Alan's Old Home Page!

About the trip. My Aunt and Uncle also made the trip to pickup their 470. Do you want details like, "I flew Continental because I got a great price on the ticket $150.00. For one way that's not bad." We left early on Friday the 25th of February and flew to Tampa. There we rented a car and drove the rest of the way to Fort Myers. Note: you can pay to fly to Fort Myers and Connie will pick you up. At least she offered that to us. But it would have raised the price of the ticket by $400 and quite frankly I bought my Lexus on a budget. I figured any money I spent getting there and getting back had to be figured into the difference of the Austin Price. We used a free coupon to rent the car from Alamo (I think.) And we put $9.00 bucks of gas into the car in Fort Myers before dropping the car off. By the way there is no drop fee in Florida for rental cars. So Far I've spent 159.00 on the trip. It took a little longer to close the deal than I expected because my Lx470 needed to have some detail work done. It had only been at their lot for a 2 days (I think) and the detail shop could have done a better job. I use to detail cars while in school so I am very picky about detail work. We arrived at the dealership around 3pm and didn't leave till 6 or 6:30. We proceeded to drive to Gainesville, FL. This was the longest most painful driving experience of my life. I have a little bit of a lead foot well ok alot of a lead foot. The manual clearly states to keep the car at 55 or below for 500 miles and not use the brake abruptly for the first 200 miles. But that is exactly what we did. Five hundred miles of varied speeds 55 and below with the overdrive turned off the first night. It was roughly 250 miles to Gainesville. We arrived in Gainesville at around 1:00 am. No time to enjoy the car let's get some sleep. Stayed at an average Holiday Inn with a great parking lot. Two spots with Curbs on either side. No door dings tonight. Double bonus. $50 dollars for the room. Gas Mileage with OD turned off 12.47 MPG. Ouch!! The gas crunch didn't help. Left Gainesville at 8:00 am onto Lake Charles, Louisiana. Long day of driving but we figured if we put in a real bruiser of a day today the last leg on Sunday would be cake. This was the best move we could have made. We arrived in Lake Charles at 12:30 am Saturday night well ok Sunday Morning. And yes we drove that distance with Overdrive on and at more normal speeds 65-75 maybe even 80 at times but definitely not higher. Of course this was after we broke the 500 mile barrier. Gas mileage varied on this leg. We got between 16 and 18.5 MPG on this leg of the trip. Much needed note---I haven't seen 18 Miles per Gallon since the trip. Must of had a good tail wind. We stopped for dinner in Baton Rouge and a very nasty Thunderstorm slowed us down a bit. Very low visibility although the 470's seemed to handle the rough weather very easily. We stayed at a La Quinta in Lake Charles. I think this was around $65. It was a quick 5 hour drive home from Lake Charles on Sunday morning. I arrived at home at a little after noon. Air: $150.00 Gas total: 159.00 Hotel Total: $124.00 (divided by 3) Food: $50.00 Total cost for the trip was about $450. I figure I still saved close to 5K off the Austin price that I was quoted. If you hate driving then you might opt for the ship it to me for $600. With the exception of the first 500 miles I had a blast. Also if you have it shipped any damage is between you and your insurance company. I needed to inspect mine in person. That's just the way I am.

Lexus of Austin has been great when I have needed service. Only warranty work was that the right mirror would stick when the car was moved from reverse to drive. The mirrors tilt so you can see the curbs. Mine tilted and stayed tilted downward. All planned service has been prompt and courteous. Rental car included if they keep it for the afternoon. I will tell you this car/truck has been such a pleasure to drive over the last 3 plus months. I tried to type this pretty quickly. Excuse the unforced errors : ) If I've left out any little or major details that you want to know please just drop me a note. I think this is the only way for the consumer to win. Share information.......... By the way I'm the young'in in the picture..... The cars are identical save they got gold trim I stuck with chrome. The hats say "Lexus".... They were free....Well not exactly free if ya know what I mean.