So I've been wanting a LC for years, and have been lurking on this forum, soaking in the wisdom as I best could. My life changed immensely recently with the birth of twins. We needed a vehicle that could carry more people and cargo. I offered my wife a Honda Odyssey, and the Honda Pilot, but she wasn't into a minivan -- probably would have been OK with the Pilot, but I couldn't get away from the thought, that, hell, I can get a 2-3 year old LC for less than a new Honda Pilot. And I've always wanted a Land Cruiser, so...I had my eye out. My criteria: a 2006 or 2007 (with the vvt-i 275 hp), with Nav, in white, silver, or gold (light, sun friendly colors). Entertained thoughts of the LX470, mostly for the memory seats, but couldn't justify the premium essentially for memory seats alone. (Several months ago I posted a query about the possibility of modding an LC to obtain the LX seat memory. The consensus at the time was that I should just get the LX. So much for that!)
Anyway, I found my LC on the local Toyota dealer's website. It's a 2006, with Nav, in Sonora Gold Pearl, 42,000 miles, in apparently near perfect cosmetic and mechanical condition. Carfax checked out, no issues, as a one owner vehicle originally sold new by the same dealership in May of 06.
The listed price was $32990.
According to carfax this LC had only been offered for sale for about a week when I looked at it.
What follows is a description of the deal we arrived at. I only post this because it may prove useful to other buyers in the near term. I don't think I got a great deal, and I'm not good at this -- you could probably do better.
After some negotiation, they offered to sell it to me for $31600, and to give me $2000 for a fair condition 95 Accord, that had been my daily driver (it was time for my 95 Accord to go -- my wife's car is an 06 Accord -- now that we have the LC I imagine that we will split time between the two vehicles .). By my estimation they were padding the offer on the Accord by about $1000 over it's true trade-in value to them, so I figured at that point the LC was essentially being offered at $30600.
I was somewhat concerned about buying a used vehicle with a high dollar cost to replace certain components should they fail, so I attempted to get them to throw in a warranty. I was only interested in the Toyota Platinum 7yr/100k mile warranty. They counter-offerred with a 3rd party warranty (5yr/100k) for $1980, in which case they would knock off an additional $990 (half the warranty price) from the price of the LC. They explained that they couldn't sell me the Toyota Platinum warranty because the vehicle had over 36k miles, and it wasn't a "certified used vehicle."
Earlier that day I had called Troy at Toyota of Greenfield MA, (as recommended in this forum and others) to see if he could give me a quote on the Platinum warranty, and he said that he couldn't sell me the warranty for the reasons listed above, but said that the selling dealer could.
We were at an impasse because the dealer said they couldn't do the Platinum warranty. I then told them to forget about a warranty, but I wanted the additional $990 off. They responded by offerring to make the LC a "certified used vehicle" at no cost to me (supposedly the inspection and certification for a CUV costs $500), and then they would give me the same deal described above for the 3rd party warranty, but with the Toyota Platinum 7y/100k warranty. So that's the deal we made.
2006 LC with nav, Sonora Gold Pearl, excellent condition, 42k miles, "certified used vehicle",with Toyota Platinum 7y/100k mi warranty, for $32590.
$2k (probably padded ~$1k) trade-in credit for a fair '95 Honda Accord EX with 126k miles.
I'm in Amarillo, TX. Toyota prices tend to be higher here because we're geographically remote, reducing competitive pressures on the dealership. For me, relatively nearby cities are Lubbock (2h) Albuquerque (4h), OK City (4h) and DFW (6h). That remoteness also made it difficult for me to entertain alternatives (I looked at eBay, for example, but the logistics involved in buying a vehicle several hundred miles away scared me off. )
My wife loves the LC.
Anyway, I found my LC on the local Toyota dealer's website. It's a 2006, with Nav, in Sonora Gold Pearl, 42,000 miles, in apparently near perfect cosmetic and mechanical condition. Carfax checked out, no issues, as a one owner vehicle originally sold new by the same dealership in May of 06.
The listed price was $32990.
According to carfax this LC had only been offered for sale for about a week when I looked at it.
What follows is a description of the deal we arrived at. I only post this because it may prove useful to other buyers in the near term. I don't think I got a great deal, and I'm not good at this -- you could probably do better.
After some negotiation, they offered to sell it to me for $31600, and to give me $2000 for a fair condition 95 Accord, that had been my daily driver (it was time for my 95 Accord to go -- my wife's car is an 06 Accord -- now that we have the LC I imagine that we will split time between the two vehicles .). By my estimation they were padding the offer on the Accord by about $1000 over it's true trade-in value to them, so I figured at that point the LC was essentially being offered at $30600.
I was somewhat concerned about buying a used vehicle with a high dollar cost to replace certain components should they fail, so I attempted to get them to throw in a warranty. I was only interested in the Toyota Platinum 7yr/100k mile warranty. They counter-offerred with a 3rd party warranty (5yr/100k) for $1980, in which case they would knock off an additional $990 (half the warranty price) from the price of the LC. They explained that they couldn't sell me the Toyota Platinum warranty because the vehicle had over 36k miles, and it wasn't a "certified used vehicle."
Earlier that day I had called Troy at Toyota of Greenfield MA, (as recommended in this forum and others) to see if he could give me a quote on the Platinum warranty, and he said that he couldn't sell me the warranty for the reasons listed above, but said that the selling dealer could.
We were at an impasse because the dealer said they couldn't do the Platinum warranty. I then told them to forget about a warranty, but I wanted the additional $990 off. They responded by offerring to make the LC a "certified used vehicle" at no cost to me (supposedly the inspection and certification for a CUV costs $500), and then they would give me the same deal described above for the 3rd party warranty, but with the Toyota Platinum 7y/100k warranty. So that's the deal we made.
2006 LC with nav, Sonora Gold Pearl, excellent condition, 42k miles, "certified used vehicle",with Toyota Platinum 7y/100k mi warranty, for $32590.
$2k (probably padded ~$1k) trade-in credit for a fair '95 Honda Accord EX with 126k miles.
I'm in Amarillo, TX. Toyota prices tend to be higher here because we're geographically remote, reducing competitive pressures on the dealership. For me, relatively nearby cities are Lubbock (2h) Albuquerque (4h), OK City (4h) and DFW (6h). That remoteness also made it difficult for me to entertain alternatives (I looked at eBay, for example, but the logistics involved in buying a vehicle several hundred miles away scared me off. )
My wife loves the LC.
