Dealers love free advertising, so it’s common to see vehicles plastered with tacky stickers or dealership-branded license plate surrounds.
However, Ohio’s Performance Lexus is apparently taking things to an even more appalling level by replacing the standard startup screen with an ugly ad.
As you can see in this picture posted to Reddit, the startup screen now shows a “Thank You” message which advertises Performance Lexus’ website as well as their sales and service numbers. While this information could be useful, it’s certainly not something owners want to see every time they startup their vehicle.
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To make matters worse, it’s a bit of a pain to change the image as this video from Lexus of Orange Park demonstrates. As you can see, you need to grab a USB flash drive, create a folder named “Image”, and then add your desired picture. Once that’s complete, owners need to insert the flash drive into their vehicle’s USB port, dig through the infotainment system to find an obscure setting, select and copy the image, confirm their selection, and set it as the startup screen image.
That’s admittedly easy for tech savvy people, but it’s still a lot of work to change something the dealer shouldn’t have messed with in the first place. Of course, it’s worth noting Lexus buyers are typically older and some might not be able to change the image without help. If you’ve ever had to deal with explaining computer or smartphone settings to your parents, imagine the nightmare of walking them through changing their car’s startup screen.
Putting that terrifying thought aside, the dealership’s move was heavily criticized by Redditors who billed it as an “early 2000’s commercial being played in your car” and said they’d make the dealer remove it before taking delivery.