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SW03ES - Thanks for the feedback and the suggestion on the scratch product. I had seen your prior posts about the soft paint and even mentioned that to the dealer service rep and his refuted that saying the he's seen no paint chipping or other paint related issues in his 10+ year experience and is not aware of anyone indicating as such. Oh yeah?! Then why the scratch the first time I brought them the car. I also told him about this website and suggested he check it out and start reading. I don't think I'll be able to go with the weekly wash, but I've already begun to search out a few detailers in Central NJ but I'll also use your suggestion of the autopia.org to supplement that search. From your perspective, why doesn't the ES have a clearcoat? Do other Lexus cars (e.g. LS) have a clearcoat? Can it or should it be added? Thanks again!

I took my new '08 ES350 for it's first 1k service and will take it again pretty soon for the 5k complimentary service. While I was there I asked for the pricing of the future service intervals. These prices are from a dealer in Central NJ (not incl tax): - 10k, 20k, 40k, 50k: $186 - 15k, 45k: $296 - 25k, 35k, 55k: $156 - 30k: $495 - 60k: $605 Two questions: - I certainly expect dealer's maintenance prices to be high but these seem very high. Do you agree? - Assuming I have no warranty issues or other abornormal issues needing to be addressed, any reason I couldn't go to a local shop or chain (like STS in NJ) for these services? - Perhaps instead of a local/chain service shop, how about a Toyota dealer for service (same/similar parts, right?)? Thanks for your insights. (Mods note: I didn't see a maintenance forum, and, these prices are specific to the ES so I posted here. Thanks.)

Thank you for the recommendation! One question...this place indicates they use high-end carnauba and polymer waxes. Didn't I read somewhere on this forum some of our local gurus indicating NOT to use carnuaba wax? Just looking for clarification. Additional Detail Shop recommendations are still welcome (the closer to Princeton/East Windsor the better). Thanks again.

I live in the Central NJ area (Princeton). Can anyone recommend a good detail shop in Central NJ? I have a new black/black '08 ES UL and I already learned the hard way that I shouldn't let the dealer clean my car. After reading a few posts on this forum I should NEVER take it to a car wash. So, not having a lot of time to do the 100+ things you folks have suggested to take care of the car myself, I need to find a good detailer to go to once in a while to keep that beautiful shine and to have the scratches removed that my dealer left this past weekend. Thanks!

Available time is holding me back (60-80 work week). Plus when it gets to winter time I'm certainly not going outside to wash the car either. I think I saw in another thread some scratch remover solution (Nu-Finish Scratch Remover) may do the trick for these scratches. But I still need to address the car wash thing for the long term. Anyone have an opinion on the Nu-Finish product?

Ok, so here's a not so funny story. So I spent Friday reading through various posts and saw a few people had posted they had issues almost every time when they took their car into their dealer for service and after they washed it and got it back they noticed various issues. Before I go further, I have a black/black '08 ES350 UL w/ML. Absolutely beautiful. So, I go into my dealer on Saturday for my first service (the 1,000 quick check). I sit down in the guy's office and I ask him what's involved in this service. He describes it and finishes with saying they also wash it. Knowing what I just read I said, no, don't wash it but you can do the interior vaccum. As I'm waiting I thought to myself...I'm going to have this car 3-4 years and hopefully another one after that. I can't wash my car myself all these years so I've got trust them. So I walk back into his office and told him I changed my mind and to go ahead and wash it. "No problem" he said. BIG MISTAKE!!! :chairshot: When they're done he said my car was outside. When I walk up to it I'm looking at the passenger side. Close inspection, no issues. Nice. I get around to the driver's side and there's two straight line scratches on the rear door that are not real deep but you definitely feel it when you put your finger over it. I go back into his office and tell him..."what was I really nervous about happening?! Well, it happened!". He comes outside and tells me that was already there. He pulls out a piece of paper that showed his walkaround inspection of the car and showed me marks he made on his sheet to indicate they were already there. He said there's no way their cloth-based machine did this and that it was already there. Sorry, but not their fault. He just called me today (Monday) after talking with him manager and again said sorry but not our fault. I said if you marked it down before you serviced it why wouldn't you have brought that to my attention knowing how anal/nervous I was about it. It's a brand new car and black no less. Don't you think I would have seen that before? I KNOW those scratches were not there before. So, net/net I have my first scratches and I'm *BLEEP*ed. Needless to say I'm not having a dealer wash the car ever again. But I can't honestly see myself having to hand wash these every time. But I know, there will be more road scratches, parking lot issues, etc. It just sucks because I knew better from all of you and I went back on my instincts. :cries:

