jobyfreddel

I'm having some difficulty with the concept of buying a $30,000+ car and then not being willing to spend a small amount of money to customize settings that will add to the enjoyment of the car over a long period of time.

The cost of customizing the settings on my Lexus was less than most Lexus dealers charge for an oil change.

We must be talking about different settings because there's not a whole heck of a lot of enjoyment coming from any of these for even a short period let alone a long period of time. The one thing I wanted to get done was to be able to close all the windows/moon roof using the key/fob in case I forgot to and turned the car off. It's not going to kill me if I don't have it and apparently I was wrong in the first place as it's not one of the listed items.

BTW, if you get laid off, you become a lot more particular with where you spend your money. :(

When I purchased my 350, I was never informed by the dealer about the ability to customize certain options in the car at the mile checkup. He basically told me it was an optional checkup if I had any issues or questions, to bring it in. I found out later that this was the time to get the light timer/windows/moon roof/etc customized and now they will charge me. I'd rather not pay for this and can live without it but is there anyway I can do this myself? I assume not, but no harm in asking...

And the finger pointing has started LINK...

Now that the defeated team of Sen. John McCain and Gov. Sarah Palin have gone their separate ways, the knives are out and Palin is the one who is getting filleted. Revelations from anonymous critics from within the McCain-Palin campaign suggest a number of complaints about the Alaskan governor:

-Fox News reports that Palin didn't know Africa was a continent and did not know the member nations of the North American Free Trade Agreement -- the United States, Mexico and Canada -- when she was picked for vice president.

-The New York Times reports that McCain aides were outraged when Palin staffers scheduled her to speak with French President Nicholas Sarkozy, a conversation that turned out to be a radio station prank.

-Newsweek reports that Palin spent far more than the previously reported $150,000 on clothes for herself and her family.

-Several publications say she irked the McCain campaign by asking to make her own concession speech on election night.

The tension is likely to continue or get worse. Lawyers for the Republican National Committee are heading to Alaska to try to account for all the money that was spent on clothing, jewelry and luggage, according to The New York Times.

This is the person that some people want to run in 2012. I think the Republican party is already making sure this doesn't happen.

I did feel bad for John McCain last night, they handled him and ran his campaign so poorly...ruined his last chance to be President.

I agree with you that unfortunately for him, his people did run a poor campaign and they got more caught up with trying the Rovian tactics which had worked for the Republicans the previous two campaigns. When I heard his concession speech, I too started to feel bad for him. That was the "real" John McCain. Like many others have said, I too would have voted for him over Al Gore had he gotten the Republican nod back in 2000.

But you know what, I stopped feeling bad for him very quickly. I am not able to give him a pass on what he and his campaign did and said over the last few months when they decided to take it 100% negative and primarily personal attacks. They have divided and damaged the country in addition to the division/damage that was already done by the previous administration. I'm positive that John McCain knows that the America hating/terrorist/socialist/experience-lacking red herrings were BS, but he let his ambition to be president (and I'm sure, a decent amount of pressure from his campaign managers) get in the way. I know he loves this country and he obviously believed that he was the best candidate for president. He is an American hero and no one can take that away from him. Unfortunately it seems as though he may have started believing the ends justify the means.

I believe that when he went on and on about Ayers, socialism, etc, he was simply using them as issues to enrage his supporters and he personally didn't necessarily believe them himself but was going to do whatever he wanted to get votes. His concession speech somewhat confirmed that for me. It may have gotten him some votes, it did not get him the presidency. Ultimately, the saddest thing is that while IMO he doesn't believe it himself, he is the one that has caused (i.e. robo calls, his and Sarah Palin's comments at virtually every rally) more division in this country. An unfortunately large portion of the American population will believe that in January, there will be a terrorist/Muslim/socialist sitting in the White House. Please keep in mind almost one out of every four Texans believe that Obama is a Muslim. LINK

A little while ago, I had the honor of calling Senator Barack Obama to congratulate him.

(BOOING)

...

