Lexus Of Bellevue — Local services in Bellevue

I am still finishing up my experience purchasing my car with Lexus of Bellevue.

There are multiple opportunities for improvement with my experience. Long story short, the dealership could have done a much better job managing my expectations about what would happen when I picked up the car, and explaining my options with the financial transaction.

I was on a waitlist for about 5 months, so I had a long time to prepare to pick up the car. I let my salesperson know ahead of time that I was interested in buying extra mats and the activity rack when I picked up the car to be sure they had time to install them before I got there. I also talked with my salesperson ahead of my appointment to discuss how I'd pay. He said that I could pay my portion with a debit card, so I arranged to have the money ready in my checking account ahead of time. I asked him whether I should plan to take the car home, and he said that I could have someone drop me off so that I could drive the new car home. Otherwise, they have a way they can reimburse me for the cost of an Uber.

I had a friend drive me to my appointment to pick up the car so that I could drive the car home.

On the day of my appointment, the salesperson showed me the car which was inside the bay and had a big bow on it. I was so excited- they totally got that part right! I really love the car.

After that, the salesperson, along with another colleague, walked me (and my friend) through a series of add-ons that were available for me to buy, including the mats and warranties and extra paint protection and tire/wheel protection, lots of stuff. I had no idea this would happen so I wasn't prepared for thinking through all the options and didn't have the cash ready for that. In the end, I ended up buying some of the options, and transferred more $ into my bank account. They needed to keep the car longer to add the add-ons.

Once we had settled on that, I gave them my debit card. They came back to let me know that the debit card had been declined. They asked me to call my bank to request a one-time exception to extend the daily limit since I'm buying a car. When I called my bank, they said that they couldn't make an exception. They said the max I can take out was $20k. So the dealership ran the debit card for $20k, $15k, $10k, and then it finally accepted the $5k transaction. While they were running that card, I was in the car with the tech guy explaining how to use the car. But I kept getting alerts from my bank that my card was being declined (stressful!). The salesperson came out to see if I'd gotten a notice about the declines to see if I could click something to tell them to authorize it. I couldn't.

They said that I could wire the remaining money on Monday and gave me instructions. They said I should do it early in the day so that the funds would have enough time to get to them by the time I was supposed to pick up the car Wednesday.

Luckily my friend was able to take me home since I wasn't able to drive the car home.

The amount was too large to wire online. So I went to a branch on Monday during my lunch and there was no one available, so I went to a different branch where the only person authorized to do wires wasn't available for another 30 minutes. While I waited, I called the dealership to see if they would take off the $25 wire fee along with funds I'd need to go back in an Uber. They said they would pay me the Uber money back directly when I give them a receipt, but they couldn't pay the $25 wire fee. They said I could give them a cashier's check, and the best way would be to go to the bank with my sales person so he could watch me get the check. I couldn't do that since I work, so I got a cashier's check from the bank that I was at already and will drive it over to the dealership tomorrow during my lunch. They said they'd hold the car for 10 days while the cashier's check clears. I'll be traveling next week, so it's ok for me to wait a bit longer.

I wish I had understood what to expect and all the payment options before...

My new Lexus exceeds my expectations and I intend to keep it for a long time. However, the issues I had receiving the car were incredibly frustrating and seemed completely different than every other car purchase we’ve made before.

Firstly, even though the Lexus website clearly showed the MSRP for the 2024 model, I ended up paying about $2,000 more than the suggested retail price. Though I admit this was my own fault for falling into the trap, it seems like this dealership is the only one doing it. When I asked about the issue, I was told that it was simply a "current trend due to inflated prices." However, other dealerships in Seattle and Fife did not seem to inflate their prices.

This dealership (not Fife or Seattle) will charge a fee for three items - Pulse brake lighting, 3M protectant, and a top paint coat. These items amount to over $3,000, which seems unreasonable, especially considering I had no intention of voluntarily purchasing pulse brake lighting. Despite being told these are installed at the Port by Lexus, other dealerships don't mandate them and they were not installed until after the car was delivered to this dealership. The dealership forgot to install these items, causing a one-week delay in receiving my vehicle. Additionally, despite requesting tinting weeks in advance, it was not installed. Since they don't have a direct partnership with credit unions, I had to surrender my trade-in car two weeks prior to receiving my new Lexus. Thankfully, I was on vacation during that time, otherwise I would have been without a car for two weeks, which is not something I've experienced from a dealer before. They had at least 3 weeks to get the car ready for me to pick up and they really dropped the ball. They did finally give me a loaner car after I had to request one. However, they loaner car they gave us was dirty with spilled coffee stains and food crumbs all over the center console and seats. This seems unacceptable from a "luxury" car brand dealership.

