Why I Like Taking My Used Lexus To The Dealer When I Don't Have A Warranty

"Torque Affair" (torqueaffair)
07/31/2016 at 12:43 • Filed to: DEALER

I love cars. Not all cars. Just some of them-where the manufacturer actually cares about how the car looks. I mainly enjoy driving them, but I also enjoy staring at them and admiring them for their beauty.

However, as much as I love cars, I don’t really enjoy working on my car for normal maintenance or repair items, because, let’s be honest- it’s too much work . And I don’t want to work. Also, when I do work on my own vehicles (twice in the last ten years), it’s a nightmare putting the pieces back together. Almost always, I lose a bolt or a screw during the process and hardly ever have the right tools to get the job done. It’s more frustrating than trying to understand what the hell Pokemon Go is. Why would people, dying from starvation, play Pokemon Go instead?

The only time I’ve moderately enjoyed working on my car is when I’ve changed a few things to make it faster. But I’m not doing that anymore. Because it turns out that no matter how much tinkering I do, the modifications add little to the car and I get used to the minor enhancements very quickly.

Five minutes of going up and down the same road with the new modifications and I find myself instantly regretting the hours of rare physical labor I’ve carried out and the hundreds of dollars I’ve spent on something out of which I derive virtually zero pleasure.

It’s at that moment when I realize that I should’ve done something else with all that time. Like compete in the annual hot dog eating challenge. Surely, with enough practice I could shove 73 hot dogs into my face in 10 minutes. But, no, I wasted my life turning screw drivers instead.

Important life lesson learned.

When I do need something done on the car, I’m not a big fan of local mechanics and shops where repairs generally cost less. These shops might have the best value in terms of skill and expense, but it’s still up to you to figure out how to transport yourself to and from the shop by finding people to give you rides. And then if the shop didn’t do the job correctly, you have to go through that process all over again.

In a city like Austin, where Uber and Lyft have abandoned us, it’s become that much more of a pain to have to figure this out. I hate it. I’m lazy and want the easiest life possible. I don’t have a hard-working bone in my body and therefore am always looking for the least painful way to get things done. Yes, I am an utter disappointment to my family who have prided themselves on hard work for many generations. They must wonder if I’m even related to them.

There is a shop in Austin, however, that provides you loaners and kind of acts like a high-end dealer, but it’s more expensive than the dealer! A non-dealer charging more than the dealer makes about as much sense as Pokemon Go. Can someone explain it to me please?

And so, being the lazy human being that I am, I find myself back at the dealer.

The Lexus dealer, which I’ve been to once before, hands out loaners with no questions asked. And it’s not some crap loaner, like a Mitsubishi Mirage. It’s actually a brand new Lexus which is so comfortable that you’ll want to fall asleep in it while driving it.

Sure, the dealer is more expensive and doesn’t make sense financially most of the time, but with this recent visit, I only needed an oil change and the trunk latch repaired. A local shop that has great reviews of working on Lexuses quoted me more than the dealer for an oil change but a hundred or so less for repairing the trunk latch. I figured that the difference in cost was worth the lack of hassle and the ease of getting a car fixed and so I went to the dealer.

The Lexus dealer that I’ve been to before during my few months of owning the IS-F is a really nice one. They have a coffee shop and a waiting area to hang around in while they work on washing your loaner before they bring it to you. During that time, you can munch on a delicious, sugary treats and drink however many coffees you’d like.

The dealer waiting area feels like an airport business class lounge. Not quite first class although I’m sure if you pull up in an LFA, you get that kind of treatment.

But I was totally fine with business class - I did bring in an 80,000 mile, 8 year old car after all. What more could I expect? It’s still better than being treated like a dirtbag in coach class which is what you would get at a Ford dealer.

It’s always fun to see what kind of loaner they give you. I suppose it kind of depends on what you bring to the dealer to get serviced. I know this, because a friend of mine, brought his rare LFA to the dealer and got to drive around in a brand new RC coupe (when they first came out). I didn’t get that-I got an ES 350 instead which was still really nice, luxurious and proved to be a welcome break from the concussion-generating IS-F.

Driving Around A Boat

The ES350 is a boat. A really nice, elegant boat. It drove along quietly, bouncing around on road undulations and effortlessly gliding over speed bumps and road imperfections. Driving the car wasn’t very satisfying since there was heavy steering assistance provided by Lexus, meaning that you could turn the wheel with your pinky finger.

I can say that being a passenger in this car is much more pleasurable than driving it. There’s so much room and the ride couldn’t be more comfortable. Google should strongly consider the ES350 as one of their self-driving vehicles because passengers will be delighted to be driven around in this comfy couch on wheels.

268 hp was a decent amount of power for this fairly large sedan. With every acceleration, there was a definite upward movement of the front end of the car which made it feel like it was going to take off but, of course, it didn’t really go anywhere.

A road trip in this car would’ve been great, that is, if I wasn’t driving it. I’d love be chauffeured around in the ES350 while sipping champagne in the back seat. Parents, grandparents and great grandparents, however, would love driving this boat around town at 25 mph.

So after a weekend of boating, I turned the grandma-mobile in and a few hundred dollars later, I was back in the IS-F. The extra money for the dealer was worth it since I obtained a nice, hassle-free experience, and a new car to drive around in for the weekend. Oh, they washed my IS-F too.

