Lexus Used Approved car condition topic

Linas.P · October 15, 2020

Hello all,

I haven't spend much time in forum lately, frankly because I am not that please with my Lexus ownership anymore. That said it just got worse recently - driver seat motors failed and I had to get them checked under warranty (will be fixed by the warranty as well). So that is kind of good - Lexus warranty experience was very good, no questions asked Lexus Woodford handled all communication, I only had to bring the car in and get it fixed.

However, just before that job being carried out I noticed scrapping noise from brakes, mostly from the front when I let it off, so I asked for car to be inspected and sure enough there are no brake pads left. Front "under 1mm", rear 1mm, both brake disks lipped, front below minimum thickness and the scrapping noise is because inner front pads do not exist - it is braking with metal backing plate. I would generally be embarrassed "letting myself down" like this, but here is the kicker - since I have bought the car I barely covered 2845 miles. Due to covid I work from home so I rarely ever user the car (maybe once or twice a month) and all my driving was long motorway journeys in very pleasantly quiet motorways, so completely destroying brakes was not achievable. Money wise - all pads and disks around the car - £1,155.00.

When I inspected car before purchase I have noted that brakes "look" very worn - front disks had noticeable lip, rear disks have deep groves, I could not inspect pads much as they are no very visible behind calipers. I have raised it with sales assistant as a thing which need to be replaced, but he insisted car has passed inspection and MOT. Eventually, we agreed that brakes will be checked again before I pick-up the car and if worn below "required level" they will be replaced. I have noted all that and e-mailed the list of thing we have agreed to address with the car to sales assistant before wiring the deposit.

On the day I was picking up the car brakes still looked worn, but I was told they passed inspection - generally I don't take c*** like this, but after all it is authorised Lexus dealership, they must adhere to Lexus QA, so I was thinking "perhaps they know what they are doing". Worst case scenario it is agreed in writing and car is under warranty, so what could go wrong?!

Sure, comes... now. To quote Lexus technician "even if you drove it like you stole it, it is not possible that you worn down the brakes like that in 2845 miles". Point being, brakes were actually very low when I picked-up the car and what bother me most - would I have driven my standard 14k miles per year, the car would have been unsafe to use withing 2 months, 10 month before MOT and next service. It is really poor that Lexus Reading let the car off like that - not even ready to be driven for next service period.

So with all above in mind I reached out to Lexus Reading, saying basically please pick-up the replacement costs, because you have miss-sold the car to me, I have pointed out the issue to you, which you agreed to inspect and if necessary to fix and you just done nothing with it and sold me the car which was not ready to be used - arguably unsafe. They responded with following excuse - "car passed MOT and visual inspection in October 2019", where it states remaining pads are 5-6mm and thus it is wear and tear and as expected they won't cover any costs for fixing it.

Now the issue with that is - I have picked-up the car on 20/12/2019, they "visual" inspection was on 11/10/2019 (2.5 month before the purchase) and it was multiple inaccuracies e.g. mileage is 500 miles higher than at the time I picked-up the car, tyre brands and thread depth incorrect and there are a lot of thing like "4-5mm", "5-6mm" indicating it was literally a visual inspection and not proper proper measurement etc. Point being - I neither consider it to be comprehensive or accurate test, and certainly not representative of the condition when I purchased the car 2.5 month later. Importantly there is no record of them inspecting the car in December, when they have agreed with me to inspect brakes before sale.

Ok so to cut the story short - I am planning to make complain for miss-selling, but I have few questions and hopefully somebody had previous experience with that:

Lexus states SELECT used approved cars are checked with comprehensive 150 points inspection. There are no evidence of that ever being carried out, but I wonder if such thing ever exists - or if they pass 30-point "visual" inspection as "comprehensive 150 point"? If anyone have an example of how comprehensive 150 points inspection report looks like it would be much appreciated.
More generally, does inspection 2.5 month before purchase actually counts?
Maybe somebody can point out to any contact in Lexus HQ UK where I could generally make complaint?
And finally, how realistic is that in 2845miles I have worn brakes pads from 6mm (which I assume is 50-60%) to literally nothing? What is the experience with IS/RC200t are they really "chewing" the brakes like that.. I mean my precious IS250 was known for having "undersized brakes" and it would go through pads in 16-20k miles, so with same driving habits I would expect 6mm to last at least 8-10k miles.

