What Was It That Brought You to Purchase a Lexus ?

[dcfish 41]

For Myself it was upgrading from a 1996 Toyota Camry to a 1998 GS 300...Loved the car so much I bought a LS460. I drove the GS for 21 years as a daily driver, The car was sold locally and is still on the road today, Got To Love Lexus ! What is your Story ?

[dcfish 41]

And Because We All Love Pictures  🙂

 

[Bykfixer 68]

I had always admired the Lexus way. You start out with a super reliable brand of automobile and add top of the line features that folks who don't need to ask "how much does it cost" go for and add sexy looks and you've got yourself a winner. 

Now for a guy like me who does have to ask "how much" the resale value held so well that they stayed beyond my price range for a long time. Long enough to forget about it actually. But my son bought a GS300 to turn into a left hand drive Aristo. First time I saw it I commented how that is one fine old car. Old I say because it was almost old enough to vote in the US. 

When he found a genuine Aristo in great shape for less than the cost to retrofit his GS he decided to sell it. All the kids wanted to low ball him or pay him $50 a month. The US gubment sent me a covid check and I figure my son is paying for it anyway so I signed it over to him and he in turn signed over the GS to me. Now it's got some goblins and gremlins but at 18 it's still a dam fine automobile.

Will it be my last Lexus or first Lexus? Time will tell on that front. That largely depends on how quickly the money pit gets dug I suppose, because even though they hold up well, when things go bad the costs can pile up pretty quickly. 

 

[Bykfixer 68]

Here's an 11 minute story about how Lexus came about by my favorite car nut. 

 

[RX400h 57]

I've been getting Consumer Reports magazine for over 35 years. I knew that if any car company could get the first hybrid SUV right, the first time it would be Lexus/Toyota.

And right I was. Ours is now 16 years old and still doing great!

Side fact: Consumer Reports magazine has recently listed the top three most reliable car companies as:

1. Mazda
2. Toyota
3. Lexus

I guess that's why our other two vehicles are Mazdas!👍

[Bykfixer 68]

I like to tell people my family crest has a blue oval in it. Yet these days Ford aint what it used to be. Even the fabled F-150. My company issued work truck has what sounds like rod knock and has since day 1. Ford says "oh it's the fuel pump, nothing to be concerned about". And there is not a lamp in the floor up front. Only this LED thing in the ceiling you don't dare look at after dark or you see spots for a while. Oh it has plenty of giddy up and go, but for how long? My company is about to swap the truck for an Explorer. Another fabled vehicle that just feels cheap when you close the door. I test drove it recently and thought "man I sure would like them to issue me a Lexus, a Toyota, heck even a Hyundai"…… and I'm a Ford guy. Yet these days rooting for a Ford is like rooting for that Washington football team, you have to be a true fan. 

I used to subscribe to consumer reports simply for the annual used car guide. But when issue after issue no longer focused on good washing machines but instead the perils of laundry detergent waste I just let the subscription end. I read it for product reviews, not to be lectured on how my choice of soda pop container may lead to extinction of the doa doa bird. Nope I had the Sierra club magazine for that. 

Now the used car guide used to state how even though cars were becoming more and more reliable some of the ratings of them were being down graded. Not because the car was lousy but because "consumer reports was raising the bar" they'd say. 

My subscription had run out before the Lexus was born. But each day I drive about 150 miles to and from my job and folks, there are still a whole bunch of old LS cars out there. Being a new (to me) 2004 GS owner I look for that old school Lexus grill each day.   There are a lot of what Dragnet character Joe Friday called "late model sedans" with the famous L badge on the road. Actually although I've never officially counted I think I see more classic grill'd Lexus each day than the Darth Vader grill'd ones. 

Apparently Mazda has begun an in house auto tranny production instead of out sourcing. And with that apparently comes Mazda durability. 

[RX400h 57]

I recall my daughter telling me about a classmate who had a 4.2 GPA and was near the top of her class in an excellent high school in our area. This girl was accepted into and subsequently attended University of California, Berkely.

Her first semester GPA was 2.4, simply because the "bar" was raised. The same holds true for automobiles and Consumer Reports. Their "bar" is raised periodically as it should be, in my opinion.

 I noticed that Scotty implied that the CR testers are not mechanics so advised a viewer to not go by CR's ratings. This is nonsense because CR analyzes survey data from tens of thousands of actual owners of the vehicles. When I bought my first new car, a 2001 Corvette, I did see that their reliability rating was very poor, so I knew what I was getting into. Really, we've benefitted so much over the years because of the many recommendations and warnings from CR. I would not think of not getting their magazine every month. It is worth every penny.

 

[Steve 20]

20 years ago I swapped a domain name for a Lexus. The love affair started and I am now on my 10th Lexus

[Lexus Owners Club 25]

Show us your Lexus Steve

[Gamalot 5]

My younger brother was a salesman at the local Ford dealer and switched to the Toyota dealership. We switched with him from Ford pickups to Toyota and from the Explorer to a Rav4 for my wife's daily 30 miles commute. I loved my Tacoma and she was very satisfied with the 3 Rav4s she leased while she was still working. Living in the NE rust belt and her driving in all different weather and road conditions made leasing a good option every three years/36K miles and put her in nice new SUVs with AWD. When she finally retired and wanted a new and nicer riding SUV my brother pointed us at the higher end of Toyota and sold us a nice 2015 Lexus RX350 that was one year old with 15K. She fell in love with her RX and now when it came time to replace it we did the standard shopping and looked at the higher end Rav4s and Highlanders but we also looked at the new 2021 RX350. It was honestly a no brainer after driving the different models and the new Lex came home with us. We also did look at the Honda and Subaru comparable models but Toyota/Lexus won the day. I now drive a 4Runner limited as does my brother. 

[peterr991 1]

First bought by my friend, really liked it, later I bought it too ;)