Standard to premium nav upgrade possible??

[phunt]

It turns out the RC300h i bought from a dealership at the weekend only has the standard entertainment system although it was advertised as having lexus premium navigation system. Ive contacted the dealership and they have agreed i have been missold but the manager i spoke to was unsure what he could do about it. I am awating a call back from the manager as he said he needs to speak to a service engineer to see if its possible to upgrade the unit to premium. Does anyone know if this is actually possible? Thanks

[wendle]

Anything is possible, I bet it will cost a bit though, new head unit, speakers and amp, because of the cost I recon they will say it’s not possible and offer you some sort of compensation 

[phunt]

yeah , thats what i was thinking to . I have no idea what sort of value compesation to ask for . Anybody know how much the premium nav option was on a 2018 RC F sport? Ive also been looking at these 3rd party carplay options but i can't make up my mind if they seem a bit cheap. Is the Lexion version considered to be the best amongst the community?

[wendle]

Years ago It used to be a £1000 extra, but these days it just seem to go on the model and you can’t seem to add it as an extra

personally I reckon they will offer a couple of free services or something like that rather than cash

[Linas.P]

Not possible, the wiring harness is different, so unless they planning to do complete disassembly of car and replace wiring harness and all the speakers and amp I can't see how this could be done. 

Navigation wouldn't be my worry to be honest - it is crap either way, premium or not. The biggest issues is that you got terrible 6-Speaker stereo which is completely unacceptable in any car vs. very decent 10-Speaker system which comes standard with "Premium Nav". 

I honestly would return the car as this is quite major difference in key area (considering how little options there were - I mean literally Premium Satnav>Sunroof>ML and protection pack). And premium satnav is absolute MUST because of the audio system attached to it.

However, if you really want to keep the car, then your option is to get "plug&play" android unit, they used to be ~£700-1000 range, but now they come down to like £300-400. Not only they are far better than any Lexus system, but they as well have android auto and carplay, and obviously google maps and all apps, so it is no-brainer really. But fitting android unit obviously will not solve the crappy audio issue. If I were you I would quote dealer the older price +£500 for fitting. And this would still be very kind of you as this sort of misseling is totally unacceptable - wear and tear maybe harder to justify, but saying it has premium system in place of standard is just horrible service.

Although I would probably insist on another £1000 for surround amp and decent quality components (speakers).

Here is just example, but you can definitely find them cheaper:

https://www.dvdgpsnav.com/blog/10-25-lexus-rc-android-head-unit-hd-touch-screen-upgrade-factory-screen-replacement/

[rayaans]

It was around £1-2k from memory. 

You have two options - give it back or live with it and take compensation.

Theyll give you some free services but at the same time they might pull out the terms and conditions which will say something like "the specification of the vehicle has to be checked by the buyer and is their responsibility" 

[Linas.P]

1 hour ago, rayaans said:

It was around £1-2k from memory. 

You have two options - give it back or live with it and take compensation.

Theyll give you some free services but at the same time they might pull out the terms and conditions which will say something like "the specification of the vehicle has to be checked by the buyer and is their responsibility" 

It was £1995, and another £1000 for ML, but one could not have ML without having premium sat-nav first, so ML always worked out as £3000 option.

The third point is irrelevant - they already agreed they missold, so it is past it. Besides I doubt such T&C would even be legal, as it is statutory duty for seller (if they are dealer, not private individual) to describe the vehicle accurately. So this is no different as usual BS statements on eBay "no returns, buyers responsibility to inspect" - no buyer has no such statutory responsibility, it is always sellers responsibility no matter what.

But I agree with second point, it is either return (which is what I would go for), or most likely the service package. I doubt Lexus does cash refunds, and they most likely would take car back and just resell it for same price rather than discounting it more than £500.

This being RC300h sadly they would need to give like 6-Years free service for it to be worth it. After all the monetary value is at least £2000 and average 2-years service plan on RC300h costs ~£650 (if you negotiate and pay upfront). Again - I doubt they would give 6-years service plan, nor it would be very practical as OP would be stuck with the car for 6 years... and finally I would not agree for anything less. Because if they go - "ok we give you 2-years plan", then they basically saying "we give you £650, for misselling the £2000 option". 

