Lexus Service Vs. Toyota Service Vs. Joe Blogs

[daniel]

Hello fellow lexus owners. Ive just bought myself a 2nd hand IS200 S from a car supermarket (availablecar.com). The advantage was that the price seemed OK - £9500 (exactly 3 years old with 47K on the clock and no service history) :D . The disadvantage was that the car was not serviced (appart from oil and filter change) before passing it on to me, they don't like to bargain, and Ive only got a 1 month warenty .

Once I bought it, I took it down to Lexus Nottingham, who did a visual safety check free of charge - thanks Lexus :zee: . I took the list of faults (including leaking water pump) back to availablecar, who have booked the car back in to be fixed.

Even with these fixes, my baby still needs a 40K service. The prices Lexus gave me was £340 - even with a 10% LOC gold card discount, that over £300. Given that my car has no service history, getting it serviced by Lexus at this point is not going to increase its resale value this late on, so £300 sounds a bit steep.

I thought about taking it to the local toyota garage - after all a Lexus mechanically is a toyota. Apparently Lexuses (lexii?) and Toyotas have the same kind of service schedule, 40 K being a big one. They quoted me £255, and offer car pickup/courtesy car like Lexus. Apparently the rate for a lexus engineer is £80/hr, where as toyota cost £60/hr. Also, Lexus use fully synthetic oil, whereas Toyota only use partly synthetic oil, hence the price difference. They said they would get the check list faxed over from Lexus.

(forgot to mention that the toyota price of £255 included the use of fully synthetic oil - they originally quoted £240, but upped the price by £15 to include the lexus oil)

The last alternative would be joe-bloggs garrage down the road. They want about £150 to do the same thing. Obviously no courtesy car involved. They have done a good job for me before, but probably don't do too many Lexuses. Im not worried about how their stamp will look in my log book, just whether they will know how to treat a Lexus right

Who to take it too? I was wondering if any of you out there have had a similar conundrum, and what you decided on.

Cheers

Daniel

[Wosket]

hi daniel, congrats on ya new motor and welcome to the club!

the choice is yours really, although some toyota dealerships wont service a lexus full stop. all depends on what your joe bloggs garage is like too, we all know there are good ones and bad ones but if you know someone who works in a garage and can trust them im sure they'll do as good a job as lexus, but you wont have your lexus stamp. swings and roundabouts mate. you should definitely make sure you keep with fully synthetic oil though in my opinion.

me presonally i always get my services done by lexus but thats because i will part ex with lexus when the new IS comes out. by keeping a full lexus history it will add more value when you come to sell up.

i probably havent helped at all! but thats my take on it mate.

[Fmrl]

That's a cracking price! I part-ex'ed my 3 year old IS200 for 11k last week (that was an SE with only 27k and flsh but it's still a good deal). Did you have it HPI'ed too just to make sure there's nothing wrong?

Seeing as it doesn't have any service history I'd go for the local garage option - it depends how good they are and how much you trust them. I can't see it being too much of a problem for the majority of garages anyway.

[mudzs]

always had mine serviced by my local lexus garage but after todays terrible service from there customer service department i will be using my local non franchise garage .they send me a letter stating that my mot is due on the 22nd jan and further to there recent phone call would i like to book it in .now for one i have had no phone call and when i rang them to book it in i relised whilst looking through my service record that infact the mot had run out on the 6th jan meaning i had been driving around for a week with no mot .now i would useally blame myself for not looking at the previous mot which was also done by them as was the one before but decided to trust there records and presume it was due on the 22nd as stated in there letter and the non exsistent phone call.

so to answer your question i would go to an independent garage and save yourself loads of dough .

thanks lexus -------(you know who you are) for your crap service over the last couple of years ,the only thing you got right and did properly was selling me the car in the first place ,and you can stick your free mot i had it done today at the garage up the road and they did not keep me waiting for an hour whilst you sneaked it around the back to the toyota garage.

[Nick The Greek]

if you've got a local garage you can trust, i'd got for that.

I dont reckon that lexus stamps in the book would make the car more valuable, if it's been serviced, it's been serviced, end of.

End of the day, stamps a stamp, they can be faked, wouldnt read too much into it ;)

[Claire G]

If you're not worried about the resale value and planning to keep the car for a while, I'd use your local independant. Just do a search on here for what's involved in the 40k service to make sure you get everything covered.

[daniel]

Hi mate

The price does seem pretty good. Im going to wait to see how well they fix the faults before recommending them to anyone else, but so far so good. I test drove 3 lexuses there before I went for this one. It was supprisingly difficult to get a test drive of a 2nd hand car at the lexus dealer, hence I went elsewhere.

The car supermarket does an HPI check for you. That reminds me - I should get a copy of it next time I see them. Thanks (and to all the others who replied) for the advice

Cheers

Daniel

That's a cracking price! I part-ex'ed my 3 year old IS200 for 11k last week (that was an SE with only 27k and flsh but it's still a good deal). Did you have it HPI'ed too just to make sure there's nothing wrong?

Seeing as it doesn't have any service history I'd go for the local garage option - it depends how good they are and how much you trust them. I can't see it being too much of a problem for the majority of garages anyway.

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[sohail]

lexus woodford just qouted me 130quid for a 50k service try them, thats realistic

[ColinBarber]

lexus woodford just qouted me 130quid for a 50k service try them, thats realistic

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40k service will be quite a bit more than a 50k service though.

[Fmrl]

Isn't the 50k only an intermediate one? - the 20k/40k/60k/etc. ones are the killers.

[jasons]

Here you go, this may come in handy!!

http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?Vie...4519893669&rd=1

J

[daniel]

Thats a "LEXUS BLANK SERVICE BOOK WITH LEATHER WALLET

LEATHER LEXUS WALLET CONTAINING BLANK SERVICE BOOK ECT"

If you stamp the service book a few times, Id give you £500 for it :winky:

Here you go, this may come in handy!!

http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?Vie...4519893669&rd=1

J

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