I urge all Americans who supported me to join me in not just congratulating him, but offering our next president our good will and earnest effort to find ways to come together to find the necessary compromises to bridge our differences and help restore our prosperity, defend our security in a dangerous world, and leave our children and grandchildren a stronger, better country than we inherited.

He gave a very gracious concession speech and I know he believes in the words he spoke. The thing is, after drumming it into his supporters heads for months, many actually believe the negative ads and smears. Unfortunately those beliefs cannot be turned off like a light switch. The booing by the audience attested to that. It was a very dangerous thing that he did.

Obama: Give Social Security, Healthcare to Illegals

There are Millions of illegal aliens in the U.S.

Barack Obama’s plan gives a driver’s license to any illegal who wants one.

But that’s not all.

Obama’s plan gives illegals social security benefits and raises taxes for his health care plan to cover them.

Who pays? You do.

Driver’s licenses and government benefits for illegals.

Higher taxes for us. That’s Obama’s plan.

Obama. Too radical. Too risky.

When you post statements like the ones above, please keep in mind, anything else you have posted or will post will be discounted. When you read or hear things from biased sources and don't bother to check to see if they are true, but repeat them to others, you risk sounding ignorant.

Regarding social security: McCain voted "yea" for the exact same bill LINK And read the article, McCain took it further by actually giving a floor speech arguing against an addendum which would disallow aliens to go back and claim SS benefits for work they did as in illegal. Are you then saying that McCain is too radical and too risky as well?

Regarding health care: I read Obama's health care PLAN and his immigration PLAN but didn't see anything explicitly giving health care to illegals. If I'm missing something, by all means, please provide a link to an unbiased source which gives the details on that program. I don't claim to know all the ins and outs on every plan for either candidate.

By the way, right now, today, uninsured illegal immigrants that go to the ER will get treated and guess what, Obama has not even been elected yet. There is a federal law that prohibits hospitals from refusing care to anyone that goes to an emergency rooms, no matter their residency status or ability to pay.

Now, the source from which you copied/pasted the statements COULD be referring to the $250 million/year plan that is referred to in this article. McCain supported this as well. Too radical? Too risky? Illegal immigration hardliners Senators Dole and Cornyn also supported this bill. Read the entire article and you will see an example of how the sources where you get your information like to cherry pick tidbits of information, sensationalize it and use people like yourself to pass half truths along to others. These are not black/white issues; it is in your best interests to try and understand the entire reasoning instead of getting outraged by a sensationalized half truth and even worse, passing it on. As stated in the article, "it is the responsibility of the federal government, not emergency room nurses and doctors, to enforce immigration law, and that treating those with disease, regardless of immigration status, is necessary as a matter of public health.”

Regarding Driver's Licenses: This issue is like complaining about a leaky faucet in a house that has major structural problems. Obama has stated many times that a comprehensive reform package is needed for the immigration issue. Unfortunately, the Drivers License issue is being used as a distraction. As he stated himself, "We have to have a comprehensive reform package and if we are doing what we need to do to control the borders, if we are doing what we need to do in cracking down on employers who are hiring undocumented workers and undermining U.S. workers then we shouldn't have a problem with driver's licenses because we will have legal workers here in this country as opposed to illegal ones."

What's really sad is that so many of us don't even try to educate ourselves on the issues.

How sad, Colin Powell turning his back on the very people that have supported him all of these years. I respect him for what he has done in the past, but sadly when he turns his back on us conservative folks, to support a socialist than we are seeing how bad these partys have stooped to gain power, but not represent the American people. Change is needed, but not the kind either candidate offers. We need a positive, people oriented person that believes in America and what we are capable of accomplishing. These two morons are nothing more than pacifist. Somebody Like Sarah Palin or Huckaby would be a refreshing change to the political make up. We Americans are tired of these same as usual politicians. John Kennedy or Reagan were men of much more stature than this bunch. We need to start over, and add some real ethics back to our political scene.