No, not a movie. Mostly the radio and CD's. It's not a major deal and I've been playing with the surround sound and ASL buttons on/off. It definitely sounds better with both on (what is the ASL button anyway and that signal looking icon?). I know some of it has to do with radio stations that I don't get a strong signal. Any car will have that issue. It's just when I have a CD and/or a radio station with a strong signal that I tend to have to turn up the volume to really fill the cabin with sound and that 10+ speakder effect. Again, certainly better than the base model stereo and exponentially better than the POS car/stereo I had before. I'm not an audiophile but I guess I had a different sound expectation. What I need to do is find some DVD-A (and/or movies with 5.1 dolby). I have a Police concert DVD in my car now, but it wasn't recorded in 5.1. All in all, I know I'm just being picky. I do love the car!

Bill, You stole my thread! LOL. The reason I logged on today was to post/ask this very question. I just bought my ES UL Nav/ML last month (9/12/08) and I experience the very same thing. In fact, it's really disappointing. Same thing...5 minutes later after the car is warmed up it goes away. My fear is when I take it to the dealer this Saturday for the 1,000 check when I'm only there for 10 minutes and they aren't keeping the car, they won't be able to reproduce the issue since I brought the car there and it's warm. Why the hell would this be considered normal on a $50k car? I'll check into John's "Piston Slap" item but a car of this quality shouldn't have this and although I do 80-90 mph on the NJ Turnpike, I don't want to have to do that for 300 miles straight to fix the problem. Without searching on the "Piston Slap" item, does anyone else have any recommendations or resolution from your dealer? Thanks.

I've had my '08 ES UL w/Nav & ML Black/Black for a month (purchased 9/12/08) in Central, NJ. I know my car is very rare up here. The key was the Black/Black combo. It could not be found in three local states. I actually had to wait for it to come off the ship into Newark, NJ. Took about 3 weeks. I'm damn glad I did. In fact, sometimes I feel guilty I have it with the stock market tanking, etc. In fact I don't leave it in my driveway. I keep it hidden in my garage so my neighbors don't see it. I had a Chrysler Concorde Limited before that and some local kids ripped off the logo emblem off the back. No way I'm going to let that happen this time. I have to say, however, I'm a little critical of the ML system. Clearly it's way better than the standard Lexus sound system. But I find that I have to turn up the volume to get more of the surround sound feel. And what's the deal with just a treble, midrange and base level setting?! A sound system with that much power and cost should have a serious equilizer type of setting control, right? But for me the best feature is the handsfree phone. I have it synched up with my Motorola Razor and it works perfectly. A friend of mine has a Mercedes S550 and his handsfree sucks. It's so hard to hear him when he calls me. Nicely done by Lexus! I also agree with another poster about the leather. Very soft, very luxurious. Overall, very happy with the purchase.

I'm happy to report that it was probably a first day thing. My system is now working properly as incoming numbers are displayed and if it is a number I have in my phonebook and I've given it a label like "Home" it shows up as "Home". Good stuff! Now if I can just find the bypass that will allow the navigation to work while driving. I saw on another thread/forum the company in California who has these, and I emailed them, but they haven't perfected it yet on the ES 350. Only on the LS and the LX I believe.

