Newbie Buying Gs300 Sport

Richietoonfan · November 7, 2007

Hi

This is my first attempt at posting..... hope the results are useful/interesting/value adding?

I have been driving various large comfortable execs over the last ten or so years, Volvo's/Gallant/Cherokee/Saab 9000 to name a cherised few, I currently have a Transit connect (used for a business I set up) and was looking to replace it with another comfy car, so it was with interest I saw a Silver T reg GS sport in a local traders forecourt a few weeks ago. I did my homework on pricing (autotrader/web) and also made use of your excellent forum from which I garnered a whole lot of things to look out for when buying a used Lexus.......Many thanks for all who inputted this valuable info over the years!

At this point I will point out that the car had only 51K miles on the clock, this for an 8 year old car was hard to believe at first, that is until the laidback proprietor allowed me take a two hour testdrive when I found out just why this car can give you a huge cheesy grin. You are not going to believe me (thinking about it you may) when I say that it was the nicest drive i have ever experienced......that includes all the above rides, two of which were brand new when I purchased them!!!! I almost got the chequebook out there and then, however cool logic took over (and a rememberance of my wifes implacability) and I walked away. I did a feverish search for other GS Sports on the web and the closest similarly priced car was located in Bradford and I arranged that afternoon to go down to test drive. The car was a V reg with 117K miles, but was over a "grubby hand" less than the local one. The car turned out to be tidy looking inside and out with really nice metallic blue paint. At this point I was getting seriously interested as I remembered the longevity of these cars from the forum, that 100+K miles is not usually a reason to aviod a Lexus. All switches and knobs and whistles seemed to work and the salesman was keen for me to take a test drive, maybe thinking that the car would sell itself? Anyway I started up an already warm car (I checked the hood temp first) it fired up immediately, however on tickover it was not as quiet as the local car and on blipping the throttle became much too noisy, I estimated something was seriously wrong with the engine I fear....not that I am an expert. We pulled out of the carpark, and I asked if we could find a road to which I could accelerate up to 70...... within a few moments the washing machine full of spanners....sorry the engine! managed to coax the car up to 40mph, at the same time a horrendous steering wheel wobble started which made me slow down pronto and return post-haste to the carpark.....eeeek! How they ever expected anybody to buy a car in this condition really beggars belief!

Further to the driving debacle the car did not have the CD magazine fitted inside changer, its spare wheel was dinged badly and was missing a tyre and the geezer only had one key for the car..........needless to say I left Bradford with a better understanding of what I was going to do with my money..........................The silver local car is being delivered to my home tomorrow....can't wait!

I will take pictures and post them very soon.