Thank you for all the answer in advance.

royoftherovers · October 15, 2020

Linas, I have missed you posting and wondered what had become of you.

The answer is simple. You do not have a problem.

Go to an established and well respected Brake repair/replacement establishment and have the Brakes/Pads/ Discs measures/examined in the condition they are now. Receive a documented statement to that effect from the establishment.

Have the work that is required completed and pay the cost. Then sue the Seller (Lexus Reading) for the costs you have paid, or 50% thereof, to show that you are a reasonable man. Use the Small Claims Track of the County Court and await your appearance in Court.

If you have prepared well and documented well, the Court will find in your favour.

I will not respond further, but Good Luck.

Linas.P · October 15, 2020

Thanks for quick response,

Yes I was thinking along the same lines. I have report from Lexus dealership, so I guess it as good as it get's. I do hope I don't need to sue them and merely the threat of lawsuit will do, but I am prepared to go all the way 🙂

In meantime I made a complaint to Lexus UK as well, not that I think it is going to help me much, but I feel the service at Lexus Reading misrepresents generally good experience people have with their Lexus ownership.

rich1068 · October 15, 2020

The only advice I can give you Linus is that the softly softly approach always works for me. Keep it friendly, calm, non-confrontational but be persistent and be prepared for a bit of a slog. And personally I find the involvement of third parties just gets peoples backs up. I would certainly not be mentioning court unless you have the absolute final word from Lexus or the dealer. I've never had to resort to that or even mention it and I've had two brand new cars replaced FOC and numerous quite major issues sorted by certain German manufacturers mainly by smiling sweetly and appealing to the other parties better nature.

On the face of it these items should have been replaced before you took delivery and if the facts are as you state then you should be able to reach agreement with either Lexus or the dealer. Don't give up on the involvement of Lexus themselves. After all, the much mentioned warranty attached to used Lexus is based on conditions set out by the brand not the dealer.

Linas.P · October 15, 2020

Yes, I agree in general, but not sure it will work here. My "charm attack" was when we agreed the list of issue to be resolved with the car before purchase, however I feel Lexus Reading or at very least sales assistant in his personal capacity were not dealing very fairly. For example when he agreed to inspect the car for me - guess what? That inspection in December never happened, the only report they have is from October. I assume because car was priced to sell (RC200t are particularly difficult to shift), they had no margin on it and they definitely had no desire to put all new brakes around and only promised to inspect them to facilitate the sale. That said it isn't really my issue, they have standards to adhere to and they should have sold me car as agreed and as required by Lexus QA.

So that said, I don't believe being nice is going to work in this particular situation. For the particular reason you mentioned (not making threats) I first e-mailed the sales assistant himself so he could have a chance address the issue before it is escalated. Even when confronted with inspection report from another dealership which indicates brakes were not so good after, he straight away started looking for excuses. And I wasn't very aggressive either - started with all standard "hope you well" stuff and just said that after less than 3000 miles brakes have failed and car is in different dealership waiting for my approval to carry out the work. I replied to original e-mail where we agreed the list of items to be fixed and just said "I hope you agree this is not normal wear and tear and you will be able to cover cost of repairs". To that he straight away sent me aforementioned "visual inspection" and didn't even bother to start any negotiation.

If they would be willing to budge at all, then perhaps they could have started from something like "we can replace pads, but not disks, or disks, but not pads, or cover costs partially". But now their positions is - "we have nothing to do with this car".

