LindDarLex

This makes tons of sense. Like I told you, salt is inert (non corrosive) when its below freezing. Letting your Tacoma sit out in the weather actually kept it from rusting! I know it sounds counter intuitive, but if you aren't going to wash your cars in the winter you're better off to let them sit outside. When you put them in a warm (or warm-er) garage it actually accelerates rusting because the ambient temperature rises above freezing, and the salt becomes corrosive. The exposed metal and the ferrous dust that is imbedded in the finish will corrode quickly. Again...his car sits outside. Outside=below freezing=corrosion cannot occur. Your car sits inside=above freezing=corrosion city. Your situation is much worse than his from a rust/corrosion standpoint. I think your issue here is the garage, its not the vehicle at all. You drive around on the nasty winter roads and then put the car in the garage and it sits there for a few days above freezing and all that salt just corrodes and corrodes and corrodes. My advice is moving forward if you aren't willing to wash your vehicle regularly (once a week or once every 2 weeks is a very reasonable frequency to wash the vehicle and is what many manufacturers reccomend, not just Lexus. If you don't want to do it you can have a professional wash it for you for all of about $25, or even take it to a carwash...thats better than not washing it at all) then don't park it in the garage in the winter. I would bet you money you would stop having corrosion problems if you did that. Thats not just the Lexus, thats any car. Or, you can continue to pretend its somehow the vehicle's fault, your choice. Your issue has nothing to do with paint, its purely an environment and maintenance issue. Well here is what I pity.. I pity people who don't allow others to form their own opinions. Ones who are rude when others express their own opinions. Instead of just understanding that it is my opinion and that's all. It is my opinion that my next car would be anything but a Lexus.. basically because it's just not worth the money you spend or what it is used to be. But, that is my opinion. So a big thanks to you guys for being curteous! http://editorial.autos.msn.com/article.asp...cumentid=435214 It's only a matter of time... SW~ Even the sales manager at the Lexus Dealership confessed to us that he never washes his $80,000 Lexus in the winter time. It is just too cold. Also,... My garage door broke and has been permanently up since last fall. If it's below freezing outside it's below freezing inside my garage. But good try! ;)

Sorry, but 7-8 washes in a year is just not sufficient vehicle maintenance in a place like Michigan. In Arizona maybe, but nowhere with any precipitation. If thats babying it...I don't know what to tell you. Lexus paint doesn't suck, its the same paint as on your Tacoma and on your other Toyotas, its probably the same paint as on your other cars too...only a few manufacturers make paint...and Lexus isn't one of them. It simply has to be maintained. I've had several of these cars for long periods of time, my ES300 is 6 years old, has 125,000 miles on it and with weekly washes and proper maintenance it looks great. Has rock chips like any other car but no rust, not even in exposed chips because it gets regularly washed. I used to detail cars professionally and have detailed many Lexus, Audi, Acura and Toyota vehicles and Lexus paint is just as good as any of them, and they all require similar maintenance. Your issues are very commonplace with vehicles that have fair to poor maintenance schedules like yours. Everything they said about rail dust makes perfect sense, and I didn't even think about the snowplows but that also makes perfect sense and that explains why the dust would be where it is on the car, and may also explain the heavier corrosion on the hood. You need to get on a regimen of more frequent washes and better care if you don't want these problems to continue. With more than a month between washes and the salt covered car sitting in a garage you are just ASKING for corrosion. Thats like putting your hand on a grill and wondering why it got burned... Who knows why its worse with this car, maybe they've changed what they use on