Buy Extended Warranty? ('99 Es300)

[coreytree]

I'm in the process of buying a used ('99) ES300 with 36,000 miles. The purchace is from a Toyota dealership. Records indicate the car has been serviced regularly. It was previously a leased vehicle (lease = often abused, I hear). The car still has a few months left in it's original 4/50K warrranty (until 8/24/03). I have an appointment with a Lexus dealer to check the car out frior to finalizing the purchace. The seat "preset" adjustments are broken, there is no owner's manual, and the CD changer cartrige is missing (salesman tells me he will find CD cartrige).

I can get an additional 4 yr/50K mi. warranty from the Toyota dealer which would cover repairs at Lexus dealerships, I understand,for $1700. I have yet to ask (but will) the Lexus dealer about what,if any, arranty options I may have from them.

My question is - should I spring for an extended warranty? We do a moderate amount of driving, but it's almost all city driving in Washington, DC, where the streets are pretty bad.

TIA,

Corey

P.S. I love this car! Moving up from a Honda. :D

[zeta]

i would take it, but try and knock the price down a bit more. $1700 is quite a lot for 4/50k.

[SW03ES]

I don't know that you'd get a lot of use out of it. A Lexus is a dead reliable car, and on the ES repairs aren't all that expensive, as they can all be done at Toyota even. What I would do is shop an outside warranty vendor like www.warrantygold.com. Before I got my ES I thought about getting a 99 LS, and they had a much lower quote than $1700 for a warranty on it, even with the LS being heavier, more expensive, and a V8. You can do better.

I'm also right outside Washington DC and I dealth with every dealer in the area, what Toyota dealer is this and whats the price? There are some in the area you want to avoid.

[coreytree]

SWO3es,

I'm dealing with Alexandria Toyota. So far, it seems to be a better deal than I would have gotten had I bought basically the same car from Lindsay Lexus of Alexandria, FWIW. They roll the price of the warranty into the car as part of the certification for all retail practical purposes, and the cost for the car (higher mileage) w/ warranty at the Lexus dealer totals a bit more than at the Toyota dealer, who will 'give' me 1 more year of warranty coverage. Lexus offers a bit better finincing than we can get from our credit union, but it seems to even out in the end, except Toyota has 1 more year of warranty coverage, and I like that particular ES300 better.

Thanks for the tip on Warranty Gold. I'm checking that out.

-C

[coreytree]

P.S.

FYI, per warranty and capabilities of dealers to service it, Toyota dealers can do routine maintenance service, but real repairs would be done at Lexus dealers.

-C

[SW03ES]

Real repairs can be done at Toyota also, and it wont need many of them.

I did see Alexandria Toyota about an LS and were happy with them.

[coreytree]

Thanks, SWO

I never answered you Q re: cost. Cost is $19,995. 36K miles. Seems comparable with what I've seen elsewhere, but just a bit better on the mileage and price. Plus the thing is in great shape and beautiful, like I said before.

-C

[SW03ES]

That sounds like a pretty good deal. What are CPO (Certified Pre Owned) ES's going for?

[zeta]

that's not bad... KBB said $21,860 for a '99 with all the stock options and a 6-disk cd changer (guessing the ES has that). if there's any cool options on the car other than that, then i'd say take it. but don't just go in and buy it straight off. try and knock it down a bit more... if they won't budge, then it's still a good deal.

[SW03ES]

Run a carfax search www.carfax.com and have the VIN run at a Lexus dealership first though.

[zeta]

yeah... SW got the thing that was missing. it may be a '99, but ya never know when it's a lemon. :)

[SW03ES]

Or if its been run off a cliff, used to transport Afganhi refugees, repainted six times etc ;)

[zeta]

lol... hey ya never know, huh, steve? lol

[coreytree]

Good idea to run the VIN @ Lexus dealer. I did Autocheck.com on the VIN and it came up only with registrations and inspections as public records. The Toyo dealer ran a repair work inquiry of some kind and came up with services done every 5K mi. and a few "other inspections" which look like they could actually be oil changes or something, judging from the mileages. One visit is listed as "Trunk Badge", which leads me to believe the trunk emblem was re-glued or replaced when it was about one year old. Perhaps the Lex dealer will have more detail on the service/repair history.

About the prices for Certified Lexus ES 300 w comparable mileage, the closest I saw was a '99 with 39K miles for a little over $22K. Most had more miles by about 3-10K and higher pricetags by $2-5K. BTW, it does have the CD changer (missing CD carriage, but the Toyota dealer said they'd replace it or find it or swipe one from another car).

Monday I'm taking it to a Lex dealer for a thorough going over before I pay for the thing.

One thing I'm wondering, which I hope the Lexus dealer can answer, is exactly what options the vehicle has. For instance, it has so-called "Platinum" chrome ext. parts, actually darkly smoke-tinted chrome. It looks fantastic with the oyster 2-tone paint job, but does that mean the car is a "Platinum Series" (or "edition" or whatever). It does not have a badge that says so. Anyway, I'll find out more on Monday morning.

Strange, there were a bunch of Earl Schieb reciepts in the glove box and an AK-47 in the trunk, though... ;)

Thanks for the responses.

-C

[zeta]

yeah there's no badge when it come to platinum. it and coach are different. coach has the badge, special leather, and a special gift. while platinum has some special add-ons. like special wheels (i think), platinum badges, etc.

that'll add some extra value to the car, so it may actually be worth more than what i mentioned above. if there's nothing major wrong with the car, i'd say take it. it's a great find. :D B)

[SW03ES]

There wasn't a Platinum series in 99, as a matter of fact I dont know that there was any type of special package. If you had a Platinum series it would have a badge above the trim line on the front fender. The black chrome emblem package is an option, one I considered on my car but the black garnet made the dark emblems wash out. It can look good, but I like some contrast. On a light car I'd definately do them.

The "trunk badge" you saw may have been the installation of these emblems.

[coreytree]

The car is 2-tone 'oyster', so the 'platinum/dark chrome' badging/emblems look great on there. Nice contrast.

-C

[zeta]

Platinum series has its own badge? <_<

[SW03ES]

Dyup ;)

[zeta]

wow... the small things some people never notice. lol

[SW03ES]

I notice everything ;)

[Reggie G]

Corey:

What did you decide to do? I am planning to buy a 99 ES300 and am curious about extended service agreements either through a dealer or agreements sold over the web.

[coreytree]

Reggie,

Since our ES still has until August on the original factory warranty, I've decided to wait until then to get an extended 3rd party warranty. I'll probably go with Warranty Gold or Warranty Direct, choosing one of the plans that are most similar to the original factory bumper to bumper warranty. After a bit of investigation, I've found that the warranty sellers all seem to have a perpetual "sale" of some sort, and are flexible on pricing and available features, so be sure to ask for the real best price and mention that you're looking elsewhere for the best deal. They seem to be more forthcoming about available "discounts" (better deals) toward the end of the month when they are trying to reach sales quotas (so they've implied).

Good luck, lemme know what YOU decide to do.

-Corey