Thinking of a GX460. Talk me into/out of it

[Jacket]

Very easy to add MTS and crawl after the fact if you want it. For a few hundred $$

 

[ScaldedDog]

I've been trying to buy a 460 all week. What a miserable experience. No in-state dealer has one configured the way I want, and out-of-state dealers will either only sell to locals, or are still trying the "let's-sell-badly-applied-PPF-and-nitrogen-filled-tires for $1995" crap. I found a used one at a local Ford dealer, so not CPO or anything like that, and they were asking $6K more than it's possible to spend on a like one new. They actually sold it, for who knows what. This has been a drastically worse experience than buying my wife a BMW earlier this year, and it was a crazy-in-demand-cuz'-the-gub'ment-is-paying-people-buy-one hybrid.

Is anyone else looking forward to a deep recession? The car business needs to go the way of the bike business. Bike shops are overflowing with bikes, and discounts of 25% are all over the place.

BTW, no, buying two new cars in a year is not a common experience for me. Actually, I've only bought two new cars for myself in my life, and the most recent one was in 1994. This week has reminded me why.

Mark

 

[Johnny Utah]

Thanks for sharing your experience with the club. I feel like the current market (auto and housing) is unsustainable. I don’t hope for a recession but I do think something has to change.

I don’t want to see the value of my assets depreciate, but I’m not planning to sell either so it doesn’t matter too much.

Good luck with your continued search. Let us know what you end up with.

 

[ScaldedDog]

I had a funny text conversation with a SoCal dealer after I posted last night. The gist was that she sent me a quote that included a $5K "market adjustment". I told her I was going to pass on that and her response was, "I can try for MSRP if you can wire the money tomorrow".

Sure, I'm happy to wire $60+K on a Sunday for a car I've never seen, and she won't even have to sell for weeks. [FacePalm] I'm a free market guy, so I don't begrudge these folks for getting what they can, and I actually prefer an honest, if ridiculous, asking price to the nitrogen tire nonsense. I do wonder, though, if they ever step outside themselves and ask, "Would any rational person actually do what I'm suggesting?" I spent thirty years in B2B sales, and my customers would have laughed me out of the room if I'd behaved this way.

@Johnny Utah, as a retired guy who's living on my assets I'm not wild about the prospect of a steeper decline, either. Discipline is generally painful, though, and sometimes the world just needs a beat down. I think we've arrived at one of those times.

Mark

 

[Heckraiser]

I recently spent a week with a '22 gx460 loaner from stevinson. My thoughts:

• the suspension is superb. I wouldn't lift or mess with it at all.
• rear cargo area is a big let down. The swing door sucks, but what sucks more is the whole cargo floor is raised 6" due to the way the 3rd row seats pack up. Makes it hard to load heavy stuff. Also has really intrusive side plastics. I would gut the 3rd row right away.
• Though it has the 4.6, I find it needs to be downshifted and revved to snot to really go. Makes the drivetrain feel fussy. It's a heavy vehicle which takes all the oomph out of the v8. Honestly, does not feel any faster than a 5g 4.0 4runner by the seat of my pants.
• We actually got pretty good MPG on our tank. Don't remember what exactly, but something like 18mpg tooling around Grand county for a few days.

 

[ScaldedDog]

I recently spent a week with a '22 gx460 loaner from stevinson. My thoughts:

• the suspension is superb. I wouldn't lift or mess with it at all.
• rear cargo area is a big let down. The swing door sucks, but what sucks more is the whole cargo floor is raised 6" due to the way the 3rd row seats pack up. Makes it hard to load heavy stuff. Also has really intrusive side plastics. I would gut the 3rd row right away.
• Though it has the 4.6, I find it needs to be downshifted and revved to snot to really go. Makes the drivetrain feel fussy. It's a heavy vehicle which takes all the oomph out of the v8. Honestly, does not feel any faster than a 5g 4.0 4runner by the seat of my pants.
• We actually got pretty good MPG on our tank. Don't remember what exactly, but something like 18mpg tooling around Grand county for a few days.

Great insight! Thanks! If I'm able to get one, I may take the rear seat out. I don't need tons of room, but need more than our RX has.

I noticed the same thing about the 4.6. Stock shift points are too early, even at WOT, so it bogs bad on the 1-2 upshift.

My search continues...

Mark

 

[ScaldedDog]

I made a deal on a '23 GX today, from a dealer in South Florida. Our plan is to fly down mid-month and drive it home. It should have arrived at the JAX port today, and takes a couple of weeks to get to the dealer.

My wonderful wife spent all last evening finding vehicles that matched my spec, and that I hadn't already found: One in CA, two in MN, and three at different dealers in FL. One dealer wanted to sell a car, and the rest wanted to "play dealer". Guess which one won the business? Easy MSRP deal, though with Florida's notoriously high doc fee. I used to just subtract that fee from whatever price I was willing to agree to, but that's gotten difficult to do. Those times will be back soon, though. The dealer is handling all the CO tax stuff, which CA and AZ dealers said they couldn't do, and another FL dealer wouldn't sell to me because they didn't want to do it. That alone saved me 4-6%, so the fees look pretty cheap right now.

