This Car is Better Than a Lexus and 5x Cheaper

Rev up your engines, a lot of people worry about buying a used luxury vehicle, they think oh they're just buying problems, well this is a Toyota Evalyn 2008, you can generally get them 7 to 8 grand to be paid for this thing, and it can be the best luxury car on the market for any kind of money, now first off people are going to say, well if they're so great Scotty how come they don't make them anymore, they made these up until like 2020, but they replaced it with the Toyota Crown, which is basically the same thing, but this is a 2008, and basically it is a Lexus ES350 without the price, ok we look under the hood, they're basically the same 3500 V6 engine, the Lexus has, the Camry has, the Highlander has, they use these engines on a lot of things, these are basically indestructible engines, they got metal timing chains, they can go for hundreds of thousands of trouble free mileage, this one's got 121,000 miles, doesn't burn oil, runs smooth, that's the thing, this is an actual luxury car, Lexus as I've said over and over again, has ruined them now with four cylinder turbos, they're not the same car, these are smooth, and what do they have on it, they have simple systems, as we take off the stupid beauty cover, it's got coil on plug ignitions, it's got regular fuel injectors, it's not GDI, these are lower pressure, it's not turbocharged, it doesn't need to be, these things can just run, and run, and run, and being the 3500, metal timing chain, no rubber belt to worry about, these things can just run, and run, and run, it's just such a common engine, they use them on so many Toyota products, you don't have to worry about getting parts for them, parts availability is nothing, and being a Toyota, the parts are cheaper than Lexus parts, let me tell you, I get customers with Lexuses, oh the little switch for the electric windows is broken, some of those things are like 450 bucks right, this is a Toyota, you can get them aftermarket for $49, you can save a lot of money buying a Toyota versus a Lexus when you got the same engine, same transmission, the same basic frame, yeah the interior isn't as snazzy as a Lexus right, but let's look inside, you can see even the leather is still in good shape, you can see this is my favorite, it's got push-button start, but then again it's a Toyota, I've never actually seen one of those break, and it does have the tire pressure monitoring system flashing, so that's probably bad, we'll check that when we go through it, and we'll go to odometer 122055, it's exactly set up like my wife's 2002 Lexus ES300, practically the same vehicle only this is a bigger engine, so it's a little bit faster, and as you can see the information system is actually molded with the entire dash, it's not like some of the new Toyotas that have these big ugly things, now some of these did get a sticky dash, and I can feel it okay, the dash is a little sticky, it hasn't come apart that's okay, he's been cleaning it, but I can feel it's a little sticky, that was a problem with these, they built them and they were a little bit on the sticky side, but the seats are in good shape, the back seats, they've been traveling, they brought parts and stuff, still in excellent shape, it's got a huge trunk, and it works, the AC, the heat, because it started to rain, getting cooler, so let's check something out here, put it as low as it can go, that's freezing cold, and that's not quite as cold, so it's a little bit low on refrigerant, whenever these sides are freezing cold, and this side isn't as cold, it's just a little bit low on refrigerant, I just added refrigerant to my wife's Lexus, it's 23 years old, same system, it just needs a little refrigerant added, as any car ages, and this is a 2008, so it's 18 years old now, things can wear, and he wants to know, is this going to be a reliable car for driving around in, so what actually goes wrong with these, well some of them, they get a little oil leakage on the valve cover gaskets, no big deal, you can buy the gasket kits for $40, put them on yourself if you want, this one isn't leaking yet, and some of them, the bushings in the back, you'll hear a little creaking, again no big deal, you can replace them if you want, some people live with them, some people will actually take them apart and fix them, practice transmission, some of them get a little bit of funky shifting as they age, if the fluids haven't been changed enough, and all you need to do is change the fluid then, we'll see how that goes when we road test it, at some point in time somebody's changed the struts, they will wear from age, you can see, they're supposed to take the plastic off when they do it, and sometimes they'll clunk a little when you take off, because these dog bone mounts are notorious for going, but this one's already been replaced, it's got a sticker, it's a replacement one, and you can see there's a bolt here and a bolt there, anybody can replace these, so if you start it up and you see the engine clunks, and this is moving, you just replace the dog bone mount, somebody did that