[phunt]

Great info , thanks guys . That all gives me some ammo for when a manager eventually gets back to me.

[phunt]

I'm sure I did an online quote for a 2 year service plan on this car and it was something like £1200??

[Linas.P]

49 minutes ago, phunt said:

I'm sure I did an online quote for a 2 year service plan on this car and it was something like £1200??

Yes I have heard the service prices came up recently, but £1200 still doesn't make sense. Perhaps it would warrant the call to find out what it costs exactly.

When I had service plan for RC200t, I believe individually the intermediary service was something along the lines of £285 and majors where ~£545-685 depending on which one, RC300h was between £20-50 cheaper for each service, so say £265+645 was the most expensive you could get. But if you get it booked and paid right away, then Lexus was quite keen to offer ~20% off.

And usually it would be the case that I would come to do intermediary (this is actually when I had IS250, but still the same applies) and after it they would say - "maybe instead of paying £285, you would consider making it as service plan and we can see what best price we can offer"... and that offer used to be in a range of £650. So it kind of makes sense, because say £285 +545 -20% in case of RC200t was ~£664 and for RC300h, that was probably £265+495 ~608, or in worse case scenario for 60k miles I believe it would have been £265+645 or ~712 if you take it as a service plan... and then as I said  it approximately averages out ~£650-660. I heard few people as well getting on 3 year plans for ~£1000.

Sadly now Lexus site is completely messed-up and it isn't clear what service costs what... 

[Sixty]

We were in a similar situation when buying our Approved Used RC; car was advertised with CarPlay but was fitted with the older MM17 unit despite the car being registered in 2020 (Vin put build at May 2019).

Dealer put his hands up and offered to return our PX and deposit or negotiate compensation. We ended up with a 3 year service plan at no cost to ourselves. The only thing we insisted on was that the plan was transferrable to a new Lexus should we change within the 3 years. When we changed from the RC to our current RX the dealer simply transferred the plan to the RX and absorbed the extra cost themselves.

[Linas.P]

That is fair enough, but the problem I see here is that Carplay can be easily retrofitted (like £300 GROM or even new Lexus head-unit which would be plug&play), Premium sat-nav and audio can't be easily retrofitted. But good shout on transferable warranty, so in case of change you would not lose it. 

[phunt]

35 minutes ago, Linas.P said:

That is fair enough, but the problem I see here is that Carplay can be easily retrofitted (like £300 GROM or even new Lexus head-unit which would be plug&play), Premium sat-nav and audio can't be easily retrofitted. But good shout on transferable warranty, so in case of change you would not lose it. 

I assume the newer lexus plug and play head unit you memtioned is not an option on my 2018??

[ColinBarber]

8 hours ago, phunt said:

Anybody know how much the premium nav option was on a 2018 RC F sport?

At the end of 2017 the premium nav option was £2k.

in April 2018 the premium pack for the F Sport was £ 1900.

 

both would probably only command a £500 premium in the used market.

If you tried to retrofit it would probably cost £4k+ in parts new from Lexus,  and no dealer would undertake that work.

[Linas.P]

8 hours ago, phunt said:

I assume the newer lexus plug and play head unit you memtioned is not an option on my 2018??

No. The problem is that he had premium sat-nav, so basically same unit, but older version of it which did not have apple carplay, 6 month later the exactly same unit with maybe 1 number different on it had apple carplay, but all the connections, amplifier, speakers etc. were same and compatible. So you can take unit from premium 2020 car and fit it into 2019 car with premium unit and get apple carplay without any other modifications.

Your case is different - you have standard unit which has different connection and functionality from premium unit and as above - it would cost thousands upon thousands and would require removing whole interior to really and properly retrofit premium unit in place of standard one.

As well, as I have already mentioned - Android unit is better than both standard and premium, so there is that solution. But obviously it won't help you at all with speakers, which at least in my opinion is way bigger issue than that just navigation features.