This is an excellent question. It desaerves SERIOUS attention. Buying a CPO LS460 does not mean as much as WHICH DEALER YOU BUY IIT FROM !!!!!!!

Spend a little time with the really QUALITY Elite Lexus dealers ....... with their Senior Service Advisers - and let them tell you the stories of the LS460's which have arrived in their stores for service work.

They will detail story after story of LS's which in NO MANNER WHATSOEVER were ever qualified to carry a CPO tag !!!!!!!! Effectively, they were sold as CPO cars, but in no manner did not QUALIFY for this !

Just a word to the wise ..... THE DEALER, and his reputation, is as important to this process.

Best Wishes, Mikey Lulejian - Lake Oconee, GA

 

Stay away from Bell Lexus in Phoenix. They have gone down the tubes over the last 5 years and have gone from a great service place and dealership to a shop that cant even do a basic repair the right way the first time and a true "stealership" Stay away from Bell sales or service, especially the service area

 

This makes finding a good quality LS460L even more difficult.

 

The problem I have with this is that Lexus is supposed to take pride in the way this process is handled, regardless of which dealership is involved.

I certainly understand that there are better dealerships than others, but a car should not be part of the program period if it doesn't meet the threshold of what should qualify for this program.

That being said, the 3 year 100k warranty should more than suffice but it may mean that, as I have been, you may be in the dealership for a few visits before feeling like the car is up to the standards that it should be.

 

FACT: Lexus DOES take Pride, etc.
Some dealers do not subscribe 100% to this. Only a few dealers however ...... and some may vary in this regard during the course of a year.

What this says is: Lexus is like Life in general. Nothing is perfect. And if you tend to disregard this, sooner or later you are gonna be disappointed.

Best Wishes to all, And a Happy Memorial Day to our Soldiers and veterans.

Mikey Lulejian - Lake Oconee, GA

 

Yea I know what you mean. My friend and I are flying to Denver tomorrow to pickup an 08' Blk/Blk ISF tomorrow from a private party and are going to drive it back. I looked up the Lexus service records. He had it in for all the scheduled maintenance usually even before it was due. It has 35K miles and it is still on it's 1st set of brake pads and just put on new tires to replace the original set. The dealer said normally people are on their 2nd or 3rd set. This car was definitely not driven hard. You never know what you get from a dealer with a used car. They don't care about the past history, they just want to make a buck. We got lucky that this ISF is from the original owner and has taken care of it from day 1. Good luck and I hope you find what you want!

22X9 P265/30/22
22X10.5 P295/25/22
Tanabe Springs but will swap to coilovers possibly this year
Brembo 6 piston 380mm BBK

 

Interesting, I just did the exact same thing...2 weeks ago ...our of state...2009 AWD with 45000MI CPO--and had the actuator replaced and the wind noise fixes. The orig owner had been good with regular maint. I will have to watch for the struts....but mine do seem fine. Is there a known half-life on these struts or certain characteristics to look for? I just came out of an audi TT so the rides/car purpose were at opposite ends of the spectrum and the LS feels like buttah! I had to deal with some unreported hail damage. Mike

 

I bought my SWB from a broker with an A+ BBB verified rating along with verified letters of appreciation from my county's chamber of commerce and police dept for being an upstanding business and all that good stuff.

Long story short, I found a gem SWB Obsidian with every option possible minus air suspension and radar cruise. I paid $7K less than a CPO similar model at the dealer with way less options. Before purchase, I had it inspected by an independent shop and a Lexus dealer and both arrived at the conclusion that I indeed had a pristine vehicle worthy of purchase. I got a 3.25% loan from my credit union and paid $1000 for a Zero Deductible Platinum extended warranty that covers me to 104K miles.

There are some great brokers out there with very nice LS's they have or can get for you. A business with a good track record is reassuring. I know people who had CPO cars of various brands including Lexus who stay in the shop for repairs. If you time it right and catch a dealer on a good day, you can smoke a deal. But I think you have even more opportunity at a broker to save a ton of cash. Since Aug 2010, my car has only lost about $2500 based on what I paid for it...that's pretty good if you ask me.

Good luck in what you decide to do!

 

I agree with most of the statements above, but between my experience during my search for my LS and other CPO experiences, I can comfortably say that:

(1) I agree with Mikey, that much of the quality in the CPO process is a function of the specific dealership

and also (which I've posted before)

(2) That a lousy used car will likely continue to be so after CPO and

(3) A great used car can be so without CPO (even if CPO can improve it through the extended warranty and the replacement of some wear-and-tear items).

I went the non-CPO route and bought an extended warranty from Lexus. My car has had north of $20k in warranty repairs, all before the original 4/50 warranty expired. I can tell you with 99% certainty that a CPO inspection would have failed to identify and rectify the vast majority of the problems my car has had.

When I share this story with people, most say "that's what you get from buying a used car". That's not the case here... All these issues would have surfaced had I been the original owner of this perfectly-maintained and well-kept 2008 LS460L.

The moral of the story... Look for the right car, CPO or not. If it isn't CPO, it's definitely preferable to get it while it's under factory warranty, since to your point, there are many things you don't see until you drive the car for a while. This way, things can get fixed AND you still qualify to buy a "new car" extended warranty.

And the second moral of the story... Lexus has stood behind this product in an unbelievable way. I have never dealt with an auto manufacturer so keen on making things right. The shop foreman and diagnostic specialist at the dealership, the district service and parts manager, and the field technical specialist have all been nothing short of amazing in their follow-through and persistence.

 

google around for a service like this:

http://www.autopi.com/

they have inspected two of my cars and did a great job.

 

Agreed with caha and Mikey and others...I forgot to mention I bought mine with 44k miles on it. The best thing I did was review all of the TSB threads I could find and rolled into my dealer and complained about all that stuff and slapped the printed TSBs down on the desk and all repairs were made..over $6k of TSB/warranty work done before 50k miles ran out.. an educated owner can really score a deal..so buy under 50k to maximize all the free repairs..