Barbbb Posted July 1, 2008 Share Posted July 1, 2008 I thinking about buying a 2005 SC430 instead new of 2009 IS350. I've had Is300 in 2001 & 2004. Now I'm ready to move up. I would like to hear from SC430 owners about how great the car is. It's from a dealer an is Certified with a warranty. What should I look for be sure I'm getting a good deal and a good car. Barbbb Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
FASTOY Posted July 1, 2008 Share Posted July 1, 2008 I thinking about buying a 2005 SC430 instead new of 2009 IS350. I've had Is300 in 2001 & 2004. Now I'm ready to move up. I would like to hear from SC430 owners about how great the car is. It's from a dealer an is Certified with a warranty. What should I look for be sure I'm getting a good deal and a good car. Barbbb I bought my 2006 SC with 8400 miles about two months ago. I changed the wheels and installed a remote roof opener/engine starter. In the past I owned large cards, Mercedes S class, Lexus 430LS. I thoroughly enjoy the SC. It is more fun than I ever imagined. I highly recommend it. If you have questions, let me know. Enjoy it!! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
02Lexi Posted July 1, 2008 Share Posted July 1, 2008 I thinking about buying a 2005 SC430 instead new of 2009 IS350. I've had Is300 in 2001 & 2004. Now I'm ready to move up. I would like to hear from SC430 owners about how great the car is. It's from a dealer an is Certified with a warranty. What should I look for be sure I'm getting a good deal and a good car. Barbbb It would be good for you to see a Carfax report too. They're usually pretty interesting and will tell you if the car has been serviced on a regular basis. If the car has low mileage and is Certified with a warranty that woud be good too. Sometimes you may spend a little more than book value if the car meets and exceeds criteria. You won't be sorry if you get a SC430! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
aquanuke Posted July 1, 2008 Share Posted July 1, 2008 You might want to consider a 2006 model has a few improvements. New gearbox, new head lights, rear tail lights, bluetooth etc. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Barbbb Posted July 2, 2008 Author Share Posted July 2, 2008 I thinking about buying a 2005 SC430 instead new of 2009 IS350. I've had Is300 in 2001 & 2004. Now I'm ready to move up. I would like to hear from SC430 owners about how great the car is. It's from a dealer an is Certified with a warranty. What should I look for be sure I'm getting a good deal and a good car. Barbbb I bought my 2006 SC with 8400 miles about two months ago. I changed the wheels and installed a remote roof opener/engine starter. In the past I owned large cards, Mercedes S class, Lexus 430LS. I thoroughly enjoy the SC. It is more fun than I ever imagined. I highly recommend it. If you have questions, let me know. Enjoy it!! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Barbbb Posted July 2, 2008 Author Share Posted July 2, 2008 I thinking about buying a 2005 SC430 instead new of 2009 IS350. I've had Is300 in 2001 & 2004. Now I'm ready to move up. I would like to hear from SC430 owners about how great the car is. It's from a dealer an is Certified with a warranty. What should I look for be sure I'm getting a good deal and a good car. Barbbb I bought my 2006 SC with 8400 miles about two months ago. I changed the wheels and installed a remote roof opener/engine starter. In the past I owned large cards, Mercedes S class, Lexus 430LS. I thoroughly enjoy the SC. It is more fun than I ever imagined. I highly recommend it. If you have questions, let me know. Enjoy it!! Hi, I test drove the SC430 today and was surprised that the pick up and go was not as fast as I expected. It was very smooth and solid but the take off speed I felt was lacking something. Is that how they ride??? I thought it would be so fast. Then I drove the IS350 and WOW! what a difference. The IS is really responsive. I know the SC is a luxury sports car and the IS is more sproty but should the speed be faster??? Maybe something is wrong with it. I'm going to test drive a 2007 tommorrow. This car has a Carfax report & it's clean. I could not find 1 thing wrong with it both in the interior or exterior. Obviously, it was kept in a garage. It has only 24300 miles on it. It's white with the rust-brown leather interior. It's beautiful car but I'm just not sure. The dealer has to come down on the price to convince me on this one. Please let me know if take off speed is suppose to be quick and peppy. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
solman Posted July 2, 2008 Share Posted July 2, 2008 I agree that it slow off the line but it picks up quickly-remember this car weighs nearly 4,000 pounds and still goes 0-60 in 5.9 sec. I just bought a 2002 SC from an exotics dealer (Lamborghinis, etc) for $27K. It has only 24 K miles on it and I was able to buy an extended warranty that will take the car to 99K miles or the year 2015 and it has zero deductable. I paid $1230 for the warranty. It is a quality luxury car that is more luxury than sport but I love it. This car looks like a coupe inside and out and in 30 seconds you got the top down-FANTASTIC! BTW the dealer was great-he told me to have it inspected, so I took it to a Lexus dealer who spent 2 hours on it. They showed me the computer records where services were done as scheduled from the time it left the dealer as a new car. You could see the milage slowly creep up from zero miles to 24K-That dealer actually recommended that I buy the car because of its record and came up with only one problem-the trunk shocks. The inspection cost $240 and was worth every penny. I ordered the $55 trunk shocks and installed when I had the car less than a week. The car is white with ecru interior. I used Autotrader and only looked at SC's that were white, less than 50K miles and less than $35K. I found two in a 75 mile radius of my home. Advertised price was 27.9 and I paid 27.5-Not much of a negotiation, but I felt the car was fairly priced and was will to pay asking price. I am one very happy SC owner-I did buy one unique car that has one of the best reliability records around. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