One other thing Lexus technician told me - they probably be more likely to cover costs if the car would be in their workshop, obviously in that case they would need to cover only wholesale price for the parts. As it is now in different Lexus franchise, they basically have to cover whole retail cost of parts and work. But hey! They had a chance to address those issues when they had car for 2 weeks in their workshop preparing it for sale.

As always I will remain very professional with them. Currently, I have just replied with points I have mentioned above - their report is no good, no inspection which we have agreed before the sale, brakes disappeared after 2845 miles and if they not willing to cover, then I feel they miss-sold the car to me. He has not responded.

Spacewagon52 · October 15, 2020

Not something you would expect from a Lexus dealer. After buying a car from a main dealer, I would not expect to have to check the brake pads for wear. One must question the MOT tester here. This does not inspire confidence.

Linas.P · October 15, 2020

Yeah - funny enough they have their own MOT centre, so they literally test their own cars....

Not suggesting anything, but conflict of interest is appar.... I mean... "possible". In other hand I don't think it is unusual for larger franchises to have MOT centres of their own, so maybe industry wide issue.

Herbie · October 15, 2020

4 minutes ago, Linas.P said:

Yeah - funny enough they have their own MOT centre, so they literally test their own cars....

Not suggesting anything, but conflict of interest is appar.... I mean... "possible". In other hand I don't think it is unusual for larger franchises to have MOT centres of their own, so maybe industry wide issue.

Don't forget that an MOT is only an inspection of if your car is safe enough to be on the road at that given moment in time and not an inspection of all things that may be or go wrong.

I thought that almost all cars had 'brake wear indicators' these days? Some have a wire that, when the brakes wear to a certain limit, it illuminates a warning light on the dash, and others just have a piece of metal that contacts the disk and makes an awful screeching sound.

Either system will have the wear indicators set to give a safety margin so if your car does have these indicators then technically I suppose Lexus are correct and they were within spec when you bought the car.

I admit that it's not the behaviour you would expect from a major luxury brand and I do hope that you get it all sorted in your favour, but...

Linas.P · October 15, 2020

Yes I agree, although as mentioned MOT and visual inspection was carried away 2.5 month before I bought the car. On the day I inspected it as much as it is possible on the dealer lot the brakes looked sorry for themselves. Sales assistant promised to check them again, but never did.

And indeed wear indicators should be a thing, and I believe they should start making horrible noise around ~2mm. I think on RC it is just metal tab like below and not asensor

Would it be some dodgy private seller, I would not be surprised they could have removed it, but that is why I would always take car for inspection after buying it on the street. This being sold as used approved from main dealer I did not expect any shenanigans.

As well worth nothing that some aftermarket pads does not come with wear indicators and as I have no history which would indicate pads were ever changed by Lexus, it is possible that previous owner replaced them with something not genuine.

Either way I asked Lexus Woodford to keep all parts they replace and I will pick them-up.There is still very slim possibility, that they are trying to up-sell me brake-job without it being actually needed. But I would say that is very very unlikely, considering that I made comments myself about brakes not looking well nearly 3000 miles before and recently pointed noticed scraping noise they have certainly didn't become better over that time.

And just to note - it wasn't "screeching" noise from wear indicator, it was more like slight scrapping noise you would have if caliper is maybe a bit stuck and brake-pad drags a little bit after you let the brakes off.

Spacewagon52 · October 15, 2020

I understand what Herbie means but surely the brakes would have been put down as an advisory, knowing they would not last a full service interval. I was warned about brake pads about brake pads and discs at MOT time and had them changed long before the service was due. Profit margins and cost cutting seem to be more important than customer safety or satisfaction here. Did you escalate your issue with their senior management? It seems like a bit of sharp practice by one salesperson. If the management back him up then there is a culture issue at that dealership. Forums like this are very useful sources of information on dealerships. We all can gain from others bad experiences.

I hope they are able to come to an agreement over the brake issues. Sales people promise the world until they they get your money!

royoftherovers · October 15, 2020

Lexus Reading is part of Jemca Group and I know from personal experience that they are Revenue Gobblers.

