Turkoman

Thanks for all of your support and valuable advice. And Phish, thanks for giving me more details on your experience with Lexus of North Hills. I do plan on dealing with Marc Cohen since he seems to be the only sensible guy within the chain of command out there. I really wish Juan was still there and none of this would have been an issue with him. I will try to ask for Ed to replace the village idiot. Once I sign, I am going to ask for my snow tires as well and take my service and my tires over to Rohrich. Then I wll start firing all the emails and letters I can all over the place.

Hopefully Kevin Mullen's and Jim Mullen's heads will roll at some point so that people like Juan can take over a place as nicely built and decorated as that dealership. I know my letters and sale won't do that by itself but it seems like they have the style and personality to eventually make that happen themselves as these "incidents" pile up.

sailing217

What do you mean Snow Tires? Did you get an extra set or are you having stock tires swapped with Snow?
Do you know what tires are stock on the 250's coming into North Hills? Dunlop Sport Maxx?
What snow tires did North Hills offer?

I ask because I may change my stock 17" tires on my 250 RWD to snow tires (maybe Blizzaks?) if possible by the dealer since I'm going to get 19" summer wheels/tires pretty quick. And removed the TPMS so I can throw them in the wheelbarrow

North Hills called and said my special order will be around Port 6/13 and they'll get me the VIN then. A week or so after to the dealership. ---I'm not holding my breath on the dates, but nice to know things are progressing after such a long wait (order placed 3/15). I did my whole sale over the phone and didn't deal with any of the names mentioned so I feel lucky. My sale took 5 minutes, I knew what I wanted and the price I would pay so I told them up front that they can meet my demands or not--no biggie. So not sure if my salesman is good or not, but at least he doesn't BS. He's sure to say it's a guess when it came to shipping and not to get my hopes up on it. I respect people that are straight up like that.

Turkoman

North Hills is a great location as I said. Just avoid Jim Mullen as your sales rep and Kevin Mullen, the GM in your dealings. Any rep plus Mark Cohen as the sales manager should be OK.

In terms of tires, the 250 AWD comes with Dunlop Sport 5000s. I thought they would come with the Bridgestone RE92s and I knew I did not want them. I got them to swap the OEM Dunlops on the OEM wheel with Bridgestone Blizzaks. Not sure if they are LM-22 or LM-25 but I am guessing LM-25s. They are now in storage there. They gave me $$ credit for the OEM tires so the snow tires did not cost me as much. I was going to do the 18" G-spyders with summer tires but I chickened out and went with Good Year F1 tires in 17" with BBS rims. I am very happy now with the ride and noise level (or lack of it) with this setup.

Turkoman

Well I finally completed my purchase and picked up my car from North Hills last Wednesday. I want to thank all of you who have supported me through your posts and suggestions to alleviate my bad dealer experience. I wanted to update everyone on the outcome.

I essentially got a great sales rep from Rohrich and his manager agree to swap the car from Lexus of North Hills. The rep at Rohrich was Paul Murphy and I would highly recommend him to anyone who is buying in the Pittsburgh area. Paul was also the guy who offered to bring both IS models to my home to test drive on location when I was first looking. Should have gone through him to start with but we all make mistakes in life I guess. My goal was to swap and then fire off letters and emails scalding Lexus of North Hills. The wrinkle was that the buyer of my courtesy trade already had her bank check made out and needed my Acura before the end of the week and did not want to go back to the bank.

So I went to plan B. I called Mark Cohen, the sales manager at Lexus of North Hills, explained my interaction with the village idiot (aka Jim Mullen) and asked him to change him with 100% of the comission and points (units) to go to the new rep. Based on Phish's suggestion, I asked for Ed Persinger. Mark was very polite and instantly agreed and promised that the village idiot would not get units or comission from the sale. The car was in the next day. Ed called me and I immediately went over to pick it up.

The one problem was that my summer tires were premounted by Tirerack with TPMS in them. Unfortunately the serial number of the sensors were not noted anywhere (or the stickers fell off if they stuck them on) and they had to break down the tires to jot the serial numbers of TPMS down. After a wait for that, we were OK and the process was painless. However, after driving for about 15 miles, I got a master alarm and TPMS warning light. I was leaving town so I could not take the car back right away. I took it back yesterday. It turned out they were actually not sure about one of the numbers on the TPMS and put the wrong number in. They fixed that and now it is fine.

A question for AsianGirl: I noticed the village idiot swapping the plates on my car. Could the manager have lied about the fact that he would get no commission or unit credit?

Next week I will work on my long letter to Lexus corporate and the dealership owner detailing them on my experience.

As for the car, all I can say is I am so glad I waited for it. I just love it. I will post a seperate thread with the now obigatory picture post. Thanks for all of your support.

PhilipMSPT

iTrader: (5)

I'm glad that all turned out o.k. Enjoy your car!!!

S2000toIS350

Congrats on the car.

If it eases the pain, it took 8 dealer visits (3 different dealers) to sort out my TPMS issues related to adding a second set of wheels.

AsianGirl007

iTrader: (1)

Hmm it's difficult to say. If he did receive some sort of credit then it sounds like he was attempting to do his bit.

However, if it was slow the day you went in and your new salesman and he are on good terms he might've just been helping out as a courtesy.

I'm not sure but at this point I would advise you to write your emails, send them, and forget about the bad experience and go out and enjoy your new car.

Congrats on your new car and don't forget to post us some pics. I'm glad it all worked out in the end.

phish2112

Congrats on the new ride! i'm glad everything worked out for you in the end.

Don't be hasty on the obligatory pics. I'll be looking around town for a blue IS. I haven't seen one yet around here.

EBMCS03

Congrats... I'm glad that you were able to get your car in the end.