jdanon

I'm working on it. Eventually my dealer will break down and agree to search outside of the standard Maine to Virginia corridor. I've offered to pay them MSRP and whatever the cost is to ship the car, and they still are reluctant to do it. How do these guys stay in business when I practically have to beg them to sell me a car?

youresexii

lol interesting..because i seem to know more asians with lexus and bmw vs. benz o__O

Allen K

iTrader: (4)

It all depends on where you go. I was at the driving range in Alhambra the other day and when I was leaving I saw that my car was surrounded by E classes. Not just 1 or 2, but 6 of them with a 7th on the other side of the parking lot. I thought it was an invasion for a while

iStyle

jdanon,

I'm in Westchester County.

Lexus of Greenwich allocated my IS350 in the color combination I requested within five days. I took delivery of my car a few days later.

IS350s do exist in our region. They all come shipped similarly packaged (and pretty loaded), so you won't be able to specify certain options without special ordering. However, as long as you're willing to forego optioning the car out yourself, I'm sure they'll be able to find the color comibination you're looking for. In my opinion, it's well worth it.

It's nice driving one of the only IS350s in a sea of IS250 AWDs.

Feel free to PM me with any questions you might have.

jdanon

Thanks. Finally after ten days of harrassing that same dealership, they were able to locate a red IS350 in a sport package. Naturally I jumped on it, and within a week or so it will arrive pending approval of the swap manager at whatever dealership the car is coming from. I hear you about the 250s. They are *everywhere* right now around here (all black, smoky granite, or silver). I haven't seen a 350 though. I did see a red 250 in a Port Chester parking lot last week.

llamaboiz

Hang on there, remember now, ASE just changed the way they certify horsepower, my 2GR-FSE puts out 315-317hp at the crank according to japan sites, 306hp is whats advertised in the states due to the new rating. Therefore, before you compare specs check to see which test was done, the old test vs new test/old test vs old test/new test vs new test.

NOW i'm not saying anything, just that if you put up hp numbers to remember the test on how they read hp has changed in america.

As for car avalibity, come to hawaii, we have no problems getting what we want Fly out here for vacation, buy the lexus of your dreams, 700ish bucks for matson to ship to long beach CA, by the time you drive the car back home its all broken in

Koofteh

Yeah, but the great thing with Lexus is that all the trims of one model look exactly alike. Like with the IS only the brakes and badges set them apart... so you can't really tell unless you race them or go around and look at the rear of their car.

You buy a Merc or BMW and the cheaper trims are basically the shell of the cart and four seats.

fantom

Lexus either doesn't really care about the car enthusiast, or has very little influence on their dealership network. Or, they are making $ hand over fist, and don't want the distraction of special orders. And yeah, it pisses me off as well.

I think it's still four months to special order. But with the '08 model changeover and the factory closing for vacation, it jumps to six months this time of year. In any event Lexus should streamline the special ordering process, and encourage dealerships not to offend potential buyers, who know exactly what they want, by keeping us in the dark and feeding us BS. Too many Lexus salespeople are nothing but uniformed order takers.

siren05

is300 is definatly slower than 250mt i have raced three or four 100-180km's and done 3-4 hard pulls each time .my buddies in there is300 are pissed so we would race again and again.too be honest I thought they would pull on me so I was reluctent.but I'm talking 5-6 car lengths sometimes only headlights.is300 was dynoed in the old style and a long time ago.bring me any stock is300 more than happy to show my taillights too until they disappear.I also owned an IS300 for 4 years

MLevinson

Here is an interesting snipt that may be related to this topic:

"The last issue of Automobile Magazine claimed that the FT-HS Concept would go into production as Toyota's Supra successor, but made no mention of another all-gas version. WR's Nunn, however, speculates that the car will be offered with either an updated version of the 3.5L V6 from the Lexus IS350 producing around 330bhp and a V6 hybrid drivetrain likely scooped from the Lexus GS450h and producing 400bhp."

http://www.autoblog.com/2007/05/29/r...etails-emerge/

If this this turns out to the true, then it would stand to reason that the IS350 would get a bigger jump in HP beyond what would be offered for the FT-HS prodcution version - whatever production timeframe that this is really in however.

PhilipMSPT

iTrader: (5)

Yeah. I just read that in Car Chat.

The IS may get a "carryover" engine. If the Supra (whatever) is due as a MY09, the IS may get it by MY10 or MY11, in which it will then be redesigned.

06LexIS

I picked up my car yesterday for the 35k maintenance, the service advisor told me that Lexus is increasing production of the 250RWD MT numbers from 3% to 10-12% for next year. Is this true???
he told me that more people are asking for it.
I guess 250's are outpacing 350's..

Can anybody verify this?

jdanon

I kind of have a problem with a statement like this. These are the lines the dealers are feeding us. Of course 250s are outpacing 350s, because they didn't make as many 350s! You can't sell something that doesn't exist. My thought is that if there was no 250 then they'd sell almost as many ISes, and those that didn't buy the IS that would have got a 250 would just get some other model like the ES. I've also been told that Lexus is purposely not making many 350s to keep the demand high (another line from a dealer), which doesn't make any sense. The demand isn't high, there are 350s out there if you want one. There is very little price difference between a 250 and a 350, and for the small number of 350s they made that small difference won't amount to a hill of beans in the grand scheme of things. The only thing making a model hard to get (a.k.a. keeping demand high) does is **** off your customers which will just run to the competitor that makes their products accessible at a similar price. If there's no economic benefit, I don't see why'd they do such a thing.

PhilipMSPT

iTrader: (5)

Highly doubtful.

Lexus is aware that manual transmissions are a dying breed. They're letting other automakers deal with it, and would rather have auto trannies across the board.

It would be more costly for Lexus to develop and maintain a manual tranny in their lineup, than to completely eliminate it and just stick with automatics.

Business is business. It's all about the bottom line; it's all about profitability.