I'll be posting my cherry'13 RX350 here first in the next few days. Just remember, though...

I know what I got.



Mark

 

[ScaldedDog]

I got it home yesterday. Germain Lexus in Naples was good to work with, though not quite as prepared for the quick transaction I'd requested as I hoped. We drove it across Florida the night we bought it, in an enormous thunderstorm with warnings of quarter-size hail. That'll get one's attention after stroking a big check... 2300 miles after leaving the dealership, it's home.

I really like it. It rides great, gets decent mileage (19.5 hand calc'd so far) and has the mix of technology and reliability I was looking for. It's my daily driver and our trip vehicle, so I don't have a huge list of projects planned, but I have a few:

3rd row delete - The 3rd row is useless to me, and takes up valuable cargo space. I plan to DIY a Goose Creek platform to gain 6" of depth behind the 2nd row captain's chairs.

Auto-folding mirrors - I had to *buy a piece of hardware* to plug into the mirror circuit so they'll fold when locking and unlocking the doors. This is one lack of built in technology I'm not happy with.

Cat protection - This thing has two so I plan to spend a few hundred bucks to protect them from Phil Weiser supporters.

Wheel spacers - I'm interested in the experiences of others on this one. The 460's have a skinny track, and I'm thinking of putting on 1.25" wheel spacers, purely for aesthetics. This thing's road manners are important to me. Are modest wheel spacers likely to affect that negatively? I ran 2" spacers on my 4runner years ago, but it didn't have any road manners, and I didn't care. This vehicle is different.

BTW, does owning a PMLC (poor man's Land Cruiser) like the GX finally make me as cool as real LC owners?

I didn't think so...

Mark

 

[WVU fan]

Cat protection -

20% off at RCI currently..

Which interior color did you get?

 

[ScaldedDog]

20% off at RCI currently..

Which interior color did you get?

Ecru!!

I've had a lot of black interiors over the years, but have gotten into lighter ones. This is NuLuxe, not leather, and I'm hoping I can keep it clean and it'll wear well.

I'll look into the RCI stuff. It appears those are intended to go with their skid plates, correct?

Mark

 

[ScaldedDog]

BTW, this is the cat protection I'm considering:

Lexus GX | GX 460 | Catalytic Converter Shield | 1/4" Aluminum 5052 | Talons Garage

This catalytic converter anti-theft plate is thicker than any of our competitors at 1/4" thick. It's construction adds enough strength to function as an off-road skid plate. This is one of the few aftermarket skid plates that leave the factory transfer case braces intact. • Now offered in 1/4”...

www.talonsgarage.com

Mark

 

[wesintl]

Nice find. The tan interior is nice and light so it doesn't feel like a cave. Congrats. We still have a loaner 460 from kuni while the 570 gets warranty work. The 460 grows on us even more.

 

[ScaldedDog]

I got it home yesterday. Germain Lexus in Naples was good to work with, though not quite as prepared for the quick transaction I'd requested as I hoped. We drove it across Florida the night we bought it, in an enormous thunderstorm with warnings of quarter-size hail. That'll get one's attention after stroking a big check... 2300 miles after leaving the dealership, it's home.

I really like it. It rides great, gets decent mileage (19.5 hand calc'd so far) and has the mix of technology and reliability I was looking for. It's my daily driver and our trip vehicle, so I don't have a huge list of projects planned, but I have a few:

3rd row delete - The 3rd row is useless to me, and takes up valuable cargo space. I plan to DIY a Goose Creek platform to gain 6" of depth behind the 2nd row captain's chairs.

Auto-folding mirrors - I had to *buy a piece of hardware* to plug into the mirror circuit so they'll fold when locking and unlocking the doors. This is one lack of built in technology I'm not happy with.

Cat protection - This thing has two so I plan to spend a few hundred bucks to protect them from Phil Weiser supporters.

Wheel spacers - I'm interested in the experiences of others on this one. The 460's have a skinny track, and I'm thinking of putting on 1.25" wheel spacers, purely for aesthetics. This thing's road manners are important to me. Are modest wheel spacers likely to affect that negatively? I ran 2" spacers on my 4runner years ago, but it didn't have any road manners, and I didn't care. This vehicle is different.

BTW, does owning a PMLC (poor man's Land Cruiser) like the GX finally make me as cool as real LC owners?

I didn't think so...

Mark

I finally got all four of these projects done. The 3rd row delete might be of interest to some, so I thought I'd document what I did here.
My use case may not be common amongst the group , in that I don't care about overlanding, drawer storage or sleeping inside, but I do want as much storage behind the second row as I can get. The Goose Gear platform would have worked OK, but it seems really overpriced, and still wastes a little space around the "wing" areas, and in what would be the footwell of the 3rd row.

