Last night i had to go to my girlfriend's mother's surprise birthday party which was held at this "trailer park-like" (only with tiny houses on bricks vs trailers) area on a beach in Matunuck RI. I had to park in this rinky dink dirt parking lot where the nicest car around me was maybe a toyota camry...

Anyways, the car was parked there from maybe 6:00pm till 11pm when we left. My girlfriend and i were in a hurry and didn't notice anything on the car since it was dark and began to rain. And i didn't notice it when i got home either, mostly because i was tired and miserable.

This afternoon when i approached my car in the garage, i noticed this:





















I immediately began treating the scratches on the hood and on the FL fender with touch-up, hoping i might be able to fill wetsand and polish the scratches... but i'm pretty sure the remains will always haunt me unless i have everything re-painted.

So what the heck do i do now? I can't fill out a police report in the city where i live because this happened (unless someone came in my garage and keyed it there) in Matunuck about an hour from where i live. And i'm really not looking forward to having to be without my car for 3 weeks having it re-painted

I know for sure the damage was done at this place. There were about 1 million drunk people roaming around, they probably noticed there was a Lexus there with a vanity plate, got jealous, and that combined with alcohol, well... that's just my guess. If this happened around here i'd suspect i might have *BLEEP*ed someone off, but i was in the middle of nowhere!

It also looks like someone tried to ram their key in my gas cover thing, maybe in attempts of getting it open and siphoning out my 93 octane gas. If you ever saw the crowd that was in this area... i was afraid.

UGH i am so mad right now. If i saw the person doing this, i swear, i swear i would be in jail right now.

Sucks CD. Call the police anyway. You never know maybe they caught someone. That or maybe someone has talked and if they ask you never know. That is one thing that sucks about having a nice car. Now MR CD I am going to offer you some advice do with it what you want.

1st call the police.
2nd call your insurance co.

This is a comp claim and it will be more than a few grand to fix it. This is what insurance is for. This claim should have little impact on your rates and when looking at the out of pocket it would be worth filing it. You should have a low comp deductible and may even have rental coverage. Even though you can not have the rental your mom or dad could drive it and you could use theirs. Call your agent and ask what impact a comp claim would have.

I never advise anyone to file any small claims except glass claims but this is not going to be a small claim.

Good Luck sorry about your ride.

Tomorrow i'm taking it to my autobody shop to have them look at it and give me some suggestions. i'm probably going to have to go through insurance, i mean painting the hood alone would be 400 easy, and my deductible is $500.

I also noticed a chip and a few deep scratches in the windshield that weren't there before, my guess is they gouged their keys across my windshield??

OUCH! That just sucks! I'm willing to bet they weren't trying to pry open your gas cap door to steal the gas, but rather to add something to it. Good to see that little door can take a beating, because had they been successful at obtaining access to your gas gap, you would probably have some pretty nasty problems with the engine to deal with too. Nothing like a little dirt, pee, or god forbid, sugar, in the gas tank to cause some serious problems.

Call your insurance company asap, and follow their advice on what you should do. They might require a police report to be filed to accept the claim. No doubt in my mind this repair will be in the thousand($) to fix properly. It can be fixed and brought back to new though. Heck, my second car (92' Sentra SE-R) was bought after a golfball hail storm hit auto-row in Overland Park, Kansas back in the day. It was white, and looked like a "golf ball". It was fixed, and look like brand spankin' new for the several years I had it "I loved that car". But, you should also keep in mind Carfax will be lurking in the shadows as well. And when you file that police report, their is a very good chance Carfax will pick up on it and forever attach it to the car's report going forward, which could hurt you down the road when it comes time to trade it in or sell it.

Sometimes, crap like this just happens in life. But, as my dad always taught us boys, "it isn't your enemies that will get you into trouble...it's your friends!" I'm not saying anyone in your circle is to blame for this, but let this experience stay with you later in life as to where you want to be led to "hang out" with the amigos.

I know exactly how you feel. I had a brand-new (one week old) Mercedes keyed in NY, and my sense of violation and hatred (yes: hatred!) towards whoever did such a gratuitous and uncalled-for act was immense. You will do what I did: had the car repainted and eventually 'moved on' mentally. The car will look good, and you can be comfortable in the knowledge that whoever did it is a real 'loser': his lot in life will be in no way comparable to yours. Good luck....

Thanks for the warm words of encouragement guys I hope i'll be able to forget about this and move on, that would be good!

I brought it to my body shop today (i've been going there for a few years, they do good work) and they said i had two options. Yesterday i had filled the scratches in with touch up paint and let it dry in the sun. They said they could try to wetsand and polish and see if that would work, but also said the scratches would still be slightly visible. They tried it on a little part on the rear quarter panel, but the scratch was still visible... smooth, but still visible. The scratch now looked "darker" (i guess the touch-up didn't match perfectly...).