years ago on this thing, now comes the moment of truth, we're plugging our Autel into the OBD port here, so the idiot lights are on, even the sunroof is in immaculate shape, it's all beaten up, sometimes they'll fade away, you know these things will fade away, this is still in excellent shape too, we'll do diagnostics, it's clicking, making noises, that means it's reading, colder, you got to push it, stand alone diagnostics, here we go, check it out, I fooled myself, I'm so used to it, because it looks like my Lexus, I push Lexus, but of course it's not a Lexus, it's a Toyota, that will show you, it even fooled me for a second, I forgot that I was working on a Toyota and not a Lexus, you know it's a Toyota, Evaline 2008, and it's got a smart key, as you can see we can do a full topology scan, and here we go, while we're doing the scan, we'll look around a little bit more, wood's still good, the seats are good, like I say, the dash is a little sticky, and you can see it's starting to crack here, that was the one problem, sometimes Toyota will fix these, sometimes they won't, you have to ask them, but I can feel the stickiness, it still looks good, but I can feel the stickiness, they did screw up on some of these dashes, but it looks good as long as you keep your hands off of it, and it has both heated and air-conditioning seats too, I mean hey, jeez, an older car like this, got all the luxury, the power seats still work, it's got the settings for power seats so you can set them the way you want, it's got six trouble codes, so we'll start with the tire pressure monitoring system, and we know that it's not working because the lights on, I'm sure some of the batteries are gone and the tires will look at it, you have a heavy elbow, that'll be worn, but that's still in excellent shape too, my wife's Lexus was made in Japan, this was made in Kentucky, but they seem to do a pretty good job in Kentucky with them too, it's not like they do a crappy job, it's not like they're made in Mexico, and going back to the tire pressure monitoring system, data's not received, so three and four, the batteries are shot and the tires, you have to take the tires apart, put new tire pressure monitoring valve stem assembly, costs a lot of money and since it's so old you probably want to do all four, hey tire pressure gauges don't cost much you can use them, so that's no big deal, so let's look at the AC system, it's got three codes, and we'll enter the system, go to the trouble codes for AC, see what the trouble codes are, all right, passenger side solar sensor circuit, driver side solar circuit, and passenger side solar sensor circuit, yeah those sensors come and go, so we'll erase those codes, see if they come back after we take a road test, the solar sensors measures the temperature inside to try to keep it going right, it blows plenty of fine cold on the middle, and passenger like I say the driver side isn't quite as cool because it's low on refrigeration, the solar thing is supposed to make it comfortable, it's a luxury car, it's a little kind of overkill, and as they age those systems break down on all cars, even Toyotas, erase the codes but you see the code for the solar sensor circuit on the passenger and on the drivers aren't working, so there's a problem in that system but who cares, it still blows cold, we will go to the smart key, and often they will trip codes and the batteries get low, so the trouble code is, for the key, a lot of times it'll be startability, antenna coil circuit open short, well it starts and runs fine, it's probably got another key and it didn't work, and it's using the last key, so remember my advice, always get another key, if you don't want to deal with going to a locksmith or a dealer ripping you off, you can use that Tom's key online, you can take a picture of the key, you can send you the computer to program it, and then you can have a key that you can program on your car and you send them the machine back and they give you your deposit back on that, you don't have to spend a small fortune as long as you have one good key that works, so in this case if he's only got one good one, you want to make a new one as soon as possible, now comes the real test, we're going to start this baby up, and we're going to look at live data, we'll enter the live data system for the engine, which does just about everything including the transmission, and here comes live data, remember black is good, red is bad, and let's check this baby out to see what shape it's in, now that it is 18 years old and has 122,000 miles, 122,000 miles isn't much for one of these things to tell you the truth, look at that I see Ganesha's there, there he is, the elephant god right, well let me tell you something, you don't need a god and pray to it for this car, they're so well made, it doesn't really matter, so we'll continue to look at data here, ok short term fuel trim is 2.3%, long term fuel trim is a little bit high, it's 8.6 meaning it's running a little lean, so I'm going to put some of the burnies cleaner in the tank before I road test it, it's nothing outrageous, but