is nice to have a dealership call YOU until they touch bases as opposed to your having to bug them. For my body work, they assigned one person for me to communicate with the whole time, and he did a good job. One day he called me three times.
While I was at the dealer, I looked at some GS300s and some LSes, and other than those vehicles being bigger, the interiors look very similar on all three vehicles. The ES300 looks much more like other Lexuses than is does the Camry, especially on the interior.
It was such heaven to get back to my ML and of course I am spoiled by the Nav, which helped me find an Old Spaghetti Factory on my trip between Cerritos and Ridgecrest. Also, as far as you "ES300 is just a Camry" pundits go, an old boyfriend of mine owns an older SC300 and my ES300 interior is just as nice as the one in his car.
If Lexus fixes the transmission, this car will be absolute world class as far as I am concerned.
There are very few medium GREEN cars of any make in my town, so I purchased a green (mystic sea) one, hoping to have something that was somewhat unique. Well, guess what. I have seen three other 02ES300s and two of them have been green!!! (The other was white). Good grief, you guys. Lexus has 8 other colors, for goodness sakes!! They have two silvers and two whites (Chrystal and Alabaster).
If anyone on this board is from Ridgecrest, 'fess up. Why the heck did you get green?
The highest end option's MSRP is now just over $40000, probably because of the adjustable accelerator pedal.
Well... it's been a while. I've been patiently trying to deal with the Lexus dealership on the west side of Houston, but to no avail. The 2002 transmission is a joke and I have noted four instances before where failure of the transmission to provide power has put me in harms way. I bought a Lexus for service and quality. Unfortunately, I've seen neither. In addition to the bad transmission, there's a very loud rattle in my ceiling console. It's easily replicated by the dealership, and they've tried five (5) times to fix it and it still rattles. That wouldn't be so bad, except for the fact the dealership is resistant to provide me any service. Each visit came with great difficulty to set up. I have attributed it to the fact I bought the car from another dealer and not from them. They simply don't return calls, promise to take action (which action terminates when they hang up the phone), and except for my complaints to Customer Service they probably wouldn't give me service at all.
Yesterday I filed under the Texas Lemon Law and have also filed with the Texas Attorney General under the Deceptive Trade Practices Act. Since Lexus sold the car knowing the transmission was defective they may be liable for damages equal to three times the price of the car. Sad... but this is what it has come to. I've really got better things to do, and believe the bad service is related only to this dealership.
The only way to get things done is to make the wheel really squeak. I was told there would be a transmission fix in July, September, and now October. I've read on these postings it's going to be November. I would encourage others to complain and look into remedies provided through your State. Maybe we can get something done.
"an old boyfriend of mine owns an older SC300 and my ES300 interior is just as nice as the one in his car."
Woa, JUST as nice? I would think it'd be nicer than an older, discontinued SC300. It's the main selling point of the redesigned ES.
As for West Coast options, there were 4 different package levels when I purchased my car last year.
I find this complaint much more legitimate than the engine sludge one. Unlike the engine sludge issue, the performance of the transmission has nothing to do with some maintenance task you did or did not do (or did not do properly) on your part. But look how Toyota responded to the engine sludge issue after some owners managed to get enough publicity.
I found a comment by one of the Lexus of Cerritos service managers to be comforting. He said that when the LS and GS first came out with their upgraded transmissions, they were very similar to the state of the ES transmission today. Several firmware upgrades have been issued on the LS and GS since 1998, and he predicts the same thing will happen with the ES300. He claims that when he gets a GS into the shop, he can always tell when the vehicle has the original transmission.
I talked to an attorney at work yesterday and he said there may be grounds for a class action law suit on the transmission. With my frustration I'd really like a pound of flesh.
The remaining respondents can be divided into two groups: 1) Those who do not detect the problem at all and 2) those who detect a problem but at best find it a mere annoyance.
It is difficult to tell whether there are more owners in 1) or 2). It seems fairly even to me.
Since I am in 2), I find it unbelievable that there could be so many in 1). I cannot believe there are people who do not feel the problem at all. By the same token, I never feel anything on the order of 1-2 second delays nor do I experience a safety issue.
Based upon discussions on this board, published reviews in trade magazines, discussions with multiple service technicians and managers at multiple dealerships, and personal test drives of several vehicles, I have strong reason to believe that there is little variability in the behaviour from vehicle to vehicle. If lenscap (category 1) and I (category 2) swapped cars, I would feel the transmission problem in his car and he would not detect a problem in mine. Similarly, if you and I were to swap cars, my vehicle would seem a safety hazard to you, and I would view yours as an annoyance.
I suspect it is all in the way we drive our cars, combined with our respective expectations of how perfectly the transmission SHOULD work.
In summary, I think a lawsuit would be difficult because it will be difficult to assemble a cadre of owners who experience the problem to the degree that you and rtorreca do. Most of us in category 2) would still not be willing to ditch our cars; we still love them and many from this board have purchased vehicles DESPITE the negative press on the transmission.
2002 Entry-Level Luxury Sedan Comparison Test
Linked on their main page.
"Before we plugged all of the numbers collected during this comparison into a calculator, various editors had predicted that the Lexus would be the winner of this test. And why not? It seemed the quintessential entry-level luxury sedan, with its posh cabin and quiet ride. On the basis of most scoring categories, things looked good for the ES 300: it was by far the sedan editors would most recommend to the average buyer with a score of 96 percent; it earned the highest cumulative score on editors' 23-point evaluations (by a narrow margin over the Passat W8); and it had the best coverage on our list of Top 10 Features for entry-luxury sedans — eight of the 10 were either standard or optional. Ultimately, though, the ES could not overcome the performance advantage of the Passat, or the stronger engine and lower price of the I35, and had to settle for a tie with the latter"
Speaking of which, TEXAS83: good for you for taking the pain in the rear effort to file complaints with two state offices. I will likely do something similar in California and nationally. That transmission problem has put me in potential danger more than once, and once was enough.
Mccloskey: well, I guess I personally wouldn't go so far as to compare the interior of a Lexus to the interior of a Maybach.
Then and now, SC300/400s run well over $50,000 and the comparitive niceness of the respective interiors make the 35K ES300 seem like a real bargain.
By the way, I still think the older SC300/SC400s are among the most beautiful cars on the road.