So i told them i'd rather go with the second option of having all the areas re-painted... They suggested i fill out an insurance claim since the cost would be well above my deductible of $500, so that's what i did. I asked if my rates would go up, and they seemed to think even if they did, it wouldn't be much, especially since this wasn't my fault. The insurance co told me (when i called them from the body shop) that i didn't need a police report, which is good for carfax reasons. My last accidents didn't show up on my Rx300's carfax, so i guess i luck out?

I also showed them the "interesting" windshield marks, and they seem to think the vandal tried to break it with maybe a rock or something (but were unsuccessful at breaking it right through). They said i should add that to the claim because the marks could eventually spread etc... even though they just look like a cluster of rather large rock chips and scratches.

So they're going to sand and repaint the hood, front left fender, drivers door, door behind that, the left rear quarter panel and inside door jams too, everything... and give me an OEM windshield Which will be a nice plus...

So i guess i'll be getting a new windshield and sparking left side out of all this. I'm trying to stay positive

I'll post pictures when i get the car back. They said it should take no more than 2 weeks- they're pretty busy i guess. So for now i'll just need to borrow my parents cars, which i won't have a problem with at all

Oh man, what a crime! I can only imagine how you must feel...

I hope the repair turns out well, keep us posted...

I don't know if you have the heated windshield (where the wipers normally park) like we do up here in Canada, but if you do, make sure the repair shop orders the proper windshield. I haven't had my 400h during a winter yet, but my previous vehicle (2001 Subaru Outback H6) had the heated wiper area and it melted snow like ice cream in July. Hopefully, the heated area on my Lexus will be just as hot.

Sorry about your ride, too. I know how I'd feel if it happened to me so I can understand your pain and frustration. Someone's Karma is in for a serious hit.

CD.

Glad everything seem like it will work out for you. The carfax thing I don't think has anything to do with the police report. When you file the claim it will go into a CLUE report. Most of the time the insurance companies and dealerships as well as shops report the info to carfax. It is possible you other one had just not shown up.

Good luck.

hmmm, i'm not sure if the windshield is heated, can anyone confirm it?

I'm sure they'll replace it with whichever one it requires, these guys are pretty good. I won't mind having a new windshield with no pits etc

The windshield isn't heated...

Hey CD, I'm truly sorry to see you go through that. I had an Explorer keyed all the way down the side by a disgruntled employee. Unfortunately nobody witnessed the act so the police could not do anything, but I called the loser and "invited" him to come pick up his final check in person. Needless to say, he declined. Now he is a skid row bum, seen begging on street corners by several other people. I even saw him on the news when they were interviewing people at the homeless shelter. Karma is a 8!7(#! The body shop painted the whole side and it matched so well that you could not tell from any angle or lighting. Yeah you will move on, but now you have the perfect justification to not attend any event where you are not comfortable parking. I really can't understand the jealousy deal either, cut from a different cloth I guess.

Any insurance work or claim will be reported to carfax unfortunately.. But you have to do what you have to do.

carfax tracks paint damage?

I don't think carfax will find out about this, at least i hope not.

I've had 2 claims put through on my previous Rx300 and neither of them showed up on carfax of that car. The first claim was an accident claim (i backed into another car). The second claim was when i scraped the side of the car against a fire hydrant. Both of which went through the same insurance company, same body shop, and the repairs were both quite high. Accident reports were only filled out for the first claim when i hit someone else's car.

I checked the carfax report for the Rx300 before we traded it in last month, and nothing was listed about accidents. Actually, nothing was listed since the time we bought it in 2005. The last thing listed was that it was sold and purchased in 2005, and inspections i think.

Maybe my insurance company doesn't let carfax know about incidents? Maybe that in combo with my auto body shop? No idea, just glad

Even if carfax found out about this, it's not a bad thing... If there was serious frame damage, that i might be afraid of...

If i was looking to buying a car and found out it had an OEM windshield replaced and the side repainted, i wouldn't be afraid so much, would i?

Plus, i plan on having this car for a long, long time... so i don't think a re-paint job will have any effect on its resale value 10yrs down the road

Look where the wipers 'park'. You have to look really closely because the heating elements are where the windshield is dark. If you see a bunch of horizontal heating elements in the glass, you have the heated windshield. I 'think' all Canadian RXs have them, but I'm not sure about US vehicles.

Here's a pic. The elements are not that visible with the naked eye, but the camera flash really brought them out.

Click to view attachment

yeah, i definitely don't have that

Well i got the car back yesterday from the autobody shop. Came out perfect!

I posted pics on the last page of another thread i had on here, see: http://us.lexusownersclub.com/forums/index...59068&st=15