Similar experience but I went a bit farther to New Mexico. It was beautiful driving through Arizona at sunset but the 1-lane highways on the Indian reservations were scary as ****. So was stopping for gas in Gallup NM. I would prefer to never have to make that drive again.

 

https://www.ebay.com/itm/26569812217...YAAOSwvb9igqTy

I just want to remind everyone - while this price may seem absurd, remember you can activate 1% cash back with Rakuten on eBay purchases, which would give you $879 in cash back. NOT BAD!

 

^^ I would argue with your "absurd" statement - full stop!! I guess a sucker is born every minute but I would never buy a used car for that much knowing that who ever bought it was simply doing it to try and flip and make a quick buck. Just out of spite, I would love for the owner to be stuck with it or take a bath on it. The person buying it has no way of knowing how this owner treated it also, did he/she abuse the hell of out it? One will never know hence why I live to buy new.

 

Right on. As much as some reviewers dinged the car, it still *seems* to be a hot commodity. I wonder if the S4s, M340s, C43s, etc., are experiencing the same.

Watched a piece of Doug DeMuro’s review yesterday, he concluded the IS 500 would not be popular.

#YaGotThatWrong 😈

 

As I said, someone bought a used Premium for over $70k, so people are walking into that trap still.

Doug is arguably one of the worst car reviewers on Youtube, so I am not surprised he would say something like that and end up being wrong.

 

^^ I hear ya, and it just goes to show you what crazy car market we are in or how impulsive people truly are! It's like the housing market, people bought houses by paying over 80-100K over asking price and now that rates are going up, they are asking the government to step in and help them because they can't afford the payment (on top of the fact their values is now crashing). The same could be said about cars.

I agree, not sure how he has SO MANY subscribers given he often says stuff that is not even accurate. I love Savagegeese over him!!

 

The market is sick.
I just saw a used 2022 Golf R (6k km) for 70k, msrp is like 45k on thoses! You'd have to be crazy to pay that price!

 

I am looking for temporary alternatives until I can get a IS500, and a couple are Hyundais. They are asking $2-5K over MSRP for them!

As far as car reviewers go, Doug caters to the casual car buyer. If you care about cupholders, Doug is the guy you watch. I also subscribe to Savagegeese and Throttle House because of not only production value in their videos, but as an Engineer, they actually cater to things I care about in cars. I also enjoy Jason Cammisa's work as well.

Savagegeese is actually the reason why I am looking at the Hyundais

 

Relatively the same experience. I was on the couch, scrolled through this site, saw a post that my color spec was in Oklahoma City. Called the number, Shannon @ Eskridge Lexus was awesome, processed my deposit the next morning (It was closing time when I called.), and I booked a flight out of Atlanta for the next day.

Shannon picked us up at the airport, I saw the car and failed miserably at keeping my cool, signed the paper work, stayed in the ALoft over night, and headed back to Atlanta the next morning. Legit…the most baller thing I’ve ever done!

1. This unfolded a few weeks shy of my one year deposit at my local Lexus dealer. I wanted them to get the business, but they couldn’t get the allocation.

2. When I called Shannon, he had just said good bye to the dude who ‘ordered’ the car. After the test drive, he wanted to think about it. He called back a day later and it was gone. No money was deposited, so it was free for whoever was the quickest.

3. I paid MSRP + Dealer options. (Lit door sills, protection film on the trunk opening, trunk net, etc.) $62,595 OTD. My taxes and registration were completed by me when I got back home.

4. If you see an opportunity, grab it! There may be another ‘Tony’ with his GoBag sitting in the closet, ready to swoop in. 😎

 

$62595 OTD? You didn't pay sales tax?

edit: I see. Where I'm from "out the door" is figurative and is the everything you pay including sales tax and registration even if they were paid separately.

 

In that case, then just shy of $66K. 😎

 

Ugh, why does Lexus Racing keep inviting the same people over and over to their events? Seriously, share some love. And I’m not just calling out Forsythe cause he called ClubLexus trash.

 

I was very fortunate and got to go to the IMSA at Laguna courtesy of Lexus Racing this year. It was absolutely amazing. Thanks to a couple of great people that were kind enough to consider me, I got to experience this amazing side of Lexus. Having been to F1 at COTA a couple of times I think I would definitely go to another IMSA race before I went back to F1. The atmosphere is great and everything is just more friendly to the crowd than F1. If you get a chance to go do not think for one second about saying no it is definitely very much an amazing experience. They do invite regular people like all of us on here don't give up hope.

 

I hope you realize mike works for lexus and does the media and handles a lot things at those events.

 

Mike is a good guy, I've spoken with him a few times at meets, etc. Very much entitled to his opinions, as we all are. But I like that he does things for the enthusiasts, like when he brought an IS 500 to a car meet that was full of sweaty teens and other randoms who could've messed it up. And this was before any reviews had come out on the car, so there was a lot of hype. Of course the Lexus Racing event at Road Atlanta was top notch.