drkarate49 Posted July 2, 2008 Share Posted July 2, 2008 I thinking about buying a 2005 SC430 instead new of 2009 IS350. I've had Is300 in 2001 & 2004. Now I'm ready to move up. I would like to hear from SC430 owners about how great the car is. It's from a dealer an is Certified with a warranty. What should I look for be sure I'm getting a good deal and a good car. Barbbb I just bought a 2007 SC430 two weeks ago. I have had corvettes for the past 28 years, but I have had back problems and needed a more comfortable seat. What a surprise! I traded my 2003 Z06 in on this..and I truly love this car! Truly a classy convertible with just enough sportiness! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Barbbb Posted July 3, 2008 Author Share Posted July 3, 2008 I agree that it slow off the line but it picks up quickly-remember this car weighs nearly 4,000 pounds and still goes 0-60 in 5.9 sec. I just bought a 2002 SC from an exotics dealer (Lamborghinis, etc) for $27K. It has only 24 K miles on it and I was able to buy an extended warranty that will take the car to 99K miles or the year 2015 and it has zero deductable. I paid $1230 for the warranty. It is a quality luxury car that is more luxury than sport but I love it. This car looks like a coupe inside and out and in 30 seconds you got the top down-FANTASTIC! BTW the dealer was great-he told me to have it inspected, so I took it to a Lexus dealer who spent 2 hours on it. They showed me the computer records where services were done as scheduled from the time it left the dealer as a new car. You could see the milage slowly creep up from zero miles to 24K-That dealer actually recommended that I buy the car because of its record and came up with only one problem-the trunk shocks. The inspection cost $240 and was worth every penny. I ordered the $55 trunk shocks and installed when I had the car less than a week.The car is white with ecru interior. I used Autotrader and only looked at SC's that were white, less than 50K miles and less than $35K. I found two in a 75 mile radius of my home. Advertised price was 27.9 and I paid 27.5-Not much of a negotiation, but I felt the car was fairly priced and was will to pay asking price. I am one very happy SC owner-I did buy one unique car that has one of the best reliability records around. Thanks for your response. The dealer came down a little but I'm still not sure. Originally the dealer told me I could lease it w/warranty. I did not understand that leasing a used car vs leasing a brand new car around the same sale price, would not have the same payments because of the interest and insentives are better on the new car. Therefore, the price is about $160 more. I'm paying only $467 for my 2004 IS300. That's quite a jump in payments. So, I'll probably get the IS350, but I REALLY WANT THE SC. I need more encouragement from SC owners to convince me it's worth the price. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
aestolas Posted July 4, 2008 Share Posted July 4, 2008 * 2002 model required new roof motor, trunk struts and tire pressure sensor * I have a 2002 SC430. When I purchased in 2007 the car had 29k miles, currently the car has under 39k miles. While I love the car I was caught off guard when I needed to replace the roof motor four months after taking the possession. I received no warning before the the roof motor failed. Basically the roof was stuck in the down position. The dealer had no adequate reason why the motor failed on a 5 year old car. I didn't yet have a non-dealer mechanic and in the essence of fixing the problem as soon as possible (I didn't trust the car in my apartment carport for very long while in the down position). The repair ended up running about $2k: replace the roof motor assembly $331 parts, replace the trunk strut parts $165 x 2 + $1300 in labor. I was told the position of the roof motor assembly required a lot of labor based on its position in the vehicle. While my repair costs have already been paid perhaps someone else can learn from my experiences and hopefully pay less for similar repairs. Although the hard top convertible is indeed convenient and sexy features, much like soft top convertibles when the roof needs repair the unexpected costs can be pricey. Most recently one of my rear left tire air pressure sensor has failed made known by the indicator light on the dash controls. I'm going to schedule my regular, non-dealer, mechanic for the repair. The estimated repair using Lexus parts is $300. I only hope the sensors on the other tires do not require repair in the near future. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
cakebread Posted August 3, 2008 Share Posted August 3, 2008 Just bought a 2005 a week ago and absolutely love it! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ucana4dit Posted September 22, 2008 Share Posted September 22, 2008 * 2002 model required new roof motor, trunk struts and tire pressure sensor * I have a 2002 SC430. When I purchased in 2007 the car had 29k miles, currently the car has under 39k miles. While I love the car I was caught off guard when I needed to replace the roof motor four months after taking the possession. I received no warning before the the roof motor failed. Basically the roof was stuck in the down position. The dealer had no adequate reason why the motor failed on a 5 year old car. I didn't yet have a non-dealer mechanic and in the essence of fixing the problem as soon as possible (I didn't trust the car in my apartment carport for very long while in the down position). The repair ended up running about $2k: replace the roof motor assembly $331 parts, replace the trunk strut parts $165 x 2 + $1300 in labor. I was told the position of the roof motor assembly required a lot of labor based on its position in the vehicle. While my repair costs have already been paid perhaps someone else can learn from my experiences and hopefully pay less for similar repairs. Although the hard top convertible is indeed convenient and sexy features, much like soft top convertibles when the roof needs repair the unexpected costs can be pricey. Most recently one of my rear left tire air pressure sensor has failed made known by the indicator light on the dash controls. I'm going to schedule my regular, non-dealer, mechanic for the repair. The estimated repair using Lexus parts is $300. I only hope the sensors on the other tires do not require repair in the near future. Just bought a 05 SC Sept 1 and I absolutely love it!! Could not ask for anything more!! Very Happy Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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