I honestly am not trying to flame here but I'm guessing that you didn't see the interview. Here is a snippet from the full interview :

We have two wars. We have economic problems. We have health problems. We have education problems. We have infrastructure problems. We have problems around the world with our allies. So those are the problems the American people wanted to hear about, not about Mr. Ayers, not about who's a Muslim or who's not a Muslim. Those kinds of images going out on Al-Jazeera are killing us around the world.

And we have got to say to the world, it doesn't make any difference who you are or what you are, if you're an American, you're an American. And this business, for example, of the congressman from Minnesota who's going around saying, "Let's examine all congressmen to see who is pro-America or not pro-America" -- we have got to stop this kind of nonsense, pull ourselves together and remember that our great strength is in our unity and in our diversity. And so, that really was driving me.

And to focus on people like Mr. Ayers and these trivial issues, for the purpose of suggesting that somehow Mr. Obama would have some kind of terrorist inclinations, I thought that was over the top. It was beyond just good political fighting back and forth. I think it went beyond. And to sort of throw in this little Muslim connection, you know, "He's a Muslim and, my goodness, he's a terrorist" -- it was taking root. And we can't judge our people and we can't hold our elections on that kind of basis.

So, yes, that kind of negativity troubled me, And the constant shifting of the argument. I was troubled a couple of weeks ago when in the middle of the crisis, the [McCain] campaign said, "We're going to go negative," and they announced it, "We're going to go negative and attack [Obama's] character through Bill Ayers." Now I guess the message this week is, "We're going to call him a socialist, Mr. Obama is now a socialist, because he dares to suggest that maybe we ought to look at the tax structure that we have."

Taxes are always a redistribution of money. Most of the taxes that are redistributed go back to those who paid them, in roads and airports and hospitals and schools. And taxes are necessary for the common good. And there is nothing wrong with examining what our tax structure is or who should be paying more, who should be paying less. And for us to say that that makes you a socialist, I think is an unfortunate characterization that isn't accurate.

I don't want my taxes raised. I don't want anybody else's taxes raised. But I also want to see our infrastructure fixed. I don't want to have a $12 trillion national debt, and I don't want to see an annual deficit that's over $500 billion heading toward a trillion. So, how do we deal with all of this?

I have the same problem on my black car. It only started after I polished the car with Sonus SFX 2 and 3 a few weeks ago. I got tons of the little white bugs flying around when I park my car at work and it's hard as hell to get in the car without having a bunch come inside also. The worst was when I was stopped at red light a few days after polishing and had my moon roof and windows open. All of a sudden, I had two bees flying around my car and then both were inside my car. I hate bees so I started swinging a notebook I had sitting on the passenger seat. I whacked one out of the passenger window and the other one flew out by itself. I immediately shut the windows and the moon roof and both bees kept flying around the car. That weekend I washed the car and it seems to have gotten much better but I still get those white bugs at work (albeit to a lesser degree).

www.lexuspursuits.com

I just got one... because they offered zero interest for 6 months and an $800 dealer credit if I put $5000 of my purchase on the credit card. Seemed like a great deal to me.

How did you get them to offer you the $800 dealer credit? Was it part of a new purchase deal or is this something anyone can get by spending $5000? Thanks!

Looks great! Did you put the DWG on top of the UPGP or vice versa?

I went to the Danase website and laughed at the product description:

Warning: Wet Glaze leaves paint looking dripping wet and could cause the vehicles owner to continuously try and dry the vehicle. This could lead to premature wear and tear on your drying towels.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RbyvcDmLhQ

Cough, cough. ahem. <_<

yet there will be some excuse from Dems that makes it all ok...... right? ;)

sigh...

Someone correct the math if they want to go into the exact dollar, but if there is say around 305 million people in the US. All of which are not over 18. So, why not give us 1 million dollars each, which would be less then the needed 700 billion dollar bail out plan! I'd pay off our mortgage and stimulate the economy with a few nice purchases to boot!

Going down to the exact dollar, it breaks down to $2295/person. You had me excited for a second there ;)

With that said, Steve is absolutely right. It's somewhat shortsighted to say no to this bill simply because of not wanting to bailout these companies that have admittedly screwed up. There is an extremely likely possibility of a financial collapse if something is not done which will affect us all (read: companies allowed to fail).