We don’t need to Make America Great Again. It’s already great!

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DISCUSSION (16)

itranthelasttimeiparkedit > Torque Affair
07/31/2016 at 12:48

Ha did not realize you’re in Austin. I heard somebody saying similar things the other day about a lexus dealer here - they loved taking their car in for service.

Regarding the mechanic costing as much as the dealer, I go to one of those. The difference is (assuming the mechanics are good guys - true in my case), the small biz is going to bend over backwards to take care of you in those situations. They’ll pick me up and drop me off to get my car, have loaners, have met me on weekends (when they’re normally closed) when I’ve had problems and car broke down on the side of the road, etc. All on a 12 year old bmw

Invinciblejets > Torque Affair
07/31/2016 at 13:17

Read up to the nonsense about not liking to work on cars and modifications..again kinja in general is just weird. The weirdest car community on the Internet. Just so...weird.

PS9 > Torque Affair
07/31/2016 at 13:32

Pokemon Go: a game in which you walk around catching pokemon, which are monsters you’re supposed to battling and trading with friends, but you can’t because this shitty app is only a shell of the other more fully fleshed out games and lacks critical features, but is mega-popular because it’s a close as millions of people around the world will get to their childhood dream of being a real pokemon trainer.

And the run-on sentence of the year award goes to....

DipodomysDeserti > Invinciblejets
07/31/2016 at 13:36

It’s a hipster car community. Likes looking at cars, but not touching them because it is too much work.

jvirgs drives a Subaru > Torque Affair
07/31/2016 at 13:45

I agree 100%. I don’t have the time, skill, tools, space to work on my car and will take it to a dealer I trust before I start to fuck around with an “indie” shop even after my warranty expires.

DipodomysDeserti > Torque Affair
07/31/2016 at 13:46

So you like cars, you don’t love them. When you love something, you’re willing to put in the work to better understand it and really get to know it. You also put in a little extra work to put money in the pockets of people who have taken a risk (opened up their own small business) because of their love of cars. Don’t take this the wrong way, because I don’t think there’s anything wrong with liking cars. Just don’t describe it as love. It’s an insult to the guys who bleed and sweat for their passion for automobiles.

Now, I understand that there are lots of people out there who love cars, but don’t have the means to work on them. An inability to work at something is different than a refusal to work at something.

E90M3 > DipodomysDeserti
07/31/2016 at 14:13

I agree with the last statement completely. I find it satisfying to work on a car and fix something and at the end of the day know you did that. Even if it’s something simple like changing the dash lights on an explorer. I used to work on my explorer when I had it, I would do some minor things on the M3, but most things I’ll leave to the experts, I’m not a trained mechanic and lack the correct tools.

Logansteno: Bought a VW? > Torque Affair
07/31/2016 at 14:16

I can't complain about someone not working on their car because you're the people who are gonna keep me in a job in a couple years.

V12 Jake- Hittin' Switches > Torque Affair
07/31/2016 at 14:24

I’m completely the same way. I do stuff on my simple cars myself but I take my S600 to the dealer because I know they are likely to do it right the first time, money be damned. I know that only one employee can work on my car and they won’t let anyone else turn a wrench on it. They treat me like any other customer and then give me a car worth 3 times what I payed for mine at no cost. I'm more than happy to give a good business my money.

DipodomysDeserti > E90M3
07/31/2016 at 14:29

Exactly. There’s a difference between working on cars, and fucking up your $20k M3 engine because it would cost you $2k to have all the proper tools. And I’m not trying to knock anyone for anything. Everyone does their own thing.

Torque Affair > itranthelasttimeiparkedit
07/31/2016 at 14:49

That’s pretty cool - which shop is this?

Torque Affair > DipodomysDeserti
07/31/2016 at 14:52

Well, I think passion for automobiles can come in all different shapes and forms, kind of like being a foodie. Some people love to eat without having any desire to actually cook or make food.

Torque Affair > Logansteno: Bought a VW?
07/31/2016 at 14:53

That’s great! Better left to the experts who know what they’re doing and can do it quickly and efficiently.

DipodomysDeserti > Torque Affair
07/31/2016 at 14:59

I put people who call themselves foodies but don’t cook in the same category as people who like cars but don’t like working on them. You like food, or cars, and that’s fine. But it’s an insult to people who put their sweat and blood into their craft to say your passionate about something when really you’re just a spectator.

I'm trying to tag on you, as this thought process is pretty widespread. People want to say they're apart of something, but they just want to say it, without putting the work in.

Nick Has an Exocet > DipodomysDeserti
07/31/2016 at 15:05

Yeah, it’s like people who use the word “we” when talking about their favorite sports team. No, “we” did not trade “our” quarterback. The team did. You are a spectator.

valsidalv, reminding you that infiniti is an option > DipodomysDeserti
07/31/2016 at 20:25

Mehhh love means different things to different people. Don’t try to impose your interpretation of it on someone else. So you wrench on your car (as do I) but if you love cars so much how come (and this may or may not be true, but that’s not the point) you don’t work in the field and design them? How come you don’t race professionally? How come you don’t advocate for better driving laws? Etc. You are just arbitrarily drawing the line at wrenching.