First off, glad to see you finally got your car. Hopefully it was worth the wait. I just saw this post so I gave it a try with my phone. I have a V3 RAZR also, but with Cingular (now AT&T). I have two phones paired with the car, mine and my wife's (this is her car). I was surprised that the car did not automatically detect and use my phone - it was the only Bluetooth device within the vacinity of the car. I had to go into the setup menu and select my phone by name. That will be a pain if you have to do this each time you start the car. I hope this is just an artifact of the battery being disconnected to install the iPod adapter. We will see! I had my wife call my cell phone from the house and the phone number of the house phone was displayed. There was no name displayed, only the number, even though the home phone number is in the car phone book. John It was worth the wait! Thanks for asking. To the issue you experienced from what I learned this morning when I asked about having two phones paired, he said the one it will automatically pair to is the last one that was connected. I noticed that as he was pairing and other things we set up the car had to be turned off then on to reset. So your iPod work may have had something to do with it. But if her phone was the last that was active that probably explains why it didn't immediately recognize your phone. I'll have a few more people call me to see if other phone numbers show up. I had my salesman call me back so the dealer was the only phone to call me. But the number should have at least displayed. I'm curious to see if others have experienced this.

Just picked up my '08 ES 350 UL today and already used the outbound and inbound handsfree calling. The phone I have is a Motorola V3 Razor through T-Mobile. The service technician paired the phone with no problems. Made several inbound calls with no problem. Taking any inbound calls wasn't an issue. However, when I recieved a call, it did not display the incoming phone number and/or any other identification. I checked the Lexus website and looked up my phone/carrier. Of all the options listed, it does indicate "Handsfree system displays incoming caller identification" as 'Yes' meaning I should be able to see the incoming phone number/name on my Nav screen. Anyone have any experience with this issue and/or suggestions on how to resolve? I'm hoping it's not an issue with a software version difference on my exact V3 versus what Lexus says should work. Any help would be appreciated. Thanks!

That is correct, I DO NOT have the NAV. I purchased some plastic trim removal tools at Harbor Freight (believe it or not, none of the Auto Parts stores had these tools - they sent me to Harbor Freight). The scary part was taking parts off, I was always waiting for something to break, but nothing did. I did follow all of the instructions including putting tape on the dash. Reassembly was much easier, it probably took less than 15 minutes to put all of the parts back. John John - Thanks for the reply and personal emails. I just picked up my car today and have been using just the regular MP3 aux port hookup. Not good enough. I'm definitely going to order this part and have it installed at a local place that installs aftermarket stuff for a local Lexus dealer (there's no way I'm going to attempt what you did...but I am going to pass along your notes for them to follow. Great job!

What the hell was that salesman smoking?! My car, which is being delivered this week, came through Newark. I live in NJ and it has the power rear shade. I saw several other models at various dealerships here in NJ that had it as well. It's probably a function of the car you bought and how they configure them. Mine is an Ultra Luxury (UL) model which comes with that option standard. I'm not affiliated with any dealer and I'm no expert but I'm pretty sure there are certain configurations you can't just add it. It is either a model configuration that has it or it doesn't. I'm sure there's a few other posters here who can confirm one way or another. But the Newark port thing...that's the first I've heard of that.

Yes, based on those numbers it's a good deal. Your right around invoice plus a few bucks. Enjoy!

I'm going to answer my own my own post based on additional research I did and feedback I received from another poster (jbeidl...thanks for the email). The main free site is: lexustsb.com. Special note on searching this site as I had a few issues (mainly user error!). The best way to use this site is to search on "ES350" using the 'Search the Knowledge Base' section on the right. Using the 'Browse by Category' section of the screen won't end up resulting in the articles you want to browse. jbeidl was also kind enough to provide some information on another site that has costs associated with it. He wasn't sure it could be posted here but I'm making a leap of faith the moderators won't mind (since it's a Toyota site anyway): "It is the Toyota Technical Information Center: http://techinfo.toyota.com The Toyota site costs $10/day, $50/month and $300+/year. It has all of the TSB, Owners manuals, Repair manuals, Accessory Install manuals and Electrical manuals for all Toyota products. You can save all of the information to PDF files on your system." For example, he indicated he found detailed instructions on the iPod installation you've seen other threads. Thanks again to jbeidl for his additional research!

