Carpe Diem

There are several ebay sellers offering these all using the same ad and about the same price ($130-140+shipping). I recently bought a set and they turned out to be obvious knock offs. The pages were printed crooked, some with poor quality, there were tons of typos and missing words, there were no shaded edge tabs and the index was almost unusable. I couldn't even be sure the information was correct. I tried to program a transponder key using the instructions provided and it didn't work!?

The seller said it was a mistake (he "didn't know he had any copies") and offered that I could keep what he sent for 1/2 price or he would provided a full refund including two way shipping. Since he never offered to replace them with the real thing, I suspect he had nothing but copies but didn't raise that issue. I was happy to get my money back. The shipping was very slow and I wonder if they don't order a copy printed until they have your money in hand. All of the negative feedback I read on them is about slow shipping. Mostly the buyers seem happy but I wonder if that not because they don’t know what the real manuals are like.

I haven't filed any feedback on the transaction yet. I'll likely settle for gray (neutral) since I can't confirm any of my suspicions. I didn't get what I bought but he did provide a full refund. All I got was aggravation.

For those of you considering purchasing these manuals, be carefully. I'm not planning to buy again from any seller who looks to be part of that manual mill. I'll wait and get mine from some individual who will assure me that they came from a Lexus dealer or Toyota Material Distribution. BTW, if anyone has a "real deal" set for an '02 for sale, please PM me.

George

tony woo

No recent messages here. I just checked ebay, and there was one like new for 2003 SC manual for $150.

Is this a good price? What is the price for a new set (2 volumes) from a Lexus dealer?

Carpe Diem

Those manuals are offered by a different seller using the same ad I responded to. Almost for sure they are not the real deal. Look at the feedback, several people suggest they got copies.

George

tony woo

Thanks George. I will check the feeedback. By the way, a Lexus dealer I called charge $150 for one volume, so there is some incentive to look for an alternative source.

tony woo

There was one user whose feedback indicated that the manuals he/she got was fake, but the seller stil gets over 98% positive feedback. He seller is manuals4your, and the website is manuals4your.com. Is this the same person George dealt with? Any one else has experience with this seller?

Carpe Diem

No that's not the ID I dealt with but it might be the same guy. There are several different IDs all using the same ad and all delivering the same product I bet. Anyway, if you want to take a chance, buy it and, if it turn out to by a knock off, complain. Maybe they'll offer you the 1/2 price deal to keep you happy. The ID I dealt with was carmanualguy and another is kingtranny. Do a search on old listings and see for yourself how much it looks like these are one guy or several working together.

George