Thats the conclusion I came to. Once I told the finance/second sales guy (cause thats what they are) I wasnt going to buy "today" if I was going to be pressed to do so "today", he admitted that I had until the last day of the factory warranty to buy, and that unless his costs went up during that time period, he'd honor the "deal" we had partially negotiated. Methinks theres another notch down in price as he wasnt squealing yet.
After looking at the warranties, I get 48/50k bumper to bumper, 7/70k on the powertrain, and extensions for the engine control computer, the emissions and the safety gear. The extended warranty that they have is a 7/70. They generously list all the stuff thats already covered by the powertrain and other warranty extensions.
When I took all the stuff out thats already covered, about all that was left that I thought had a chance of suddenly blowing up between 4 years and 7 was the air conditioning compressor, the dvd drive for the nav system, the cd changer and the screen for the nav system. I doubt any one of those would cost more than the $2k cost of the extended warranty. I doubt all of them would go in a 3 year period. Apparently so does lexus.
I figure I'll wait the 4 years. If the car has a lot of niggly little problems that get fixed under warranty, i'll buy it. If its pretty much problem free, we'll pass.
As far as "if the car was so bad you would not have bought it anyhow", spot on. First thing I said to the finance/sales guy was almost just that "We know we're buying one of the most reliable cars made, so we expect great reliability and to never need the warranty for anything serious". Then he's backed into the corner of having to tell me the car i'm buying isnt very reliable, or shortening the sales pitch.
As a point of interest, this didnt stop the guy who tried to sell my dad the extended warranty when he bought his new Toyota a couple of years ago. The guy flat out said that all cars are full of electronics today and are very unreliable as a result, and that this situation didnt exclude toyotas. He all but said the car was going to implode the moment it was out of warranty, perhaps sooner. My dad actually bought the warranty and then went back the next day and asked for his money back. He was subjected to a second 15 minute spiel about how nuts he was to cancel, complete with eye rolling and tongue clucking.
From what i've heard, they arent making a lot of money on cars these days but are making their profits from sales of the paint/fabric protection and the extended warranties.
Considering they made ~2% on my car (not including any holdbacks or factory to dealer incentives I dont know about), that would seem to be the case...