Additionally, I was forced to buy $50 worth of very basic USB cables from Lexus, with no option for removing them from the purchase order. I was also not provided with all-weather mats, despite initially indicating during the purchasing process that they were most likely included. As a result, I had to spend several hundred dollars to obtain these mats, whereas my wife received them as part of the package when she purchased her new Subaru.

I traded in my Honda CRV, which was in great mechanical shape overall. However, the dealer assessed it as "poor" due to a small dent on the A-frame and a few minor scratches on the exterior paint. I did try to explain that my car was actually in "very good" or "good" condition according to the Kelly Blue Book scale they were using, but unfortunately, they didn't agree. I lost out on a few hundred or even a thousand dollars in trade-in value. I've always stuck to the maintenance schedule for my car, but it didn't seem to matter much when they assessed it.

There was a consistent lack of communication among employees, leading to unnecessary time wasted at the dealership and commuting back and forth. Once I completed the loan paperwork with my credit union, I promptly forwarded it to the designated contact at the dealership. We were assured that we only needed to sign a few documents and would be able to leave within 30 minutes. However, when we arrived, the person we were working with was not present, and other employees were not aware of our situation. They mistakenly tried to initiate another credit check and restart the loan process, which resulted in us having to spend additional hours completing paperwork that should have already been taken care of.

Let me emphasize that I love my Lexus. It’s an incredible car and I can’t find any faults in the car itself. But I really wish I had gone with another dealership because of all the troubles we...

I bought a NX350h about three months ago from this Dealership. Although I like my car and the sales person I worked with, I don’t love the dealership.

After the purchase I got an email for feedback asking “ Is there anything that we could have done better?”

I took time to respond the below response! But all I got back was “ We apologize for any inconvenience. Thank you for taking the time to give us this valuable feedback, I will pass this along to my manager.”

I am sure my feedback never got to any of the dealership leaders since I did not hear back from them so I am posting it here for the public:

It was great working with Kyra on this purchase, she was super approachable, respectful and positive and I had a great experience working with her.

But I do wish the dealership had better policies in place for serving clients like me given this is such a big purchase.

I wish the dealership was more helpful in providing a loaner to me for the months beyond the 6 month waiting I initially did. By end of July I had waited about 6 months but still had no sight on when I will be getting a car with my preferred trim and specs. I was left to my own to figure out what to do for the remainder of an unknown amount of time. I eventually bought a used car which I have to sell now, because I did not want to rent a car for months and months.

Not only the dealership would not provide any loaners, I was not offered any discount on the purchase either. I understand that I was after a high demand car with shortage because of production delays as a residual result of the pandemic, but there were days that car dealerships did not have this upper hand and would provide much better deals to their clients. And this has not been a good experience during this “project” if I can call it that.

In addition I don’t think I should have HAD to get the dealership add on option , but I did not have that choice. I know they are good things for my car but that should be my choice.

I also want to mention I called a phone for the Lexus company on google during the months I had no Idea how long I have to wait, and they were not helpful in providing any answers on WHY they are such delays, or why they are not producing enough of a car that is so in demand, to meet their market. They kept on saying you have to ask the dealership. I think as a liaison between that company and your clients, you should do a better job in pushing them to at least provide you with logical answers that you can relay to your clients. Again, this is a big purchase and a client should be able to get more definitive answers to questions such as wait time to reason for wait time now the pandemic is officially over.

I think you and other dealerships have accepted certain processes and become comfortable with it, but it is not in your client’s best interest but you can do way better.

I also did not appreciate considering the luxury trim, while waiting for the premium trim, just because “you had no idea when the trim I wanted would be available”.

This was a long process so I had lot to say. Thank you for providing that...