As I've immersed myself in this website (which is great...contains sooo much info) I've came across numerous references to TSB's on the LS460 forum. Is there a Lexus site (or other section of this website) that lists the TSIB's that are open on the ES 350? I'm taking delivery of a new one next week and I want to be fully aware of known issues before I even leave the dealership. For those of you who work for a dealership, should I be asking for these TSBs to be performed on my vehicle before taking delivery or are they going to refuse until I can demonstrate an issue exists first? I understand the need for some issues needing to occur before they start replacing parts, etc. but I can see instances where proactive changing of parts to avoid prevalent issues (if any exist) would be more prudent for them to ensure a new customer is happy with their new purchase. Of note with the LS460s it appeared there were widespread issues with cabin noise levels. Are there issues like that that are widespread with the ES 350 that you would recommend I talk with them about before leaving the dealership? Thanks.

I think the hours quoted for the install are probably reasonable, lots of dis-assembly and reassembly. I am sure you can find places that are much less than $100/hr. Since a scan tool is not required anyone can do the install. I plan doing my own install. You can purchase the Lexus unit for under $200 (without shipping), see http://us.lexusownersclub.com/forums/index...erryb@safro.com. That is where I got mine. I can't tell you anything about operation as I have not installed it yet - maybe someone that has one installed can chime in here. I think some of the non Lexus units may have more capability, I don't know for sure. I know some of them allow both an iPod and Satellite radio to be installed, the Lexus unit does not. This is not important to me, I have two GM vehicles with XM radios and I don't have them enabled. Way overpriced subscriptions and poor audio quality (very limited dynamic range), at least with the GM units. John John - Thanks again for the reply. I too don't care about the satellite hookup and is why I'm not interested in the other non-Toyota parts which provide the dual capability. I did find another site (ToyotaPartsCheap.com) that had the part for $196.80 (20% off MSRP) but I'll check with your guy to see if shipping is cheaper. Before I do make a purchase I'm actually going to wait a bit as I haven't yet received the car (next week) and, to be honest, I'd like to wait and hear about your thoughts on its functionality once you've installed. Once you've received it and installed (when do you think that will be?) please come back and post your thoughts for everyone. Good luck and enjoy!

It will be just as much work to remove as it was to install and you will have to deal with the 1 1/8" hole drilled in the glove box. Also, unless you plan to sell the car in a year or so it will probably not be compatible with your newer Lexus. The life span of technology is quite short in these modern times. It is also possible that the iPod interface will be a standard feature on cars in the future. Enjoy your new ride. John John - Good point on the lifespan of the technology. I just got the car and will have it at least 3-4 years so you're right. I would certainly hope this would be standard issue by then. Good luck with your new unit as well. Thanks! By the way...a few new points on this iPod connector thing. First the total cost of the Toyota part (PT545-00082) and installation by my dealer is out of whack if you ask me. The want $595. My search of prices for the part indicate I can get it for as low as $219 (including shipping) on the net. I understand the dealer is looking to make a profit on the part but geeze. They inidicated the price is basically $300 for the part (MSRP is $249 by the way) and three hours labor is about $100/hr for a total of $595. I checked with my Toyota dealer (I also own a Sequoia) and they indicated they would install for $200. So a little bargain shopping and labor shopping I think will pay off. To a point that SW03ES posted in another thread I don't think there's any issue with a Toyota (or another independent mechanic/shop like STS, etc.) doing maintenance or accessories installation. (anyone care to confirm that assumption?!) Item two relates to this part's functionality. Through other research on the net I've seen people post is that this accessory is greater than sliced bread and others have posted it has limited functionality in terms of showing all the playlists or all the songs on the iPod. For example I think I read it will only show 100 songs on the iPod. Can anyone confirm? For those of you who've installed this in your ES 350, please share some specifics about your experiences and what the NAV screen will show from your iPod, AND, please also tell us what kinds of things you can do from your steering wheel. I know I'm not the only one reading this thread who's interested in this functionality. Thanks!

