Letsuck dealer said it had Remote Starting. No mention of a sub$cription to use their key fob.
Too tired to drive home after a 251-mile 1 a.m. bloodelivery, we stayed at a Motel 6-like place.
Extra for WiFi. I am so cheap that I sethe laptop on the window sill and captured WiFi from a coffee shop two blocks away.
I am so cheap I have gotten into the windshield washer spray from the car ahead to clean my windshield.
Yeah, have a remote start installed for around $500. I like the Compustar ones. You can do it via a keyfob without a subscription, or you can add a (much cheaper than Lexus) subscription to enable remote starting and location tracking on your phone. The keyfobs have a very impressive range, so unless you just want the tracking for stolen vehicle purposes, you probably donât need the subscription.
Your Lexus subscription wonât last you very long anyway - the 2016âs were almost if not entirely all running 3g modems, and the 3g network is being sunsetted with the last tower going dark some time next year. At that point, your remote start wonât work with or without a subscription.
Thatâs correct. The keyfob start feature just tells the car to ask Enform if itâs OK to start. I think thatâs BS, personally - you should only need a subscription if you want to use your phone to start the car, but thatâs not the case.
That said, Lexus isnât the only one doing that. Lots of manufacturers from the luxo brands all the way down to Hyundai are only doing subscription-based remote start.
Affecting an image of exclusiveness is essential to overpricing a product. And Lexus has gone to great lengths to look exclusive. I wouldnât want to bet on the number of interrelated modules on their cars and many of them seem solely to ensure that owners return to the dealer for service. It reminds me of the marketing of Mercurys vs Fords.
The only thing on my Lexus that Iâm likely to have done at a dealership which I ordinarily wouldnât is the windshield, if it ever cracks. And thatâs because the lane monitoring camera is calibrated to the new glass, and Iâd have to take it to the dealership for calibration even if I had it replaced by a 3rd party.
Most of the interrelated systems on luxury cars really arenât any more out-there than the interrelated systems on any other car. If the computer that controls the HVAC system dies on my Lexus, itâs just as much of a likely-dealer issue as if the HVAC-controlling computer dies on a Chrysler.
As to this specific system, like I said earlier, a lot of car makers are doing the same thing. My wifeâs Hyundai requires a monthly subscription to remote-start it.
Now, Iâm sure someone will chime in here, but Iâve never seen a factory remote start that didnât require a subscription. Before the subscription model came out, you either got the dealer to install a remote start when you bought the car, or you had a 3rd party company do it, or you just didnât have a remote starter.
IMO, we should treat factory remote starts that require subscriptions as âthe car does not have remote start capabilities.â And if we want remote start, we should just pay the money up front for an aftermarket one. At $16/month for the Lexus system, if you keep the car 3 years, a $500 aftermarket system pays for itself.
It is a matter of matching the offerings of the competition. The primary services of Lexus Enform are Safety Connect and Service Connect, OnStar has been around for a long time. A Chevrolet can be started with the owners phone.
Is that an Onstar thing? I refuse to pay for that service.
If youâre a registered tree-hugger and greenie, shouldnât you be driving an ev . . . ?!
I have a 2020 Ford F150 STX pickup. Its mostly basic but I can use the free FordPass App to remote start it as well as unlock/lock the truck from up to 50 feet away. AFAIK, the FordPass app is free and doesnât require a subscription.
gee after this article. im glad i purchased the Ford new. So far so good at 13,500 miles with the 5.0 coyote engine and 10 speed autoâŠ
Yes, but it may not have the range to drive blood to a distant hospital and then the hospital haspecimens to transport, stat, back to the blood center.
Wearing backpacks, wife and I ride our tandem bicycle to the grocery store.
Amazing how much garage sale detritus can be hauled home in the rear basket of our adultricycle. (Towed a lawnmower home with it.) (Our lawn mower is rechargeablelectric.)
Noted. As someone said in another of Robertâs threads, I donât share his sense of humor but in the scheme of things I think the language is pretty mild.
Iâd bet money that âLexus ITâ is dead wrong. You might need a subscription to start the car from your phone (youâre paying for the carâs 4G modem service), but that would have nothing to do with the key fob remote.
Thatâs cool. It used to be a paid subscription. Hopefully other automakers will go the same route due to the competition.
Unfortunately thatâs a bet youâd lose. I have a '16 ES. When I had the trial Enform subscription I could start the car with the keyfob. Once the trial ran out, the keyfob no longer started the car. The car still checks in with the mothership to see if a subscription is active even when you send the signal via the keyfob.
You appear to be correct. Apparently you need in Enform subscription to use the remote start from the freaking key fob. To me, that is absolutely unacceptable. I could see a subscription based service for things that require a the use of a cellular modem, like using you phone to perform certain functions ( lock,unlock, remote start, get fuel level info, etc.) from anywhere in the world. But to have to subscribe to a service to use your key fob? No dice. That would be a deal breaker for me. After confirming what you said, I went further down the rabbit hole, and apparently there are 3rd part solutions that allow you to have remote start capability with the OEM fob and without paying for the Enform subscription, though you donât get the other features that the Enform subscription gets you.
I agree. Thatâs why I negotiated down when I bought the car. âIt doesnât have remote start capabilities, it has subscription based cloud starting. And thatâs not a feature I want.â Got $500 knocked off the price. Which is convenient because the shop I use for accessory installs charges $500 to install a remote starter.
I saw those 3rd party solutions as well. The problem with them is that the key fob doesnât have much range because itâs really only meant to be used when youâre near the car. If youâre trying to start it from a building, itâs fairly unlikely youâll succeed unless you have a line of sight to the car. And thereâs no 2-way communications with the keyfob, so unless you can see the carâs hazards flip on, you donât know if itâs started or not. The aftermarket systems with their own remotes have a much longer operating range, and will confirm that the car has started.
To add to the annoyance (and this part is really stupid on Toyotaâs part), until I think 2019 not all of their cars were using 4g modems for their Enform functions. The 2016âs were still on 3g, and when that sunsets next year, people will lose remote start functionality whether they have a subscription or not.
Goes to the same irritation I have with a lot of smart home devices. You dump hundreds into a bunch of light switches and then the manufacturer shuts down the cloud service that makes them work, and youâre left with bricked switches. I like modern technology, but itâs much better if itâs able to function independently from some remote system that could go away at any time.
Shortly after buying our 2019 Odyssey, the windshield was cracked by road debris. We had it replaced by a glass company, and they calibrated the forward sensor themselves. If you ever need your windshield replaced, you might ask your insurer for a recommendation or call around. Maybe the dealer subs it out.
lovin my nissan murano right about nowâŠuse the remote start on a daily! car turns off after 10 min of not entering
I canât imagine buying a car that I must pay an annual fee to use.
Thereâs an old tale about buying a wagon in Mississippi. The wagon salesman is asked what the price of a wagon is and he replies $100. If the prospective buyer doesnât seem to be concerned with the price the salesman says plus $50 for the wheels and $10 to install them.
You donât have to. Remote start is purely a convenience/comfort feature that no one needs, ever. Itâs a totally skippable luxury.
This is a spurious argument. We are talking about a high-priced luxury vehicle here. We are not talking about a âmainstreamâ model such as a Toyota Corolla or Honda Civic. A person who is buying a luxury modelâand paying a huge price premium versus a similarly-sized non-luxury modelâreasonably expects that features such as remote start are included, and that additional ongoing payments are not required to use them.