And I am not the only one. There is a Member on here who shall be nameless who has bought from Reading and been less than satisfied.

He may or may not reveal himself.

Linas.P · October 15, 2020

Yes, indeed - when they refused to pay for it I checked the previous mot and it had no comments or advisories, because as I said it is done by the dealership itself - simply says PASS. That is all info. and as @Spacewagon52 said - if the brakes literally became non existent withing 3000 miles, then it would be expected to see advisory in previous MOT test saying "pad wearing low".

And I guess that is my main argument - it quite clear that this outcome could have been predicted when they sold the car, but they still proceeded with sale even when I raised it. And that in itself means car was miss-sold.

I guess, the only possible realistic excuse could be sticking calipers which could result in pad wearing prematurely, but that would not help much... because they need to inspect calipers as well. However, even that is unlikely - because all pads have worn fairly evenly accordingly to report I have now and all are ~1mm or less. If the calipers would be sticking, then it would be more likely that one side would be gone and other side would still be alright.

Once I pointed out issues and inaccuracies in their report, now they no longer reply to e-mails or calls. So that is as well kind of indicative behaviour.

doog442 · October 15, 2020

Welcome back Linas.

Firstly I'm surprised the RC doesn't have a visual warning but see that's been covered.

I visited Lexus Reading a few years ago. Quite a few of their cars had 'lipped discs'. (I have a habit of running my fingers over the disc and feeling 'the lip'.)

On one example I was interested in I popped in and commented the brakes needed doing. I was simply fobbed off that the car had passed their Inspection -lol. Needless to say I walked out.

You may be on a sticky wicket. They could argue a couple of track days would achieve the same result and its a wear and tear item and wear and tear rules the roost in the land of the stealers (Lexus are by far the worst in relation to this compared to their 'opposition' who shall remain nameless).

I did have some success with my daughters Mini, brake warning light came on three months after purchase and negotiated 50% off. I posted a similar thread on pistonheads and got laughed off so keep clear of there :whistling:

Linas.P · October 15, 2020

That is true, would it be RC-F I honestly wouldn't even try, but RC200t isn't really a car for track-days. Because you right - the only way you could wear pads so quickly is by tracking the car... and indeed looking from perspective of independent person - maybe I am lying, maybe I have tracked the car and now trying to get free brakes job on their account. However, considering that all the tracks were closed during majority of period in question and all track-days and car club meets were cancelled or postponed it kinds of works to my advantage. No matter how unlikely - track-day argument could be made, but I hope on the scale of probabilities my story would sound more believable than theirs.

Obviously, I know very well that car was underused if anything, but proving it may be tricky. I think my only advantage is that I have evidence that I asked for brakes to be checked in writing and they have responded in writing that they will check them, but have never checked the brakes and have no evidence of ever doing it. This sort of points out that they were avoiding the inspection for some reason.

Linas.P · October 16, 2020

They budging a little bit - now they saying they could "look into it" if I would bring car for their inspection. Which is rather complex considering car has no brakes, like it is not enough the MOT has expired whilst car was being fixed, so it has no MOT either. Actually, Lexus Woodford said they could do MOT for free (which I didn't know is possible), but car would obviously fail it.

So the solution is for them to go and recover car, or the alternative - I will bring the worn down part for inspection. I think it is fair considering they had car for 2 week in their workshop when preparing for sale and if they would have inspected the car then we would not have this situation.

Either way, it seems this will turn into interesting story!

_______

Update:

Slightly unbelievable, but they have agreed with the most convoluted arrangement ever - they will bring courtesy car to Woodford and pick-up my car, I will return Woodford Courtesy car and pick-up theirs and then they will recover RC from Woodford. Well... I assume they going to drive it rather than bringing flatbed, but I guess they can do that on dealership plates.. that is on them.

