New Car Help (with pole)

CapitalCitySaint said
The Audi salesman actually said he’d buy my Acura. If anything, I’ll sell it in lieu of trading in. Or May keep it as my TJ car (car to drive across the border)

That is the other part I don’t know what to do… the negotiation on price. I don’t know how much they’ll budge, what’s common, etc. I’ll hold out forever lol bc I am not pressured to buy a new car since I have a perfectly good car & don’t commute, I’m not in a huge rush.

When I originally decided to buy a new car, immediately told myself I wanted an Audi. Then, like some are trying to do here, people are like “well have you seen/driven xyz car” and I’m like no and I don’t want to. The only one I actually considered was the Lexus because at one point like a decade ago, I wanted the IS so I went and drove them both.

I like the body styles of both and they are the only 2 I’m considering. I. Fact when I went out for a run the other day, literally both cars I wanted were parked adjacent to each other and I couldn’t decide just based on looks alone.

I have a friend with an A8 and he loves it. I have several friends that drive Lexus’ or had them and all have nothing but good things to say about the reliability and service.

I don’t commute and drive 100 miles maybe on a “busy” week lol (because if I go out and drink or anything, I’m Ubering or also Uber when I’m going some place with a sheete parking situation to not deal with the hassle) - so I feel that maintenance will be relatively low for me no matter what.

Did your friend talk about what he likes about his A8 because there are notable differences to the S3?

If the Lexus and Audi are pretty even in your mind, then that's an opportunity to focus your decision on other considerations. Like the deal you can get between the two. Or maybe you do need to prioritize reliability, but rather than making it about potential costs, from the standpoint of whether you would prefer something you're less likely to have to worry about, if that better fits your lifestyle/personality/whatever. If you plan to keep this car as long as the Acura, there's a case to make for the Lexus.

Not sure I have great advice for the shopping part. I tend to make these kinds of decisions based on what I think results in the best blend of convenience and value that I can live with. I'm not somebody who is going hundreds of miles away to get the better deal. Mostly I get an understanding of the current market for exactly what I'm shopping for and try and come up with reasonable expectations about getting a deal done. There is plenty of info online that can help you determine what you should expect to pay for make/model in your location. If you're willing to be patient and it's not something that would feel like a hassle, you could track listings for local dealerships to get an idea about inventory volume and how quickly the models you're interested in seem to be selling, which can help calibrate your expectations about your cost, getting a car to your preferred specifications, etc. Since the S3 is an upmarket variant of the A3, there might be inventory limitations compared to the Lexus, but that's purely a guess. I just mentioned negotiating on warranties (likely there will be options for extended powertrain coverage, another for tires and rims, another for windshield, etc) because that's something I learned doing some research on a car purchase years ago that, admittedly, I wouldn't have thought of myself. There are also third party warranty options, though I don't have experience or recommendations there. I did once use a USAA extended coverage option to get a dealer to match the warranty cost which ended up being considerably cheaper. (FWIW, I don't think USAA offers extended warranties anymore.)