One thing that many people are reacting to is the term "700 BILLION DOLLAR BAILOUT." Many people are assuming that 700B is simply free money given to these companies. It is not, the treasury would be purchasing assets from institutions which would allow the institutions to start lending again and basically jump start the economy. These assets would be repackaged and eventually sold back to financial institutions. It is not a gift check. Like Steve mentioned, this could potentially be profitable to the taxpayers.

There were add'l provisions in today's bill which protected you and I as taxpayers. Again, it's not a $700B blank check, there is going to be a purchase of assets which do have an underlying value. As Steve said, the treasury would also be able to take ownership interest in those companies. Also, if this bill caused a loss five years from now (if it overpaid for the assets), it required the president to propose legislation to recover the loss from the financial industry itself.

Credit standards have tightened so much so quick already. To get the best rates on loans, many lenders now require a 720 fico or better. On an 80 LTV Agency home loan (Fannie/Freddie), you actually have to have a 740 fico to avoid rate adjustments. Roughly 6 out of 10 Americans would not be able to get these best rates today due to their fico. Imagine if this gets even worse if lenders start tightening even more. Less homes purchased, less automobiles purchased, even credit cards... Standards of living could go downhill pretty damn quick for you and I.

The saddest thing is that it appears that this is being turned into a political issue on both sides of the aisle with all kinds of finger pointing and posturing. And on a related note, here is an interesting article here regarding the vote breakdown

Quoted for Truth:

The package saves wall street, and wall street IS the economy. You don't save wall street, you don't save the economy. I'm as mad as you are that these fat cats were so stupid, but if they all go under we're going to be the ones that are going to suffer.

DDOC and all:

Autopia is gr8! Maybe can find a few dollars less from other sites.. But the cust svce --unbelievable. I created an initial order and got the 15% off as I was in the 250$ range...than wanted to add an mf mitt--sent and email than remembered need a foam interior applicator added that via email...next AM had 2 emails stating they were added and with my 15% discount was applied to these adds.

Should be here Friday.

So after reading more posts from the G.O.D. 's on clay polishing, and the detailing guides on guide on autopia.org i placed another order for green clay, more mf towels, and another foam applicator for the sonus paintwork cleanser. another 50$

Clicked on the online chat operator and asked her (Lynn the same gr8 rep who handled my emails) if they would give me the 15% discount --she did and fixed a problem with my mailing address i did not notice when i submitted the order.

Great customer service thanks for the site!

I second the sentiment re: customer service. I had ordered the SFX-2 but had forgotten to order the SFX-3 and only realized this once I rec'd my shipment. I sent Lynn an email and asked her if I would have to pay the shipping or if she would be able to just ship it with a nozzle that I originally purchased that was on backorder. Not only did she waive the shipping charge, but she took off another 25% because she had just put up a 24 hour sale on the Sonus SFX line. (LINK). She mentioned, "We are a small company so I wear a lot of hats (I am actually the only employee) and it is much easier to treat people how I like to be treated." I thought that kind of customer service was long lost! Lynn is awesome!

Gee, sorry I started this post. But, you all have to take responsibility for yourselves here!!!! :) But ddoc and SW03 got us all hooked if you ask me. I should have bought stock in Autopia or Pashak!!!! <_< Oh well! But it is fun kind of...even though I spent 1 1/2 doing the detail thing (just the outside with the UPGP). Looks great but one downside to this, you see every paint chip and nick! Argh! Keep up the great post. Hey SW03ES monitor...is this the best post going or what!!! Whew, who would have thunk!!!!

Don't be sorry, I'm very glad you started it! Like I said before, I had always wanted to detail my car but felt overwhelmed before when I tried to learn about it. It sounds so stupid now. I think I have picked up a decent beginner's understanding and I don't know why I felt that way before. This thread made me feel much more comfortable as the position that you were in months ago is what I was in a couple of weeks ago.

