Is250 Satnav & Gap Insurance Questions

[guitareth]

Am now the very proud owner of a 2005 IS250SE Automatic with MM pack and sunroof (Brechin Slate/Black interior). Collected it from Lexus Leicester on Saturday and enjoyed a 400+ miles journey back to Aberdeen, which gave me a good opportunity to get acquainted with the car. Loving it (no rattles so far - touch wood!!). A major step up from my IS200SE in every way I have to say. Some questions...

Q1. SatNav: What's with the satnav lady and her "turn SLIGHTLY left", "turn SLIGHTLY right" etc??!! She seems to say SLIGHTLY even when it's almost a 90 degree left or right! :duh:

Q2. SatNav: It's ETA for arrival in Aberdeen was way out. Even at around what we knew would be about another hour's journey, it was showing around 2 hours ETA. It did adjust down slowly as we got closer, but my cheapo Garmin I3 always gives a much more accurate ETA on any journeys. I've since found settings in the Lexus Satnav where I can set the assumed speed on urban, country and motorway roads, so assume it uses those settings rather than just bases it on the speed limits of the roads within your chosen route? Has anyone got any thoughts on this, or figured out the best way to fine tune it to give you a fairly accurate ETA?

Q3. GAP Insurance: I have no finance on the car :D but the dealership have still tried to sell me their GAP insurance which, if the car is stolen or written off within next 3 years, means I would get back the full purchase price of the car. I didn't expect to be offered this on a pre-owned car to be honest. They want £590 for this (on a car which cost me £24,150). I'm tempted, but would welcome any comments before I commit.

Q4. Searching these forums: I did try searching these forums for gap insurance, but it's quite hard as the search does not seem to like words as small as 3 letters! It finds lots of posts re insurance, but I cant see how to narrow my search down to include the word gap. What's the minimum default word length for the search feature, and is there a clever way around this to effectively search for GAP or GAP insurance?

I'm off to have another swoon at my car

Cheers

[Parthiban]

Glad your enjoying the new car! :)

The ETA thing is the same on my IS200, I find it better as you can set the speeds to how you drive and therefore get a more accurate ETA than just basing it on speed limits.

Having had my car stolen within its first three years, I would always go for GAP insurance in future. Although mine was recovered, if it hadn't I would have only got market value - that £600 would have got me a brand new car. A lot of people won't agree with this, but I'd rather put my money on GAP than on a tracker :shutit:

[derekyau]

Was going to say the same about setting the drivign speeds the sat nav expects you to do, in order to get more accurate ETAs (e.g. the motorway speeds = 75mph... rather than default)

GAP insurance is the same as all other insurances, in that you dont have to purchase from the dealer - it is usually far cheaper to shop around - a search on Google does allow three character searches! lol

What I did was to find a comparible price, and asked my dealer to match it - and they did!

D.

[Steve ( West Mids )]

Hi and welcome, try this in google for your search:

gap insurance site:http://www.lexusownersclub.co.uk/forum

[Scarlet Pimpernell]

Don't pay full ticket for GAP, haggle...you'll be surprised to find it'll drop by at least £100 as mine did (same dealer - I paid £490 and 10 months interest free)

The SatNav ETA is down to the speed settings in the system...

Congrats on the purchase!

PS - our Nissan Note's GAP cost £240 for up to £30,000 claim in 3 years. Someones been made a monkey of when they bought their GAP for their IS220d last year! There is loadsadosh in it for the dealers!

[Parthiban]

That GAP cover of up to £30k is nonsense - its purely the value of the car.

Premium is usually 2% of car list price - no idea how much a Note costs so dunno if that's the right amount, but £490 for an IS sounds about right

[Northern Boys Luv Gravy]

You can get GAP insurance from reputable insurers for less than £300 if you have a look on the net. The dealership wanted a ridiculous amount so in the end I never bothered and spent the money on beer tokens instead.

[Scarlet Pimpernell]

That GAP cover of up to £30k is nonsense - its purely the value of the car.

Premium is usually 2% of car list price - no idea how much a Note costs so dunno if that's the right amount, but £490 for an IS sounds about right

Funnily I asked the Nissan dealer this morning, and it costs the same whether I bought a Note for £10k or a 350z for £25k...I did feel a tad ripped off by the Lexus garage when he said that, but it was far far too late by then...

They must have a deal with the company offering their GAP.