2 Month Old 2007 Rx350 With Bad Ball Joint---not Warrantied!

[emtan]

Help!

I hit a curb at 15mph trying to avoid someone cutting into my lane and pulled off the road to a grassy area. This resulted in a misaligned steering wheel--10 degree to the right. There were no visible damage anywhere and the dealership found out the ball joint was bent. The replacement cost was over $400. This is the right ball joint which cost $50 to for parts. Should I be paying for alignment too since Lexus provide a 12 month or 24,000 miles basic warranty on alignment and balancing. So far they have not called me back on any other issues.

Any help and feedback appreciated.

Thanks

emtan@sbcglobal.net

[Gryphon]

I don't think that any work that resulted from collision damage is warrantied.

Tom

[SW03ES]

Hahaha...

How can you expect Lexus to warranty your car against damage you cause to it? Of course that won't be covered under the warranty, thats a collision. Maybe they should warranty the repair of your car if you hit a tree too.

$400 for a ball joint replacement is not that expensive, sure the parts cost $50 (they actually cost more than that) but there's labor involved in replacing a ball joint. Labor isn't free. If you want someone to pay for damage like that, submit a claim to your insurance company.

And since when does Lexus have a 2 year 24k mile warranty for balancing and alignment? They have no such warranty. Your dealer may offer free balancing and free alignments for 2 years or 24k miles as a perk to its customers, but that still wouldn't cover a bent ball joint.

[emtan]

This is from the original poster.

I was happy to pay $400 for the service--no arguments from me. Just glad I was able to avoid and accident.

As or warranty on alignment, Lexus website does indicate it's covered under basic warranty for 12months/20K miles)

http://www.lexus.com/models/RX/warranty/index.html

Thanks

Hahaha...

How can you expect Lexus to warranty your car against damage you cause to it? Of course that won't be covered under the warranty, thats a collision. Maybe they should warranty the repair of your car if you hit a tree too.

$400 for a ball joint replacement is not that expensive, sure the parts cost $50 (they actually cost more than that) but there's labor involved in replacing a ball joint. Labor isn't free. If you want someone to pay for damage like that, submit a claim to your insurance company.

And since when does Lexus have a 2 year 24k mile warranty for balancing and alignment? They have no such warranty. Your dealer may offer free balancing and free alignments for 2 years or 24k miles as a perk to its customers, but that still wouldn't cover a bent ball joint.

[SW03ES]

Wow, thats new. I'm wondering what the limitations are on that, espcially since the tires would have been rotated and re-balanced every 5k miles within that pariod as per the maintenance schedule, and in my experience daily driven cars just need alignments more or less once a year. According to what they're saying there, if the alignment was out within that period due to normal driving, they'd owe you an alignment. Thats interesting.

Thats still not going to cover the ball joint repair though, thats beyond the scope of an alignment problem, and it does specify that they will not cover repairs due to collision.