I've read this thread through 3 times now and everytime I do, I pick up a few things that I missed before. The best thing about it is that since you guys have been going back and forth with the discussions for months now, I don't have to wait for answers, they're already there.

One order arrives Wednesday, the other arrives Friday! The funny thing is that even though I've never done a single detailing myself in my life, I'm already getting requests from friends to do their cars. Hmmm, maybe I should practice my skills on their cars first and THEN do mine ;)

lux, you mentioned that when you restart the car, it doesn't recognize your Pearl and you have to "start the whole process again." Does your phone totally disappear from the system and you have to re-register the phone from scratch? Or is the phone still showing in the system and you just have to manually connect it every time?

If it's the first thing, I had the same issue very recently on my ES350 (Discussion Link). The local dealer service dept. had never heard of the issue before and had to replace the NAV display and now it works fine.

Good luck u r the guy who says just jump in the water when it is freezing.

Why were ur budd's telling u u rwere wasting $$$?

So after they see your car and BEG you to do theirs get like a year of free beer from em!!

post some before pix and afgter if u got em...

They were saying that because they hadn't seen all the before and after pics of everyone's cars like I did ;)

Wow! You went big on your first purchase. You are way deep in the dark side now.

I'm not going to lie, there was a lot of rationalizing going on...

The first time I went through this thread, I didn't see the Camaro pics. I just saw them last night. Holy crap! That was amazing! I had to forward them to a couple of friends who were trying to talk me out of buying all the stuff saying I was wasting my money. When they saw the pics, they backed off quite a bit.

Soooo, I just took the plunge. It took me 4 days to finally feel comfortable that I had everything I needed in my cart. Adding and dropping items (mostly adding) and I pushed the Submit Order button. Autopia and Autogeek split $800+ of my hard earned cash. I figured I'd get everything at once including the Flex. Kind of like ripping a bandaid off all at once rather than pulling off a little bit at a time I guess!

Even so, I'm so excited, I can't wait to get started!!! These next 3-5 business days are going to go by slowly.

First of all, I want to thank everyone for the wealth of information that is in this thread. I've never detailed before and was pretty apprehensive to try as it seemed overwhelming. Then I read this thread (twice through now) and now I'm excited to get started. I "took advantage" of the dealer car washes and now have swirl/light scratches which show quite nicely on the Obsidian paint which I need to fix but is the only real problem I have.

Here's what I have so far in my cart and just want to run it past you guys to see what I'm missing.

Sonus Perfect Leather Interior Kit

Sonus Tire & Wheel Care Kit

Ultima Paint Guard Wash

Ultima Paint Guard Plus, 12 oz.

Sonus Der Wunder Drying Towel, Pkg/2

Sonus SFX Detail Clay Bundle

Ultima Interior Guard Plus, 12 oz.

Sonus Der Wunder Wash Mitt

Sonus Professional Bucket

add'l 5 gallon bucket

Optimum No Rinse Wash & Shine, 32 oz

Also, I was thinking about getting the Flex XC3401 VRG.

1) Many places offer this as a kit. LINK Does it make sense to get the kit, or should I get the pads separately? And if separately, which pads should I get?

2) There were a number of people on various forums that were talking about having issues with the backing plate. I.E. LINK There was a solution mentioned which included oiling the felt ring after removing the backing plate. Has anyone here experienced this problem and did the solution work for you?

Lastly (for now) I've seen a number of videos which show the person using a foam gun to presoak. Is this something that is a good thing to have or is it unnecessary?

Thanks!

Nav display replaced. All is well!

Navsafe, seems like the only solution is to take it in to be replaced. Apparently it's pretty damn rare and we were the lucky ones, I guess.

The Service Rep was saying it could be because the phone may not be compatible, but that doesn't make sense to me. Phone compatibility shouldn't cause old profiles come back after being deleted.

don't you love it when they try to make up explanations for problems with the car?

Glad to hear that it's covered under warranty. Let us know which part they replace. Maybe it's the bluetooth module itself?