we'll just continue to look at the information, you can see the oxygen sensor is pretty good, you know 1.00 is perfect and it's pretty close to 1.00 it's perfect, a little bit off, a few thousandths off and it's perfect, pretty good for an old car right, catalyst temperatures are right, the front sensors are hotter than the back sensors and they match, so that's still working perfectly fine, sometimes when they get really old or people use crap gas that didn't change the oil enough, they'll ruin the catalytic converters and it costs a lot of money to change, so you want to run good gas, you want to change your oil and filter regularly, which obviously someone has done who owned this car before they bought it, they've owned it for a year, well look through it, battery voltage is good, notice everything is black nothing is red, well that is good, it even gives you the oil temperature, electronic throttle is all good, now this is an older car it's 18 years old, but you can see it's got a lot of information, it's got sport shifting if you want, you can shift it yourself up and down, most people don't though they just put it in drive and drive it, well the tests are complete, none of them have failed so far, that is still all good, the tone is all the same, of course there's going to be no misfires, there it is no misfires, these things rarely misfire, if they do generally they only need an ignition coil, that is so simple to change it doesn't mean anything, so let's take it for a road test, out we go, everybody knows I'm not a fan of push-button starters, but it is a Toyota like I said I've never seen one break, and it's so old it doesn't have a backup camera, and we'll have to reset that, looks like somebody's having electrical work done next door, it's one advantage of not having a backup camera, you look to the side too, and I've often had these guys flying out with trucks, with a backup camera I might miss it, the brakes still work perfectly fine, no pulling, no noise, no bearing noise, no problem climbing hills, you just have to find a gas more, who knows maybe ganache helped them out a little bit, hey you really don't need ganache on this car, all you need is a little gasoline and be on your merry way, and the Cadillac in front of us sat in a red, the light turned green and he just sat there, the guy in front of him moved and he just sat there, I guess Cadillacs are still for old people who don't know what they're doing, I may be old, but I still know what I'm doing, at least I think I do, yeah it's an old luxury car, so you put your phone and you use your phone for your communications and hooking up to the internet, right, I mean you don't need to spend a fortune to have android auto and crap, the phones do everything, you really don't need all that nonsense, now you can tell it's not a Lexus instead of a Toyota because the tweeters look different, that's about it, they got different looking tweeters on them, so there you have it a $7,000 luxury car that will probably outlast your grandkids if you take care of it, simple technology, everything is fixable on it, if you do want to fix everything, he can fix the tire pressure monitoring system if you wanted to spend a bunch of money, but air pressure gauges cost ten bucks, measure it yourself instead of having it all taken apart, change all those parts and then after so many years those batteries go bad, just an endless way of making money, the car itself is not an endless money pit like if you bought a used BMW or a used Porsche or used Audi or used Mercedes, it would be even worse right, you can buy a used luxury car if you pick one like this, now sure they don't make them anymore, well they don't make them anymore they replaced them with a Toyota crown, which is just the modern version of this except that they have the stupid four-cylinder turbos or they're hybrids, high level of technology, you can't get them with these v6 engines anymore, and there's no way they're gonna last as long as these things do, and hey they're not fuel misers, but you'll get in the mid-twenties on the highway and that's good enough for something that's as luxurious as this, that you're not gonna spend a fortune fixing, if you want to price insurance, price insurance on a little luxury car, then price your insurance on this 18 year old Toyota and you'll be really happy about how much cheaper it is to insure one of these things than it is a brand new one that costs a fortune and has technology that if you get in a wreck and the technology is broken, it costs you a fortune to fix it so your premiums will go up, these old things simple, they can last forever and there are quite a few of them out there for seven or eight thousand dollars, look around if you want a nice luxury car, they don't make them like this anymore and eventually they'll be so old that you'll have to buy a turbo one and it'll probably be falling apart so you'll have to buy a new one instead of buying one of these for a fraction of the money, so if you never want to miss another one of my new car repair videos, remember to ring that Bell!