New Remote Engine Starter Remote! (and vanilla ice cream...)

As I had mentioned in an earlier post, this car came with all of the possible options, and most of the dealer installed options.

One option it came with was the remote engine starter.  The technicians at the Tokorozawa dealership, which did the CPO inspection, decided that the remote was acting up but simply needed a new battery.  My local dealership, however, thought otherwise and went ahead and ordered me a brand new remote!

So I dropped off the car on a Saturday morning, and as it was a typical humid and hot August day, was treated to an iced latte and some ice cream:

I then proceeded to briefly discuss the rest of the work order, as well as discuss future plans for the car, with Ishikawa-san, the dealership's  head of service.  I then arranged to pick up the car the next day around noon.  True, for just the remote it might have taken just a few minutes but I was having some other work done as well.

So on Sunday, I walked the twenty minutes to the dealership, was welcomed by the pretty ladies at the front desk, ushered to a booth and chair and then - yes, more ice cream!

On Saturday I enjoyed a iced latte and vanilla ice cream,
today it was ice oolong tea and ice cream. 

After a few minutes, after I had cooled down (the drink and the ice cream, people!), Ishikawa-san came over and presented me with this:

I'm tempted to leave the plastic on, and never use it
 - or else find a nice leather case...

This nifty Lexus logo engraved device allows you to remotely start your car's engine. It also allows you to lock and unlock your doors, find your car in a crowded parking lot (as if this blue wasn't obvious enough) and in a very Lexus way, the LCD readout also tells you the interior temperature of your car.  I note that on the current Lexus cars, these features are now available on one's smartphone. Nice, as I really don't want to carry this thing around with me in addition to the key...

Since the prior owners didn't live in a super cold place where it snows all the time, like up north in Hokkaido (and further I can't imagine driving this car in the snow...), I can only surmise that maybe they used this feature to get the engine running in the morning to cool off the interior? Especially as I had surmised that, given some faded plastic in front of the windshield, the car was probably kept outside? 

In any case, I immediately had to try it out. I learned the hard way to read the instructions first, but after I did that, it was indeed fun to start the car without being inside it! I was able to hear how the car sounds when it starts up, from the OUTSIDE where, I think most will agree, it sounds very different...

Anyway, this was just ONE item I was at the dealership for.  My next two posts will go into detail about my other reasons for dropping the car off over the weekend...