New daily driver for wifey.. Lexus content

It's amazing what $2500 can score if you're patient and relentless and quick on the draw with the money. Our new 1998 Lexus GS300:

This is a really, really nice car for $2500. Full service records, timing belt done recently, two sets of good tires (one all season, one snow set), everything works including power accessories and a/c. The only flaws are: dented trunk lid, dented front bumper, tear in the driver's seat and arm rest, starter has a failing contact, and front brakes are worn. Everything else is 100%. I should be able to get everything taken care of for under a grand, that's with me doing the mechanicals and having the body work done for me.

I went to look at it prepared to walk away if it was even a tiny bit disappointing but it was even better than I hoped. It's an incredible car for the money. It doesn't have quite the grunt that the LS400 does, but it's tighter and handles a lot more confidently. It looks worlds easier to work on, too; the straight 6 leaves a lot more room in the engine bay.

All told I'm way more excited about it than I expected to be. I went into this search planning on spending more but lucked out .. yet again. Most of these are a lot more money.

And the best part? The wife loves it.

Sweet score!

Nice!

I've always thought those were cool. Who knew they were so cheap.

Nice car!
I'm going to need something bigger soon, will two convertible car seats fit in the back of that? I don't think I've ever been in one...

WOW! How many miles? Cash talks! Nice score!

Whoa. I might be looking for one of those pretty soon if you can get them for that money

Wow that is an insane low price! good score! That is one of the finer cars lexus built, I've personally seen several with over 300k and one with 400k on it. And during the atlanta floods a couple of years ago saw one come on a hook hydrolocked, after all the water was out of the engine new plugs put in cranked up and ran like a top!

That's awesome. You got a smokin' deal. I really hope to find something like that, I like that era of GS. Too bad we never got the 2JZ Twin Turbo that the Aristo got, I'd be fine with the 226 hp NA 2JZ.

Man, I went on CL and you still got a smokin' deal on your GS. I couldn't find anything descent under $5k.

In reply to SyntheticBlinkerFluid:
Search for Infiniti on CL and you should find similar deals most places. Tip: on CL search Infinity with a "y" and you will often find more than with the proper "i".

The Q45's are typically cheaper to buy than the Maxima/i30 twins.
Here:
http://chicago.craigslist.org/chc/cto/2989320978.html
http://chicago.craigslist.org/sox/cto/2985952915.html
http://chicago.craigslist.org/chc/cto/2997460058.html

MPG will be about the same as GS300
Q45: 16/18/21mpg
GS300: 18/20/23

In reply to jrw1621:

I'm not a huge fan of Infiniti. Even though they are pretty similar to Lexus, I'm just not wowed by them. Unless it's an 03'-04' M45. I loooove those cars.

I agree on the first M45's as the most attractive but for all that is good on the outside, the interior or namely the dashboard is poorly laid out.
Second to the M45's are the '97 -'98 Q45 Touring.(in black.)

@chknhwk: It really depends on your height, but I don't think so; the back seat is a decent size but it's still "regular back seat" sized. Then again, I'm coming from a '95 LS400 which has a back seat that has ludicrous amounts of leg room. It's possible that two car seats would fit in the GS but you would really need to try it to be sure. If you were near by I would be happy to let you try it in ours but it's a bit of a long haul for that. ;-)

@poopshovel: 168k miles, which given the good maintenance this received is not much at all.

@BAMF: They aren't usually so cheap, I just spent the last few months searching and emailing, searching and emailing. This guy was just ready to deal and for some reason decided I sounded like a nice person. (his words, he said he got >30 emails but contacted me because I sounded nice.)

Hopefully I'm that lucky when I go to get a fun car. I need to sell a couple cars though, someone buy my Quad4 CRX .. and my pickup. At least I think I'm going to sell the truck. Sigh.

SyntheticBlinkerFluid wrote: In reply to jrw1621: I'm not a huge fan of Infiniti. Even though they are pretty similar to Lexus, I'm just not wowed by them. Unless it's an 03'-04' M45. I loooove those cars.

Agreed.

I'd LOVE one of them in black, lowered on some nice VIP-style wheels. That is just an excellent design. Shame they had such a short run here.

One of my neighbors has one of those M45s that is totally ragged out. The lip spoiler hangs down like it's shedding parts. For such a big car they look like there is surprisingly little interior room.