They were a bit more specific when I stopped by today. They are going to replace the "nav display" because "there's a connection that is bad." I questioned on why the display would need to be replaced. I'm far from being an expert, but that still doesn't make sense to me. I don't understand what the display has to do with the deletion/storage of the Bluetooth profiles. I was told, "don't worry about it, he (service tech) does it all the time, he knows what he's doing." I will be stopping by tomorrow to talk to my service rep to get a little better clarification.

Well, I dropped my car off yesterday afternoon. Apparently they have to order a special part for the nav system and it will need to be replaced. Thankfully, warranty will cover it.

Unfortunately, I have to be away from my baby for 3 days but at least they gave me another ES as a loaner. The last time I had extended service, it was a different dealer and they gave me a Kia SUV as the loaner (they have an Enterprise rental desk in the service dept and that's all they had.)

I'll update once they replace the part.

I have an 07 ES and had been using the Bluetooth with my old cellphone for 14 months with no problem. It would auto connect, transfer from nav to phone and back again with no problems. I got a new phone last Monday and since I knew I wouldn't be using my old phone anymore, I decided to delete the registration of that phone (and another different phone that was also registered). I successfully deleted both of the old phones and also successfully registered the new phone. The system recognized the model number and it was the only phone listed. I received a call, dialed out with no problems. The next morning, when I started the car, I got the message "connection not successful." I checked the settings in the nav system, BOTH of the old phones were back and the new one was gone... I tried it again, deleting both of the old ones, and successfully registered the new one again, drove to work. Hours later, jumped back in the car, same thing, both old phones are back, new one is gone. Did this ~10 times now, can't get it to stick but kept doing it as I did still need to use it in the mean time.

I took it to the dealer twice. One time a Service Rep did the same thing I did, the second time a tech came out and did the same thing I did. Both times, the old phones did stay deleted but this was only when I restarted the system after 30 secs. When the car was stopped for an extended period of time, the old phones came back. The Service Rep was saying it could be because the phone may not be compatible, but that doesn't make sense to me. Phone compatibility shouldn't cause old profiles come back after being deleted.

I'm going to have to drop the car off so they can take a thorough look at it, but just wanted to see if anyone else had experienced anything like this.

Just in case anyone is interested, the redesigned(?) ES 350 all weather floor mats (the original style was recalled) will be released to the dealers by the end of November per my conversation today with a very nice rep from the corp. offices. I had called the local dealers prior to calling the corp. offices to see if any of them had any stragglers on hand (none) and none of them knew when the mats would be available. I then called the corp offices, the rep eventually called me back with the update after speaking with her manager(s).

They were recalled soon after I purchased my car so I was unable to get them.

I did a search but didn't find anything on this. To preface, this is my first new car and I've not had ABS before so forgive me if this is a stupid question.

I've had the 350 for 4 weeks now and I've been experiencing issues with braking. I generally experience this at low speeds (i.e. coasting up to a red light). When I hit the brakes, I get no resistance unless I mash the brakes all the way down to the floor. It's a little disconcerting as I often have a car in front of me and am expecting the resistance/brake application but do not get the response and usually stop with a hard jerk. I have noticed that if I tap the brakes and then hit them again, I get resistance right away. Also, it's not everytime; I've probably experienced it about 5-7 times.

I spoke w/ my dealer and he had not heard of anything like this and set up a service appt for me. Anyone else experience this or know anything about it? Thanks.

Thats a great deal too!

I'm very happy. I spent a long time researching the car but it was not really needed. With KBB and sites like LOC, anyone can become a well informed buyer with very little effort and in very little time. I had gone to KBB and gotten the dealer invoice including options. Buying on the last day of the month is definitely recommended also. It also didn't hurt that I had a little bit of leverage as my buddy was also buying (he ended up with an RX350)

I joined the club last night! My first ever car purchase and I'm too damn excited. Got a fully loaded UL package for 39070. Last night I woke up twice and both times, in my half awakened state, I couldn't tell if I had actually purchased the car or if it was a dream. Beautiful car!!! I'm excited!