So I just picked my 2008 LS600hL up from the Lexus of Omaha service department after having the oil changed and a couple of issues looked at. I wanted to pass along a couple of observations on my service experience and make some comments on how useful the extended warranty has been for me (I'm just coming up on the end of my 3-year CPO warranty):

1. Lexus of Omaha is one of the test dealerships for the new + (Plus) system. As far as I can tell, the Plus basically indicates what has happened to all of the prices at my dealership… I paid for a basic oil change with non-synthetic oil, and the new Plus (non-negotiable) price for this service is $106. Ouch!!! Before Lexus of Omaha became a Plus dealer, I had been paying $79-89 for oil changes. I sat in a new LS460 on their showroom floor. The sticker price was around $85,000 with the non-negotiable Plus price set at $83,000, a whopping $2k off sticker. Ummm, no thanks… I can’t see this Plus experiment working for Lexus, because I just can’t imagine their customers are dumb enough (or rich enough) to not notice that the only change is that the prices have all gone up for the same service/vehicles.

2. I asked my service advisor to have the mechanics take a good look at everything to see if anything needed fixing while I still was under the CPO warranty. In the end, they couldn’t find anything to fix, sadly…

3. I had complained about an intermittent problem with my dome light staying on and my headlights staying on, which are classic symptoms of a door jamb switch failure. The service guys checked it out and confirmed that I have an intermittent failure of my driver’s door jamb switch. They ordered the part and will replace it under the CPO warranty (only an $80 repair, so no big deal).

Speaking of the warranty question that seems to be always debated on this forum (whether an extended warranty is worth buying), I can definitely understand that, from a strictly analytical standpoint, extended warranties are not a good investment. Dealerships wouldn’t be so eager to sell them if most people benefited. When I bought my 2008 LS600hL, it did come with the 3-year CPO warranty. I’ve only used it a couple of times (had a defective Bank 2 O2 sensor, the groaning from the rear transfer case, and the bad door jamb switch, all repaired under warranty). When I bought the car, I did opt to buy the Extended CPO coverage keeping my warranty going for an additional 3 years and up to 125K miles (I’m at 81K miles now, and won’t quite use all the miles over the next 3 years). I’m hopeful that I’ll get my $2000 back via at least one failure of an air ride shock (perhaps more), since these tend to wear out every 60K miles or so and mine were replaced at 48K miles. This is one of the repairs that doesn’t have a low-cost aftermarket/independent shop solution, and there’s a pretty good chance one or more of my shocks will fail in the next 3 years. I also think there’s a pretty good chance the ML amp will fail (I tend to crank my music energetically), and one or more of the TPMS sensor batteries will likely die. I also wouldn’t be surprised if one or more of my Nav/Stereo button lights burn out, and the only way to fix that problem is by replacing the entire Nav/Head unit at an astronomical cost.

Overall, it’s pretty amazing to me that this tremendously complex, $110K luxury car will still be under full factory warranty at the 12 year point with 110,000+ miles on the odometer; for me, it was worth the $2,000 to make that happen. It’s really a tribute to the quality of this car’s engineering that Lexus could even offer such a warranty, let alone have most people think it isn’t even worth buying.

 

Thanks for letting us know about the doorjamb switch. Such a simple and inexpensive fix and lots of potential problems avoided. I think the defective doorjamb switches in these cars are far more common than most people realize.