Bought new ES300 in June 1992. Very satisfied and raved about it to friends and family for many years. Then in ~2000, it overheated 3 times. The first
2 times, Lexus charged $1300-$2000 (if memory serves me) to fix, but then after the third time, they still insisted on another $2300 to fix it (only days after they fixed the second time), I decided they didn't know what the problem was. Very disappointed. So I gave my Lexus to my ex-Toyota-employed cousin.
Now the car and the story are both off my chest...
The car was 8 years old when it failed. You don't state how many miles. While I agree that this may be "disappointing", 8 trouble-free years is more than most owners of American and European makes can say.
So what was actually wrong? Blown (unnoticed) head gasket causing loss of coolant and head warp? Water pump go bad? There are a lot of details missing here. Not like Lexus dealers to blow a repair job and then make you pay for their mistake.
Please elaborate.
Oh, and to others in this news group, let's not have any of the "BMW is never wrong, their cars are perfect, it's just undeserving, unappreciative, ignorant owners that have problems with BMW cars" (substitute Lexus for BMW) nonsense that is so common in the BMW news group when someone complains about a problem. If Lexus or a dealer screwed up, let's hear about it.
Based on my experience, I would differ with that opinion. Although I now own a Lexus ES300, I have driven GM products all my life and have never had serious breakdowns other than parts that wear out like water pumps and brakes. I normally keep my cars for more than 10 years. My current Olds 88 is 9 years old with 250 000 miles, and it still drives like new. Never had a power train problem with it. The engine does not burn oil and is as peppy as when it was new. And economical too. Its a 3.8 and is much easier on gas than the 3.0 Lexus engine. More powerful too. It has a silky ride and is much quieter than the Lexus.
My previous car was a Chevrolet Celebrity which I gave away after 14 years of ownership and 370 000 miles on the odometer. Never had a single power train problem. And the engine was still purring along when I passed the car on to a relative. I have never had an engine or transmission problem with any of my GM cars although I like to drive them in the ground. I don't think my current Lexus will tough it out like the GM products did. In fact I'm sure it won't. It just too delicate. Nice car, but not rugged like a big GM. And costly to repair.
Want good value? Test drive a Buick LeSabre. You'll be amazed. Buy one, and with the money you save compared to a high end import, buy a boat, or make a once in a lifetime trip around the world, or invest the savings and retire earlier. And all the while enjoy a superb automobile that is inexpensive to run and maintain...
Sorry, but I have to tell you that I hear the engine in the Lexus and I don't in the Olds. I read on cartalk.com that the engine noise in the Lexus es300 is "engineered in", probably to make it sound like a European car.
Whether it is there by design or not, it is there. My 94 Olds is quieter than my 93 Lexus. There is no getting around that.
Some of us older folks on here gave up on American cars a long time ago because they were so bad as to be intolerable. The last Olds I had was in the shop about 90 days in three years of ownership and only had about 60,000 mile on it when I had to give it away to get rid of it. And I bought it because I heard all the simple minded idiots braying about how good the American cars had become !!!!!! Sorry, folks, but American cars just don't hold up and require constant repair. Wish it weren't so, but ...
There are isolated exceptions to that rule, but I agree with you, the statistics are not good for American cars. It's just a product of American business, which is only focused on how they can get this quarter's numbers to balance, not on how to compete for years down the road. That's why American companies are sending all the computer jobs to India right now. That helps their bottom line, but look at what it's doing to America. All about greed and self-interest, which are the cornerstones of my disdain for American companies.
Sorry old fellow, but you are wrong. GM has gotten better and the J.D. Power numbers show it. I'm looking at page 99 of the J.D. Power Car Guide that came with my Smart Money this month. There is a table that lists problems per 100 vehicles for the first three years of ownership. Not going to go over the whole list, but the brands better than the industry average include (from the best on down) Lexus (who else?), Infiniti, BUICK, Porsche, Acura, Toyota, CADILLAC, LINCOLN, Honda, MERCURY, Jaguar, Saab, BMW, Subaru, Nissan, GMC, CHEVROLET, and SATURN.
Continuing with below average we have OLDS, Mazda, PONTIAC, CHRYSLER, FORD, PLYMOUTH, DODGE, Audi, Mercedes-Benz, JEEP, Volvo, Mitsubishi, Hyundai, Isuzu, Volkswagen, Suzuki, Daewoo, Land Rover, and (finally) Kia.
Note that there are seven U.S. brands in the better than average category, mostly GM one with Buick way up at no. 3 and better than Acura/Honda and Nissan.
Notable in the sub-average group are M-B, Audi, VW, all the Chrysler name plates as well as three Japanese lines Mazda, Mitsubishi, and Isuzu. Olds and Pontiac are slightly below average.
In point of fact, the GM brands do very, very well (Buick and Cadillac) to OK (Olds and Pontiac). In other words, some GM brands are very competitive, even with the big Japanese brands.
The interesting thing is how bad M-B and the other German brands (except BMW which is fairly good) have gotten. And how uniformly bad Chrysler is, but still better than the Germans.
The reality is that many U.S. brands are quite good to excellent.
Sorry, GRL, I think you miss the point. Within any given price point, American cars underperform and are less reliable than Japanese cars. German cars are also inferior, again, comparing within similar price categories.
All US domestic vehicles are built either in the US or Canada or Mexico. And the difference with the Japanese cars built here is that you still have the Japanese running the operation and not cutting corners to make their quarterly executive bonuses the way American executives do. They are in it for the longer haul, unlike their lazy money grubbing greedy American executive counterparts.
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