Following on SW03ES' request, if you provide your MSRP, deal price was and confirm your lease is with no money down (cap cost reduction) we can probably figure if your deal was good. Also, if you know what the residual amount (or % used) was on your car that would just about complete the different pieces of the lease formula. For example, the deal I signed last week was for 48 months on an Ultra Luxury which was 41% (which in my opinion sucks but it's the % they are using for everyone). I was told an UL 36 month lease the residual was 50%. The Pebble Beach might be about 1-2% higher (which helps you) but if you provide the other pieces we can quickly figure out. The other missing piece would be the money factor which was .00065 for Tier 1 here in NJ last week. If you look on the net there are lease payment formulas/calculators that when you plug all this in (MSRP, deal price, residual %, money factor, down pmt/cap cost) you should get almost exactly the monthly payment you should receive from the dealer before state taxes. In NJ they add the tax in (7%).

It will be just as much work to remove as it was to install and you will have to deal with the 1 1/8" hole drilled in the glove box. Also, unless you plan to sell the car in a year or so it will probably not be compatible with your newer Lexus. The life span of technology is quite short in these modern times. It is also possible that the iPod interface will be a standard feature on cars in the future. Enjoy your new ride. John John - Good point on the lifespan of the technology. I just got the car and will have it at least 3-4 years so you're right. I would certainly hope this would be standard issue by then. Good luck with your new unit as well. Thanks!

The Lexus part does not have to be dealer installed, a scan tool is NOT required for setup. However, it is not a 5 minute job. Parts of the center console, dash and glove box need to be removed and a 1 1/8" hole drilled in the glove box (for the iPod cable and grommet). I suspect that the non-Lexus adapters require the same amount of work. John Thanks for the feedback. I had a follow-up question that your explanation brings to mind. When I sell/trade this car in the future and get another Lexus, will I be able to take this $200-$300 part with me or is it going to be a pain ($$) to remove it? Thanks.

Guys - I have to admit now I'm confused. The first few posts on this thread described a $5 part you could purchase at Radio Shack versus the $200-$300 part on the Lexus site (referenced above) as well as the Toyota site. So what am I missing? Is the cheap connection just to connect the iPod to play music through the system but this option would not have control through the NAV screen or steering wheel and the more expensive one does have all those features? If so, that would explain it. If the $5 part allows for the same capabilities then that's where I missed something through the posts. Could anyone clarify the differences in parts? I'm picking up my new ES350/UL with Nav/Levinson in a week and certainly want to take full advantage of all bells/whistles in this car with my iPOD. So which choice is it...Door #1 ($5 part) or Door #2 ($200-$300 part)? Thanks for the advice! My take (after looking them up) is that the expensive ones allow you to play the video from your IPOD and/or allow you to access your IPOD from the Nav or steering wheel controls. If you want to still use your IPOD controls to select/push play, and just hear them through the car, the cheaper part will do. Make sure you know the size connectors you need. For example, I have a Blackberry and need the smaller input plug than the 1/8". Any Best Buy/Radio Shack, etc. can help you! Good luck (I haven't bought mine yet but I plan to after the holiday!). Thanks guys for the extra clarification on the $5 vs. $300 part. On the $300 part does anyone know if it has to be installed or is it just plug & play on both ends and the rest of the cable assembly just remains in the glove compartment or do the Lexus guys need to install to, 1: hide the cable assembly and, 2: make it operational? Thanks again.

Guys - I have to admit now I'm confused. The first few posts on this thread described a $5 part you could purchase at Radio Shack versus the $200-$300 part on the Lexus site (referenced above) as well as the Toyota site. So what am I missing? Is the cheap connection just to connect the iPod to play music through the system but this option would not have control through the NAV screen or steering wheel and the more expensive one does have all those features? If so, that would explain it. If the $5 part allows for the same capabilities then that's where I missed something through the posts. Could anyone clarify the differences in parts? I'm picking up my new ES350/UL with Nav/Levinson in a week and certainly want to take full advantage of all bells/whistles in this car with my iPOD. So which choice is it...Door #1 ($5 part) or Door #2 ($200-$300 part)? Thanks for the advice!

The seat extender is a nice added feature in the UL models. I leave mine in the fully extended mode most of the time, but on long drives I sometimes re-adjust it to increase my comfort. This feature is also controlled when you have the seat memory set. AMF - Thanks for your insights!