I went through the process of negotiating a price on a new Lexus ES 350 with the salesman and his sales manager. It took some time and effort, but I finally got a price that I liked. I thought, great, I'll sign the contract, pay for the car, and get the hell out of here. Nope. The next step was a visit with the "Financial Services Manager." It sounds like some guy at a hedge fund managing a portfolio, but he ended up being just another salesman trying to get me to fork over THOUSANDS of dollars for extra protection.
My question, is it worth $3,000 to buy four additional years of Lexus servicing? The first two services in the first year of ownership comes with the car, but he wants 3-g for an additional four years, which covers things like the 15,000 and 30,000 mile "comprehensive" checks. Of course, he also wanted me to buy a 4-year extended warranty, tire and rim protection, glass protection and a bunch of other things that added up to $13,000!
I walked out of there without buying any of it, but I am wondering if pre-paying for the routine maintenance makes sense or not.
Will the amount of scheduled service the car needs exceed $3,000 over that period of time? If not, I would just say "NO!" to the F&I guy and insist on no extra cost addons at all. Be prepared to walk out the door if they won't budge.
F&I guys are trained to sell all kinds of overpriced and useless junk to increase dealership profits and their own commissions. There are plenty of youtube videos out there, for example:
https://www.youtube.com/@CarEdge/search?query=f%26i
@imperator Yep....I got it for $2,000 under dealer invoice. They must have made something on it, but they probably were thinking that they would get me to buy all the extras that the finance guy was selling, which I didn't. I bought this car partly because Toyota/Lexus has been phasing out the V6s, so I wanted one before that possibly happens to the ES too.
Thanks. That's just what I thought. As I said, I didn't buy anything the F&I guy was selling. I even told him that there is no way that I would buy something without having time to consider the proposition. Being ushered into an office and presented with SEVERAL packages to buy, without any foreknowledge, was something that raised red flags for me and I told him so. I also asked him: where does the dealership make the most money, selling new cars or servicing the cars. He answered without hesitation that servicing is where the money is. So, I thought, he's trying to pre-sell me all sorts of services. This must be one of the ways they make their big bucks because I doubt they made much on the ES 350 that I just purchased.
They know they won't make that much on service being a Lexus dealership, due to their reliability.
@nlord That's an excellent point. My brother owns a 2017 ES 350. He changes the oil after 5,000 miles and that's about it. He said that he doesn't do all those maintenance checks that the Lexus dealer pushes, such as the one after 15K miles and 30K miles. He brings he car to his own trusted mechanic and not the dealership because he said that they're rip-offs. Example, the Lexus dealer wanted something like $200 for an oil and filter change. He gets his done for just $69. Hasn't had any problems with the car at all in the seven years that he has owned it.