longhaul747
New member
My dad got the call from his boss to go pick up a new company car of his choice. His budget is $50,000 give or take. Since my dad's boss drives a Lexus RX350 he suggested my dad test drive one.
So we headed off to Lexus of Bellevue in Bellevue Washington. As we arrived at the dealer we said wow. This dealership is big enough to be corporate HQ for Lexus. It might be impressive but I bet they have incredible overhead. Makes getting a deal harder. A point my dad made.
As we started looking it was not long that a sales man came up to help us out. They seem very polite and know every detail about the product they sell. Might dad is a very big business man who does not like to waist time and get to the point. So he pretty much said lets go for a test drive. After getting the appropriate information we headed for a test drive.
The car is very impressive if a bit funky in design. It takes some time getting used to it. Doors are not as solid as some domestic cars but the interior is high quality and rattle free. Road noise is minimal. The engine is so quiet you can hardly tell its on.
On the road its not short on power. Although I wonder where the 270HP is hiding? It just never felt all that fast. In this day and age 270HP is not that much and I imagine its not the lightest vehicle. Power is good and will move when needed but its no speed demon. Handling was very good for this class of vehicle but not impressive. Many cars could take it on a twisty road.
Overall I was not all that impressed with it and I thought it was grossly overpriced (46K and change). The style is just to wacky for me. Also these SUV/Car Xover vehicles are to much of a compromise and are not real good at anything.
I personally like the GX470 a lot more. However its not my car and not my choice. Other then some reservations about the funky styling nature my dad loved the RX350.
The rest of the sales experience went sour unfortunately. My dad is 67 going on 68 and does not have a lot of time to be messing around. He is also highly educated and sells to the Japanese in his business. So he knows how to work a deal. He was very frank and said he wanted his honest best deal. He did not mind that the dealer made money on the deal but insisted on not paying MSRP.
So the salesman went to the sales manager and was gone a whopping 30 minutes. My dad was getting so impatient he wanted to leave but they some how managed to sneak off with his keys. Finely the salesman came back and presented a sales order to my dad. It was rather insulting to my father. Full MSRP plus a $450 protection package and they were seriously low balling his trade.
My dad looked at and said oh come on this is the best you can do? The salesman spilled some kind of stoy about how Toyota makes a million cars a year but only a handful of Lexus cars. They go for MSRP. So my dad said alright can I have a copy of this sales order so he can present it to his boss and get approval. The salesman said they can not give a copy of the sales order. Finely after fighting back and forth for 15 minutes we got a copy but they cut off the dealer header. My dad asked what was so secret about it but never got an answer.
As we were getting ready to walk the sales manager walked over. He asked my dad what he can do to win his business today? My dad said come up with a better offer the first time around and you would have won my business. The sales manager asked if he came up with the right deal would he commit to buying today? My dad said he would only buy if the deal was right. So we ended up walking out feeling very disappointed with the sales experience at this dealership. Nice dealership but to much overhead.
Doing some research we are not alone. Lexus of Bellevue does not have a very good reputation but Lexus of Fife and Lexus of Seattle do. So if its the car dad likes we will try those dealerships instead.
So we headed off to Lexus of Bellevue in Bellevue Washington. As we arrived at the dealer we said wow. This dealership is big enough to be corporate HQ for Lexus. It might be impressive but I bet they have incredible overhead. Makes getting a deal harder. A point my dad made.
As we started looking it was not long that a sales man came up to help us out. They seem very polite and know every detail about the product they sell. Might dad is a very big business man who does not like to waist time and get to the point. So he pretty much said lets go for a test drive. After getting the appropriate information we headed for a test drive.
The car is very impressive if a bit funky in design. It takes some time getting used to it. Doors are not as solid as some domestic cars but the interior is high quality and rattle free. Road noise is minimal. The engine is so quiet you can hardly tell its on.
On the road its not short on power. Although I wonder where the 270HP is hiding? It just never felt all that fast. In this day and age 270HP is not that much and I imagine its not the lightest vehicle. Power is good and will move when needed but its no speed demon. Handling was very good for this class of vehicle but not impressive. Many cars could take it on a twisty road.
Overall I was not all that impressed with it and I thought it was grossly overpriced (46K and change). The style is just to wacky for me. Also these SUV/Car Xover vehicles are to much of a compromise and are not real good at anything.
I personally like the GX470 a lot more. However its not my car and not my choice. Other then some reservations about the funky styling nature my dad loved the RX350.
The rest of the sales experience went sour unfortunately. My dad is 67 going on 68 and does not have a lot of time to be messing around. He is also highly educated and sells to the Japanese in his business. So he knows how to work a deal. He was very frank and said he wanted his honest best deal. He did not mind that the dealer made money on the deal but insisted on not paying MSRP.
So the salesman went to the sales manager and was gone a whopping 30 minutes. My dad was getting so impatient he wanted to leave but they some how managed to sneak off with his keys. Finely the salesman came back and presented a sales order to my dad. It was rather insulting to my father. Full MSRP plus a $450 protection package and they were seriously low balling his trade.
My dad looked at and said oh come on this is the best you can do? The salesman spilled some kind of stoy about how Toyota makes a million cars a year but only a handful of Lexus cars. They go for MSRP. So my dad said alright can I have a copy of this sales order so he can present it to his boss and get approval. The salesman said they can not give a copy of the sales order. Finely after fighting back and forth for 15 minutes we got a copy but they cut off the dealer header. My dad asked what was so secret about it but never got an answer.
As we were getting ready to walk the sales manager walked over. He asked my dad what he can do to win his business today? My dad said come up with a better offer the first time around and you would have won my business. The sales manager asked if he came up with the right deal would he commit to buying today? My dad said he would only buy if the deal was right. So we ended up walking out feeling very disappointed with the sales experience at this dealership. Nice dealership but to much overhead.
Doing some research we are not alone. Lexus of Bellevue does not have a very good reputation but Lexus of Fife and Lexus of Seattle do. So if its the car dad likes we will try those dealerships instead.
He (and his manager) also told a lot of crap, like them having to increase MSRPs on some hot selling cars or how it takes 4 months to get a car from Japan to USA! 
It was hilarious to the point of being pathetic! Wife and I walked out on the deal.