This obviously leaves me to go and pick-up the car from Reading, but I guess that is fair compromise.

rayaans · October 16, 2020

37 minutes ago, Linas.P said:

They budging a little bit - now they saying they could "look into it" if I would bring car for their inspection. Which is rather complex considering car has no brakes, like it is not enough the MOT has expired whilst car was being fixed, so it has no MOT either. Actually, Lexus Woodford said they could do MOT for free (which I didn't know is possible), but car would obviously fail it.

So the solution is for them to go and recover car, or the alternative - I will bring the worn down part for inspection. I think it is fair considering they had car for 2 week in their workshop when preparing for sale and if they would have inspected the car then we would not have this situation.

Either way, it seems this will turn into interesting story!

_______

Update:

Slightly unbelievable, but they have agreed with the most convoluted arrangement ever - they will bring courtesy car to Woodford and pick-up my car, I will return Woodford Courtesy car and pick-up theirs and then they will recover RC from Woodford. Well... I assume they going to drive it rather than bringing flatbed, but I guess they can do that on dealership plates.. that is on them.

This obviously leaves me to go and pick-up the car from Reading, but I guess that is fair compromise.

Interesting - seems to be an awkward way of doing things but hey atleast its sorted in the end

Just saying, our Merc C class coupe doesnt have rear pad indicators either but they're always checked on service (and I keep an eye on them myself too). I would imagine there would have been some kind of advisory on the service documents from the prior year especially if its that low

Linas.P · October 16, 2020

Yes, although both are Lexus dealers, Woodford is part of Hills Group and Reading is part of Jemca - so between them they are competitors. I guess ideal way for customer and for Lexus UK would be for them to pick-up the car fix it and bring it back without getting me involved, or simply pay other dealership and sort out B2B discounts and rates via Lexus UK.

That said I have a feeling this story doesn't end here and once they pick-up the car they simply going to ask me to pay for brake job, but at that point I am in their courtesy car and not Woodford's, and thus not in rush anymore - we can have e-mail conversations for weeks. I just hope they not going to bring me Toyota Aygo (although cheap badge from halfrauds and I can claim to have Aston Martin Cygnet)!

KenMavor · October 16, 2020

Interesting discussion.......just had my daughters Fiat Grande Punto MOTd. This is what the brakes are checked against....I asked the guy what he checked for and he says....low pads, lipped discs, warped discs or any combination. He said that any one of these areas would result in an advisory and would definitely fail next MOT if nothing done about it. So I suggest that there was no way your car could have gone from having no advisory to a straight fail within such a short space of time. Someone is having a laugh.

1.1.14. brake discs and drums

A brake disc or drum must be significantly worn before you should reject it. Being worn below the manufacturer’s recommended limits is not a reason in itself.

Defect	Category
(a) Brake disc or drum: (i) significantly and obviously worn (ii) insecure, fractured or otherwise likely to fail	Major Dangerous
(b) Contaminated with oil, grease etc.	Major
(c) Missing	Dangerous
(d) Brake drum back plate insecure	Major

JeffL · October 16, 2020

Would it be a good idea, for future car purchases, to have a potential used car purchase inspected by the AA or RAC? Even if it is being bought from an official Lexus dealership? Sounds a good way to do it for me as I don't don't know anything much about the mechanics of cars.

Linas.P · October 16, 2020

So, I have made and epic trade between 3 cars 🙂

Returned courtesy car to Woodford, and got courtesy car from Reading, Reading picked-up my car from Woodford and will inspect brakes + do the Full service which I negotiated free when I purchased the car last year.

They should let me know what they think about brake condition soon, not sure what they going to agree to do, but at least some progress... It was funny how polite everyone were (including myself) whilst holding battle axes behind the back 😄 But to be fair I don't hold grudge - it is all about the money and as long as they replace what is require without me emptying my wallet I will be very happy.

