Roof Trim Peeling

[Hedge]

I have an '07 GS 350. The taped trim strip that runs along either side of the roof is peeling away. My body guy says $508 for the part plus 1/2 hour install. Dealer says about the same. Has anyone else seen this? Any solutions other than replacing it?

[cduluk]

Can you take pics?

Has the car ever been in an accident before? Sometimes even if only a bumper or fender needs re-painting, shops will clear blend into the roof to blend the paint, without even telling you!

If paint work was done incorrectly it would make sense. otherwise, this shouldn't have happened. Think your dealer would "good-will" it for you?

$500 sounds a bit "steep" to me...

[kyled]

$508 does seem a little steep. Have you looked at pricing for the part online? No matter what, you will probably have to have guy install it, but at least you could cut costs for the part by shopping around. I wonder what caused both sides of your GS 350 trim to start peeling away?

[shiga78]

How many miles are on your Lexus? Its an 07, it is still under the warranty. It should be fixed for free at any Lexus dealer. 5 YR bumper to bumper..

[steviej]

How many miles are on your Lexus? Its an 07, it is still under the warranty. It should be fixed for free at any Lexus dealer. 5 YR bumper to bumper..

sorry shiga, Lexus Limited Warranties are 4 years/50,000 miles.

[ljdarby]

Had the same thing happen to my 2008 GS350 roof "drip rails" after the intense heat wave here in LA this summer. One week one side affected, next week, both sides with each week getting worse and worse, even causing wind noise at hiway speeds. Took it to my dealer who said this is "cosmetic" and not covered by warranty BUT they would replace both rails "one time" for free as a customer service. The replacement cost was priced at $1300, but cost me nothing.

The parts were ordered, came in after two days and took about an 1.5 hours to install. During the install, I purchased a CPO 2011 GS350 at a great deal, and traded in the being-repaired car in this process. My four Lexuses all bought from Price Leblanc in Baton Rouge, LA- they are great folks to deal with- very personable and customer-friendly.

[UCF3]

Any luck with those pictures? When you say trim do you mean the liner or the plastic supports?

That is unusual.

[DBK]

My 2011 red LS 460 with 20,000 miles has drip tape coming off on both sides and dealership agreed to split the cost 50/50

I am considering just removing painted tape and leave the Crome strips showing, because I live in Fort Myers with 12 months of summer heat

Quality not befitting a $70,000 car 

[LexusLSFan]

My otherwise exceptionally clean dark grey 2009 LS 460 has the same problem. VERY annoying. The cheapest I can find the roof drip rails is $279 per each side ($372 retail) not including labor. Since the car is old, I'm sure the dealer will tell me to pound sand but I will be asking for assistance. Tried applying some specialized crazy glue (Aron Alpha) with a q-tip but that wouldn't stick. DBK, were you able to remove the painted tape? If so, how did that go and how does it look?

[Bykfixer]

A few years back I had peeling trim on another brand automobile along the front windows. It was normal for that car for the rubberized coating to get brittle and flake off. These Lexus cars are plagued with the coating delaminating from the metal underneath. 

With the other car I found some strips at a junkyard, peeled what I could by hand of the flaking stuff then sanded the rest. Part of the sanding was to scuff the exposed metal and part was to get a feathered edge at places where old coating remained and metal was exposed. 

Next was buying a small can of black oil based rust-o-leum and spread it on with a decent paint brush. I don't mean gentley like art work but slather on a nice thick coat.  By doing a nice thick coat there were no brush marks. 

Next was find a window with lots of sunlight at a location where fumes don't matter because oil based paints put out fumes. In my case the dashboard of my moth balled truck was the green house. Let it "cure" for a week. I had not done a great job at sanding edges so some dimples showed. I resanded and reapplied more paint, let it cure another week and it looked great. 

Ok, so the original strip I was sprucing up had a slight texture to it so I lightly sprayed acrylic black paint from about 18" away until I got the "splatter" texture I wanted. I did a set for my sons car and he did not want the texture. That was in 2014 and both sets of trim have held up well. 

The trim on my 04 is peeling so at some point I'm going to try it on that car too. 

The restored trim installed, original set on top as comparision back in March 2014.

 

March this year