the roads, maybe its the new lower VOC paints. But Lexus paint is just like Toyota paint...its the same paint. Same colors even a lot of them. I also read your report about the experience at the dealer. That is unfortunate but like I said, dealer quality varies widely. However your approach has some issues. The sales manager and the salesman will be no help, they have literally nothing to do with service or warranty. You need to talk to the service manager, or the dealership's general manager. The sales divisions and service divisions are completely seperate. The person you have been trying to make an appointment with also does not work at the dealer, they are regional and that explains the late appointment... Doesn't excuse their nastiness, but understanding how dealerships work helps you get things done. The dealer will be no help here, its not their responsibility. Some dealers will help you out to keep you happy, some won't. As for the clay bar, I would just buy a claybar and do it yourself. Plenty of tutorials in the detailing forum here, its easy. Your vehicles require specific maintenance where you live, and you'll want to clay the vehicle at least twice a year. If I were you I would find a good detailer if you don't want to do it yourself. SW~ Even if the paint is the same as my Tacoma.. My Tacoma was brand new when I bought it.. 03 traded it in last year.. there were stone chips in the hood. And not an ounce of rust once Not ONCE in.. 5 years... and I can guarantee we hardly washed that car in the winter.. Its just too fricken cold. Not to mention it sat outside during the winter. So.. you can tell me I didn't wash the lexus enough and thats fine, Your probably right. Because my point is... I shouldn't have to wash it every week or every two weeks. The issue with the lexus rusting in a year versus the other vehicles we have owned under the same circumstances proves that the paint on the lexus is not as good as the paint on my Tacoma, Audi, Honda, or Acura. Maybe it's just MY lexus.. and not anyone elses or only a handful of lexus's. Now whether that means the paint wasn't applied properly or what I dont know.. But thats the point I'm making. And I'll never know because Lexus doesn't even know how to test the thickness of their own paint. I'm not the only Lexus owner who can admit that the paint on Lexus is lacking! Since this whole thing blew up I've done nothing but reasearch talked to people we knew that owned lexus and on the internet. So I'm not going to change my opinion. At the end of the day its nothing but personal preference and I'd rather have a vehicle that lasts and isn't as high maintence but also nice and I like knowing I'm getting my money's worth. I don't feel I am anymore with this vehicle. Now had my vehicle been 3 years old instead of freshly one year.. I wouldn't be complaining at all.. because it's expected.. But not for a one year vehicle, Not in michigan and not because I ONLY washed my vehicle 7-10 times in the first year. That's not an excuse. My friends father purchased an 08 Ford Focus the same week we bought our Lexus last year. I inspected his hood and he had a few stone chips the other day. I asked him ( he works for Ford and drives about 40 mins every day back and forth to work) "How many times this winter did you wash your car?" His response.. "0" Do you think his ford focus has any rust on his hood and around his stone chips? No. He lives in the same neighborhood drives the same roads as me (which means his vehicle is exposed to the same road elements) and he drives his car WAy more than I do. His car sits outside.. Mine sits in a nice garage. So when were talking about paint quality and Lexus is telling me their's is the best. I'm sorry but it's not... Can we prove it? No one has proven it? I have given examples ... two cars.. two differant makes and models... Same year.. bought in the same week... Experienced same elements (weather, salt, whatever) One was washed 7-10 times the other probably half of that in their first year... the one thats washed more is starting to rust while the other one hasn't. If I say this to Lexus.. their response would be... "well we have the best quality." That's fine.. just give me some proof. Some evidence.