@JeffL - previously I would say NO! But my experience proves otherwise. Again I would always take car for inspection if I suspect something to be wrong with it, but this time I kind of got myself in trouble and put too much faith in dealership experience. In conclusion I think spending little bit on inspection could save thousands down the road, especially if you looking at more fancy car.

Shahpor · October 16, 2020

Welcome back Linas.

Brakes do seem to be a recurring theme these days and I hope you get yours sorted without any more fuss.

As I have mentioned on here before, my car also wasn't very well prepared by Lexus Sidcup when I picked it up with some rather obvious faults, so I will be more weary if I buy one from a main dealer in future.

Good luck.

Linas.P · October 16, 2020

Yes, basically I have learned from this story that there is no reason to treat Authorised Dealers differently from any other traders, especially when buying used cars. Perhaps with new cars it is fine - expectation is that everything is new and everything must work, if anything fails there are no question who is at fault and rules and black and white - dealer will fix it free of charge. However, with used cars the rules are more like many shades of grey, because there are no established rules of what are acceptable standards of consumable parts, and there are many dealers who will find different things to be acceptable.

I guess all boils down into car being described accurately and having very accurate inspection reports. Say in my particular situation if they would have inspected the car when they agreed to do it, maybe they would have found it to have pads at 2-3mm and front brakes having 0.2mm left. As soon as it this is established, there are 2 options:

I could insist that it needs to be replaced or negotiated the price further down to cover the cost. And they could have agreed.
Or they could have said "condition of the brakes is reflected by the price already", thus allowing me to pay for replacement on top of the car cost, walk away or choosing to run car at my own risk.

So the seller responsibility is to be transparent, so that buyer can make correct decision - agree with price as it is, negotiate lower price, walk away from the deal or take responsibility and risk. Then it is on the buyer, if they buy the car knowing it has low brakes which are due to be replaced and they fail, that is buyers fault.

Obviously, they didn't want for me to walk away, nor they wanted to do any work on car, so they have chosen option 3 instead - Keep the deal as is, refer to 2.5 month old vaguely accurate report and effectively hide the fact of real car condition letting me drive off with brakes which will fail soon. And that is what is basically miss-selling.

My situation is rather lucky, brakes worked fine until the point I need to bring the car for different reason and it was noticed, now the question could be answered by simply agreeing who is paying. But this could be much worse - imagine I had to do emergency stop and there are no brakes, somebody gets injured or worse and then car is taken for investigation. Investigation finds there are no brake-pads left on the car, thus car is not road worthy, thus insurance does not cover it... this could be jail sentence!

P.S. Sidcup is Jemca as well, so there seems to be a trend.

Barry14UK · October 16, 2020

Another aspect is that when you read about this unsatisfactory situation it makes you doubt whether all other covered checks were properly done.

Linas.P · October 16, 2020

It doesn't make me doubt - I just assume they were all wrong. Some reassurance - different dealership did inspection now and because I would be paying customer (rather than warranty job) they were in business "to find every single fault possible". So if they have not identified any other issues, then I am quite confident there are none.

As previously said, they haven't even done proper 150 "approval" check, just basic visual check 2.5 month before, so even if it was vaguelly accurate at the time, it does not mean it was accurate at the time I bought it.

I guess this goes back to my statement above - I will look into Lexus Dealers same as any other car salesman going forward. Meaning that after buying car I will take it to different place for inspection so that any surprises could be identified within weeks of purchase whilst I can still walk back on the deal or get it warranted.

dutchie01 · October 17, 2020

Hi Linas, I find this story quite shocking. Wrecking pads and discs within 3000 miles and that on a hybrid?? What is the average mileage on discs or pads when dealers replace them? will all be logged. The Dealer should deal with this issue in a reasonable, honest and decent way and i just cannot find any argument that will justify rejecting this complaint. Trackdays.. Really? with a 300H?? I would walk into the office of the branch manager on mondaymorning with all invoices, papers etc and tell him you expect a solution to this nonsense.

Dont go the paper route, take it personally!