Sixty’s RC – Lexus Select Approved Pre-Owned Experience (Long Post)

Sixty · November 21, 2021

Following on from my introductory post ‘The Good, the Bad and the Lovely’ I thought I’d share our experience of buying an approved used Lexus second time around as things didn’t go exactly to plan.

We first saw the car advertised in mid September and set out on the 100 mile round trip to view the car. It was offered as an ex demo MY2020 RC 300h base model (with CarPlay), registered in Sept 2020 with 4,000 miles on the clock.

On inspection the interior was spotless without any marks on the trim or scuff plates, the exterior was a different story however as the front bumper and bonnet had quite a few stone chips, far more than you would expect for a car that had covered only 4,000 miles. That said the test drive had us hooked so we set about negotiating a deal. We agreed that the paintwork would be rectified and that the sale was conditional (in writing) on the repair being of a satisfactory standard. In addition the dealer would fit a new protection pack to the car and install a dash cam hardwire kit for us. Deal done, car could be collected next week.

We received a call the following week to say the car was prepared and ready for collection. When asked about the standard of repair we were told the bumper had been smart repaired and the bonnet machine polished… not what we agreed. Cue another 100 mile round trip to inspect the car, needless to say I wasn’t impressed especially as the excuse was that they would lose money on the car if they painted the bonnet. Not my problem said I and made it clear we would walk away if it wasn’t sorted. At this point the Group Sales Manager became involved and to his credit he agreed with our position and authorised a full bonnet (and wings) respray, which would be carried out at their body shop.

It took another two weeks until the car was finally ready but it was worth the wait as it looked brand new and we were happy at last; paperwork signed deal done… or was it?

You’ll recall this was supposed to be a MY2020 right? Imagine my surprise when plugging in my phone to find that the Premium Navigation System was the older 17CY type with no CarPlay capability. It was only then that I had the presence of mind to check the VIN on Toyodiy.com to find out when the car was manufactured; turns out it was built in May 2019.

Was this a show stopper? Not really, we were more than happy with the car and the lack of CarPlay wasn’t an issue, we had it in our BMW and didn’t use it. I was however miffed at being mislead (whether intentionally or not) and wasn’t about to let it go unchallenged. As you can imagine my call to the Group Sales Manager was interesting to say the least, sincere apologies were given (and accepted) together with a free 3 year service plan, which included fuel costs to and from the dealership.

We were happy at last… I‘m just intrigued as to where the car would have been from May 2019 to its first registration in September 2020.

I’ll leave you with a photo of the car.