I probably washed my car about 7-8 times in the year including two waxes over the summer and including the dealership washing it 3 times so that's a total of about 10-11 times washing. But let me say this... I have never had to wash my Audi, Acura, Toyota, or Honda that often. We really did baby this car more than we have ever babied any vehicle we have owned. And in fact I probably only washed my Tacoma twice the year before we traded it in on the Lexus. I believe it all boils down to that Lexus paint is lacking and is extremely high maintence. Like I said earlier ... Lesson learned! LOL As far as the Dealership goes... I will try and give a short story of what transpired. On wednesday of last week my husband mentioned to me that he noticed there was some rust forming on our hood. This is the first time my husband and I had noticed it. On Thursday morning I called the dealership and asked to speak to someone in the service dept. The line was busy so they person on the other end asked me what I needed and I explained I had a rust problem on my hood and I wasn't sure if it was just because of rock chips or if something else was wrong ( remember... lived in Michigan my whole life... never had so many rock chips go straight to the metal and never had a brand new car rust so fast so I was extremely confused by this.) They took down a few notes and told me that they would have someone from the service dept call me back shortly to schedule an appointment. I never heard from anyone on Thursday. On Friday around 10:30 am I called my husband at work to see what time he might want the appointment and if he wanted to do it on Saturday and he informed me that he recieved an email from the service dept saying that I had made an appointment for Friday at 11am. I could not make this appointment and I did not make this appointment so I called the dealership and told them I needed to cancel the appointment that was made for Friday and reschedule my appointment. The gentleman in the Service Dept asked.." Is this for the rust issue on the hood?" and I said "yes" and he said... ok... What time on Saturday and I told him 11 am would be fine. He said I was scheduled and that was that. I live 25 mins from the dealership. Saturday morning we head to the dealership.. We pull into the garage and we stand around and wait for awhile.. The salesman that sold us the car came out when he saw us and talked with us a bit. Asking us how things were going and how we liked the car and what kind of gas milage we were getting.. We told we loved the car and that we were only getting about 25mpg but in the summer we were getting 27.8-28.2mpg. So we were very pleased with the mileage. Then the woman who was working the service dept came over to us and said.." Can I help you?" I explained I had an appointment to have to car looked at at 11:00 am. She asked me for my last name and then told me that we were not scheduled for that day. I asked her to double check and she said no... theres no ..... scheduled for that day. I asked if maybe someone might be able to look at it later in the day if there was an opening and she told me the only person who was authorized to look at my vehicle was the Director of Fixed Operations and he was not in that day. I asked her if she would be willing to schedule an appointment with him for us for next week. She was clearly in a hurry and handed me his business card and told me that if I wanted to schedule an appointment I could call him. Her demeanor and body language clearly stressed that she did not want to deal with us and that we were a nuisance to her. And to speak on her side they did have about six vehicles in the garage. But I expected that we would be treated with fairness and patience and not rushed off as if we were the ones inconviencing them. So we went home... later on that evening my husband told me he got an email from the Lexus Dealership and it was from the Director of Fixed Operations and he had scheduled us for an appointment at 7:45pm on Monday night. That was this past monday. I kind of chuckled at this because I knew the dealership closed at 8:00pm. On monday evening we headed up to the dealership with the car. We pulled into the front of the garage door. The whole garage is made of glass so you can see in. There was no one in their offices. So we sat in the car for a minute waiting for someone to activate the door. I saw my car salesman walk outside to smoke a cigerette and talk on his phone.. He looked right at us and waved and kept on walking to around the corner and just stood there. I finally after five mintues got out of the car and went into the dealership and asked if anyone was available in the Service Dept. The receptionist said that they were around somewhere and asked me if I had an appointment that day. I said yes , I have an appointment at 7:45pm. She kind of looked at me and said.. "you know we close at 8pm." I said." I'm aware" and she said.." well I don't know why anyone would schedule you for a service appointment at 7:45pm when we close at 8:00pm" and I said.. "I agree" So she went and got someone and I walked back to the vehicle. At that time the Salesman that sold us the car came around the corner and then acted as if he had jus seen us ( must have forgotton that he waved to us earlier) and he slid inside real quick and opened the door. We drove in.. got out.. and waited for the Director. By the time the director came into the garage it was nearly 8pm. He walked around our car.. Said it was stone chips. We asked him about the rust on the doors, hatch, and around the tires and he said he wasn't sure... it could be rail dust. We weren't exactly sure what rail dust was so we asked what he meant by rail dust.. He said you get it from driving by railroad tracks. We told him that we hardly ever are anywhere near railroad tracks. He said well it could be from metal shavings from