Patric

It must be a regional thing.

There are lots of ULs in the Seattle area.

Pat

07LexusGuy

Actually, no there's not. There was a period during the summer where none of the dealers in WA (there's 3, Lynnwood, Bellevue, and Tacoma) had any UL and you couldn't pull it up on the web site. Currently, dealers typically have only a couple on the lot right now - there's a ton of non-UL types sitting around however. I know this because I'm in the process of buying one right now (Smoke Granite UL w/Gray Leather, delivery this comming Friday). Anyways... I've only seen three on the road since March, one in Renton, the other on I-405 near bellevue and one northbound on I-5 in the express lanes. I've seen quite a bunch of non-UL on the road both with and without navi.

I was told by several dealerships that the production of UL ES350's are at about 15% of total ES production and Lexus doesn't expect a lot of folks to buy these. So I suppose UL's are rare on the road compared to their less equiped counterparts.

Patric

Perhaps but I still see a lot more than I would have expected.

Also, FYI there is a Lexus dealership in Spokane.

Pat

psp

Not just a Lexus Dealership, but an Elite Lexus Dealership!

07LexusGuy

Ah, right forgot about the other side of the mountains. Sorry, I'm a Husky - I don't go over there much albeit a lot of my friends are cougars there.

GFerg

Around here in Jersey and PA when the ES350 was first introduced all I saw were UL ES350's. Now I dont see ANY UL ES350's.

07LexusGuy

Just a guess but maybe some of the early built UL's had transmission issues and their owners were given the choice by the dealer to swap cars to a different version or model (i.e GS or IS)? That may explain why a lot of UL's were seen early on but are now more rare. This is just my wild guess though - I'm probably wrong.

amf1932

Sorry, you're wrong. My dealer, a large Lexus dealer in the NYC area, received only 1 UL Edition in the beginning of April, which I bought 4/3/06. After this, all the cars they received for the next 3 months were NOT UL Editions. The build date for my car was 3/06, and I'm happy to say that the only problem I had with this car, so far, was a slight wind noise that I corrected myself. The car is 100% rattle free, NO transmission problems, NO NOTHING!
It might sound like I'm not a critical person, but I traded in an '03ES with only 14K miles because I hated the transmission in that car.
I absolutely love this new ES350!!

LexBob2

Same here. I got my car at a large suburban Chicago dealership. It's a 4/06 build date that I picked up in mid-May. My dealership recieved just a handful of UL's early on, but now they are mainly PP's with other options, which I guess is common in this zip code. BTW my car has experienced ZERO issues in 6 months and 5,000+ miles of ownership.

Kaius88

The bottom line is: Fewer ULs are manufactured and allocated to dealers. Reason is probably price point and anticipated demand. I think prospective buyers of ES expect to spend mid-30k for their new ES350. To hit the 40k mark would turn a number of people off, despite the awesome features exclusive to the UL. Having owned both PP+ and now the UL, i honestly think it's the right choice.

07LexusGuy

Agreed

The dealership folks who I've talked to have told me the same thing you just mentioned. They're indicating that folks are cross-shopping between a less equiped GS350 and the fully equiped ES350 UL as they are at similar price points.

And you're right, people will be turned away by a 40K+ ES so Lexus is probably playing it safe betting that more folks will buy the ES for less than 40K. Imagine if these ES are fully equiped with the PCS option - you'd have a loaded ES350 at ~46K and that will turn off many people.

jjbodean

ding! winner winner, chicken dinner

amf1932

Chicken dinner? Give him a steak dinner, cheapo!

osokuko

Just returned from a week vacation in Maui Hawaii. While there I had to visit the local Lexus Dealership. Talk about rare ES350’s they had no UL’s but did have 4 base ES350 (MSRP Base price is $33120 that’s right $33120 plus the basic package - wasn't that the base price for a May-June build). One in Amber Pearl, one in Aquamarine Pearl, one in Moon Shell Mica and one in SGM. Lol. Talking with the sales rep I asked for a LS460 brochure, he said we have no brochure for the 460 we have only one LS460L and it’s the demo car Lexus sent us for demo. Things move pretty slow here and were still waiting for the ES350 brochures to arrive.


2007 ES350 UL SGM/black