The first step after removing the 3rd row was sound deadening. Noico 80mil sound deadening mat went down first. (Amazon.com: Noico 80 mil (2 mm) 36 sqft (3.4 sqm) car Sound deadening mat, Butyl Automotive Sound Deadener, Audio Noise Insulation and dampening : Automotive) This stuff has gotten stupid expensive, but I had a box left over from doing a similar job on my Excursion in 2019, when the price was a third of what it is now.

After that was down, I covered it with 1/4" Vibro closed cell foam (Amazon.com: Vibro 228 mil -1/4" Sound Dampening Insulator-100% Waterproof Closed Cell Foam –Car Sound Deadening Material - Automotive Sound Deadener 9 Large Sheets-Buy & Support Made in USA- Not Russia or China : Automotive) Again, I had some left over from my Excursion project.

I used 3/4" oak plywood from HD, but if I had it to do over again I'd just use 1/2". I had some roughly 1.5"x4" hard foam blocks that came as packing material for something, and I cut them 1.125" thick to use as support for the plywood. That was as thin as I could go and keep the wood up off the smart key module and plastic trim mounts that are attached to the rear floor. If you didn't sound deaden, you'd need something closer to 1.5" thick. I was going to emulate what Youtuber Embark with Mark did on his 4Runner and build vertical pieces to support the stock plastic side wings, but decided I could make the floor flat back there just as easily. The main piece is bolted in back to the two outboard stock seat mount locations. The front of the board stops at the forward edge of the 3rd row mounting location, and is bolted to the outboard 3rd row mounts with some metal brackets I made. Goose Gear does something similar, but they continue their floor piece all the way to the second row to accommodate drawers. I didn't want that.

After that it was just a matter of covering it with carpet (TrafficMaster Dayside - Color Ebony 6 ft. Indoor/Outdoor Texture Black Carpet MK22W180072S - The Home Depot), and cutting carpet pieces to make the sides look OK.

It turns out the OEM rear mat, the one that covers the 3rd row when it's down, fits perfectly. Had I thought about it, I'd have mounted the OEM rear tie downs in a location that would have let me use the OEM mat turned around backwards, with its cutouts open to the rear tie-downs. As it is, I'll have to cut the rear mat to use mine.

I specifically wanted Captain's chairs, but the knock against them is they let stuff in the cargo area roll forward. To fix that, I cut a couple of identical pieces from the HD carpet, glued them together, then cut the resulting piece 11.5" up from the bottom. Some Velcro loop-side pieces hold them to the back seat, and let me use either piece individually, or both together.

This project added 3-4" to the depth of the cargo area where the 3rd row was, plus the area in the footwell. From a purely volume perspective, that's probably an additional 6cf. Considering that's the difference between the cargo area in the RX we had before and a stock GX, I've essentially doubled the difference between the two vehicles, and cargo space was the primary driver in the swap. The tale will be told when I actually pack the thing, but I'm quite pleased with how it turned out, so far.

Mark

 

[WVU fan]

but if I had it to do over again I'd just use 1/2"

Sooo...are you offering to do the same to my GX? Ha!

 

[ScaldedDog]

Sooo...are you offering to do the same to my GX? Ha!

I think the closest I could get would be a HOWTO post, and the requisite internet kibitzing

Mark

 

[Inukshuk]

I posted this to the Craigslist thread, but this would be a good place for it too. I know the seller. Just helped her acquire a GX470 to take to a second home.

2013 Lexus GX 460 Premium-Winter Luxury 4X4 Fully Optioned - cars &...

2013 Lexus GX 460 Premium with all options! $25,000.00 132,000 Miles White Exterior Tan Leather Interior 4.6L V8 with Automatic Transmission with 4 Wheel Drive (4 High and 4 Low Options) 3rd Row...

denver.craigslist.org

 

[Heckraiser]

Awesome job on that trunk!

 

[PabloCruise]

I'm with Steve. My wife absolutely loves her GX. Smooth, powerful, and excellent in the snow/ice. Drinks fuel big time tho.

This is good to hear. I am glad to hear they do well in snow/ice.
The wife is wanting to get into something newer than the LX.
How bad are we talking on fuel mileage? Worse than the 470/100?

 

[PabloCruise]

Any more tales of 460 shenanigans?

 

[ScaldedDog]

This is good to hear. I am glad to hear they do well in snow/ice.
The wife is wanting to get into something newer than the LX.
How bad are we talking on fuel mileage? Worse than the 470/100?

I'm still loving mine. Over 23K miles and 64 fillups, it's averaged 19.3mpg (hand calculated, vs 19.1 the computer says it gets). However, my driving habits are not typical: 6k of those miles are from three one-way trips between CO and FL, on which it got 20mpg at 75-82mph. Even in CO it's ten miles from my house to the closest place to spend a dollar, including the gas station, so every drive is at least 20 miles. Most of my driving is in the freakishly tall .59:1 6th gear, which helps mileage a lot.

Mark