the plow trucks and if you dont wash your vehicle then it gets stuck and eats away at the paint and will start to rust...We explained we had washed our vehicle a few times this winter not to mention they had washed it just last month when they serviced it and It is my vehicle and I stay at home so it spent most of the winter in the garage. He then responded with " You CLEARLY are not understanding what I am saying to you" (in a cocky tone and with an attitude) and at this point we were both at the end of our ropes. My husband tried to be calm with him and asked him what was to be done to resolve the Rail dust issue so that it didnt come back.. The Director said "buy some clay bar and rub it out" and then started to walk away. At that point, we were *BLEEP*ed and I asked to speak to his boss.. He went and got the Sales Manager... the Sales Manager came out and I expressed my dissapointment in the way their service dept had handled us from day one which would have been Thursday of last week. He didn't answer to my complaints. He just looked at us and said.. "is there something I can do for you?" So my husband asks the Sales Manager to tell us what is on the sides of our vehicle. The Sales manager looked at it and says he felt it was rail dust and then asked us... " Do you wash your vehicle?" and I responded with "Of course we wash our vehicle and besides your dealership has washed it three times! not to mention once last month!" and he responded with..." I was just asking because I don't wash mine very often.. especially in the winter time." We talked about the rail dust and he explained that it more than likely happened during transport of the vehicle from the manufacturer to the dealership and I asked if that was our fault about the rust all over my car? He agreed that it wasn't our fault and that he will have his shop clay bar the car and put a protective coat on the car. My husband was concerned because it appears that the rail dust has gone through the paint and the primer to the metal and that even if its clay barred the rust will come back probably in 6 months or so. So they worked out something that if it came back then we would bring it back in and they would file a claim with lexus. This satisfied us on the rail dust issue. Then we moved to our hood. What upset me about the hood was the rate of corrosion and we were trying to explain to the Sales Manager that we had had several new vehicles with several stone chips and they never went all the way to the metal and that we thought maybe our car didn't have enough coats or the thickness of the paint was not accurate. At this point it was approximatly 8:20pm and I could tell that the Sales Manager was getting irritated because we would just not go away I guess, I dont know.. but he was definatly irritated and wanted to leave. He looked at us and put his hands in the air and said.." I don't know what you guys want me to do for you tonight. I can't do anything.. we close at 8pm" I looked at him and said.." That is not my problem... I did not make this appointment and if you have a problem with the schedule then you need to consult your service dept. This is my second 25 mile trip here which means I've now driven 100 miles to try and get someone from this dealership to look at this car and answer the questions we have." So he looked at the hood of our car and said.. " Well.... Do you drive your car alot?" He asked this as if we were idiots... I responded with " I didn't know I wasn't allowed to drive my $60,000 hybrid! Which he responded with... " You paid $60,000 for this hybrid... ( laughs loudly) that's the most expensive hybrid I've ever sold here!" Talk about a slap in the face. Here we are with our with a 1 yr old car rusting like crazy. And you know what.. maybe it is our fault.. maybe we didn't wash the car enough. But we didn't know that the paint was soft or wasn't of the same quality as the other vehicles we had owned. Which is why we had questions which is what I expected from the dealership was to ANSWER those questions and to do it courteously!.. So to end it... We agreed to make an appointment to have the car clay barred and a protective coat put on... The Sales Manager said he would phone us the next morning to make the appointment and if we wanted he lived in the same town as us and he would bring over a loaner vehicle and pick up the car for us so we did not have to make another trip to their dealership. We said ok ... basically whatever.. and left. It is now Wednesday and I was supposed to recieve a written assessment of the vehicle damage which has already been submitted to Lexus on Tuesday morning. The sales Manager said that the Director would be emailing it to me that same day (Tuesday) I have not recieved it. and I have not heard from the Sales Manager about making an appointment to clay bar my vehicle. I dont expect to hear from them. I will have to call and make the appointment when we are ready. I can only go on the experience I have gained in the years I have owned vehicles. And the experience I have gained tells me that this is not the quality that we had with the other vehicles ( the paint) Like I said before... we will drive this Lexus into the ground and who knows maybe in 7-8 years we will feel differantly about Lexus but as it goes now if we were to buy another new vehicle at this moment in time.. we would not be purchasing a Lexus. It would probably be an Audi. I have never been treated with so much disrespect by a dealership. I don't know if its because I live in Detroit and Lexus feels that they are on top of the world now with the Big 3 hurting.. but it's no excuse. Also, since the dealership hasn't responded to us about scheduling an appointment they probably won't be doing the clay bar. Which means that they were just trying to say anything to get us out of their hair that night. Talk about a waste of time and energy.

