To buy or not to buy? (The IS300H)

[Lex_1988]

On 8/7/2022 at 11:16 PM, Adj209 said:

Yes pretty much, it's beautiful.

The market is quite lacking in choice at the moment so I haven't seen many of these at all

Took a screenshot of this bargain takumi in Dec 2020. Was sat a Crawley Honda dealer.  

[ganzoom]

On 8/8/2022 at 10:04 AM, PaulWhitt20 said:

The IS is a much nice place to be and I would rather drive that than the Jazz any day.

I has a Jazz loan car for about 6 weeks when my old DC2 Teg needed some warranty work. The The IS300H is a different league to a Jazz.

Everytime I try to justify swapping out our soon to be 8 years old IS300H for a new car (EV), the numbers simply don't work.

Even at a crazy £16k px value or 48% residual value at 7.5 years old (only ,£400 drop in 12 months), the cost of change to say a Tesla Model 3 is an incredible £32k just to get into the base version.

If we want to swap our IS300H for a good Lexus EV, than its close to £50k requied.........Given our IS300H has been 100% reliable, costs £20 in VED, does 45mpg with no worries about turbos/DPF, and I only service it every 2 years now, why on earth would we sell it to than spend £30k+ on a new car??

 

What's keeping used prices high is partly new car prices. Which isn't all down to inflation, a brand new MG 4 EV can be had for £26k. Tesla wants another £20k for a car with the same Battery size, and it shows how much profit all the 'premium' brands are generating at present.

Prices will come down at somepoint, but it will only happen when people have job insecurity, debt issues, and cars will be very low down on anyones list versus house/bill payments.

[Tony1452]

Been reading this thread with interest. Can I just add that anybody who is looking for a well cared for IS300h, they are going to have to travel a fair distance to get their hands on a good one. Not that, I suspect, there are any bad ones.

i had to travel 130 miles to view and test drive mine. However, the Lexus salesman offered me three days free insurance and the car was mine to take home as long as I paid him a £500 deposit, returnable if I decided not to buy it. That was 12 months ago.

Well…I didn’t travel a 260 mile round trip to walk away from it. I snapped his hand off as soon as I saw it. He still gave me the three day free insurance though. He had it serviced and some minor paint defects were also sorted.  Prior to me making the journey, I was advised to delay my visit to the showroom until the service/work/new MOT were sorted out. That was once I had paid my deposit. The guy even collected me from the local train station. These people know the quality of their product, that’s for sure.

I was so pleased with the treatment I received that I had no hesitation in paying for the Lexus National Service Plan, which I’m paying £41 a month for. The salesman assured me that for as long as I keep servicing it with Lexus (anywhere in the country), it gets a 12 month warranty and the hybrid Battery is covered.
 

I drove home that day and couldn’t believe my luck that I had paid just short of £15k for a car that had only covered 33k and drove and looked like new. Everything that has ever been done to it by Lexus was there on line, in my newly opened portal for me to view. Big plus is only £10 a year road tax.

The previous owner (4 years) had purchased it from the same Lexus dealership and traded it back with them and bought himself a newer IS300h. Don’t know why as the one I have is immaculate.
Unfortunately, the prev-owner hadn’t had it serviced for his years of ownership with Lexus. However, the salesman was happy to supply me with the details of the service station where it had been serviced. I phoned them and the proprietor immediately told me that he knew the car and its owner well, as he always collected it from the owner whenever he serviced it, telling me that it had always been kept in the owners garage and wanted for nothing.

I couldn’t believe it when he asked for my email address and offered to send me details of all the servicing he had carried out on the car. He did it straight away. Everything was there minus the previous owners personal details, address etc , obviously. The tyres on the car were virtually new. A 12v Japanese Battery had been replaced just a few months before my purchase.

Yesterday, my local Lexus dealership collected the car and fully serviced it. They’ve just called me to ask if I was happy with everything. Too true I was happy to tell them. 

Maybe I was just lucky, I’m not normally. But for any mature driver who is looking for a top of the range quality car that returns excellent MPG that cruises along in style, get into one of these and provided it has been well looked after, you will be on a winner. I can’t say anymore than that. Happy days!