Car Wash Mis-hap

lostinthewoods · February 20, 2004

Okay, I went through one of those car washes with the cloth strips that wave back and forth, and the strips that spin along the sides of the car. It's winter and I wanted to get rid of all the salt that attaches itself to the side panels.

The rubber strip along the bottom of the passenger and driver's doors tore back about 4 inches on one side, and about 10 inches on the other. I can apply some adhesive and re-attach them, but does anyone know if they are easily replaceable?

Please don't yell at me about the car wash selection... I feel bad enough driving around with stuff hanging off my car doors. :angry:

Thanks!

SW03ES · February 20, 2004

The car wash should pay to replace that damage...

TurboGS300 · February 21, 2004

Okay, I went through one of those car washes with the cloth strips that wave back and forth, and the strips that spin along the sides of the car. It's winter and I wanted to get rid of all the salt that attaches itself to the side panels.
The rubber strip along the bottom of the passenger and driver's doors tore back about 4 inches on one side, and about 10 inches on the other. I can apply some adhesive and re-attach them, but does anyone know if they are easily replaceable?

Please don't yell at me about the car wash selection... I feel bad enough driving around with stuff hanging off my car doors.

Thanks!

Just get some strong adhesive and carefully and neatly glue them back on! :o

TurboGS300 · February 21, 2004

The car wash should pay to replace that damage...

Probably a self serve one! You're on your own there! They had to be loose for them to peel back , so it's not the car washes fault.

GuyTelefunken · February 22, 2004

Fairly easy to replace, if you're handy. They can be ordered in your particular body color. The part you need is the seal the snaps onto the lower edge of the body side cladding. I believe that the seal was available seperately, but I'm not 100% certain.

I have attached instructions if you care to do it yourself. To reinstall you will need some 3M moulding tape available at your local auto parts store, Autozone, etc. If you are installing new complete mouldings, the tape comes already attached. The moulding removal tool mentioned in the removal instructions can easily be substituted with a plastic putty knife or similar.

GuyTelefunken · February 22, 2004

Installation instructions.

lostinthewoods · February 23, 2004

Thanks!!! This helps a lot.

paul c · February 23, 2004

Any idea on how much these cost? and is this a dealer only item. The ones on my GS3 are chipped in some spots, I would just like to replace them.

jezz · November 30, 2006

Any idea on how much these cost? and is this a dealer only item. The ones on my GS3 are chipped in some spots, I would just like to replace them.

I had the same problem and I had a body shop get the part to replace the entire panel.... Apparently, Lexus wanted 400+ for the lower door panels..... Needless to say, I declined. Initially the body shop ordered the piece because it was listed as 40 something dollars, not 400. Does anyone know a cheaper fix?

BlexusGS · November 30, 2006

If your talking about the "rubber strip" there is no need to replace the lower door molding/panel! Since I bought my GS400 I noticed that my molding panel on the passenger side was slightly bulged out at the corner by the rear door. This enabled anything such as brushes from a carwash to aggrevate this area and in turn over time the rubber strip that hangs from this molding wound up tearing pretty bad. Needless to say I contacted Carson Toyota and I think I bought a new strip for about $80 and installed it myself; pretty easy. However, in my case this is going to continue to be a problem until I change out my bulged lower door molding/panel. Good luck!