We usually never use a car wash.... I actually only used it once and that was last week when I first noticed the rust and I thought it was dirt and I was out of soap and in a hurry. Other than that we use Meguirers and Zymol products and we hand wash our vehicles. We do not live by a railroad and I rarely drive by one. AND THE VERDICT IS IN: I don't think we will be going to the next Body shop. The first one is the one we are used to and trust the most and this is what they have to say. The sides and hatch are from metal shavings.. they can be easily removed. ( which we will let the dealership remove with clay bar and then put a protective coat on ) The front is mostly from stone chips. They don't believe it is a paint quality issue however... They believe that Lexus vehicles have a poor hood design and there hoods especially around the grill take a beating more than any other vehicle (which I can't fight becuase I bought the car the way it is) Apparently Infiniti has the same issue with their hoods by the grill as well. Lesson learned: Wash the Lexus more often then you've ever washed any other car in your life... Not to mention wax. The solution... for the hood anyways because I already stated what will be done about the body... We are going to have the Body shop repaint the front part of the hood and then attach 3M to the hood. Which means I will be without a vehicle for 30 days. While I LOVE LOVE LOVE my car... I have to say the treatment that I experienced with trying to present to the dealership the concerns we had, left such a bad taste in my mouth that I doubt we will ever own another Lexus after this. I didn't go into much detail about the poor customer service because It was such a headache. We will drive this car till it dies because we love the car... But what I love more is having a car manufacturer that stands behind their consumers. I do plan on writing to The Customer Satisfaction Technical Manager at Lexus with my concerns and complaints about the way we have been treated and the lost faith that we have now in their company and ability of the dealerships that represent them being able to resolve consumer issues effectivly.

Ok I need to make a correction.. I have washed the vehicle more than three times in one year. WAY MORE. The three times was in response to the Sales Managers Smarta** comment..." Well do you wash your vehicle?" I was implying that if they looked at their service record they would atleast know that it was washed 3 times by them... We are not dealing with a good dealership and they have been acting funny ever since I made the first phone call to schedule an appointment. Something smells fishy. I have an appointment at a Body shop here that we had our Audi at when we still had it. And Another one in Ann Arbor that services Audi,BMW, and Porsche. So I'm hoping that I will get somewhere with this. We requested to know the thickness of the paint and primer that is on the vehicle but Lexus tells us that there is no way to determine this. Also, The spots in the pictures may look very large but they are really not. I used Macro and got up close with the camera to try and get a good look at the spots. It's hard to even see the bubbling without a magnifying glass... but they were very hard to see. We didn't even notice the stone chips until after it got to the point of rusting. I also question why some look exactly like stone chips but then others have a bubbling factor around them that kind of reminds me of a pimple. I saw a post on another forum yesterday were there were about 11 people or so complaining about Lexus Paint problems with their vehicles and that they were taking it to Lexus's attention. But the post is old. What I'm trying to figure out is if this is normal. The dealership says it's completely normal...In response I say that it's bad quality if they stand behind this and say that this is normal for a 1 yr old car and happens all the time. (stone chips going straight through 2 layers of paint and 2 layers of primer, ((which is what the dealerhips told me was on my car)) I was at Olive Garden yesterday and noticed an RX330 sitting in the parking lot. I went over and inspected the hood. It had so many stone chips it was unbelievable but there wasn't an ounce of rust on it. They didn't have any touch up paint on it either. I can't tell by looking but I don't think the stone chips had gone through to the bare metal. If I had to guess there had to be atleast 25-35 allover the hood by the grill. We have never used touch up paint on our stone chips for any of our other cars. Honestly I don't know why... But, with that said... we've also never experienced this problem with a vehicle. Especially as new as this one is. We have lived in Michigan all our lives so we are used to Michigan weather and the elements that are vehicles are exposed too. Sometimes I get sidetracked from what I'm really trying to accomplish... So what I am wondering and asking is... Do you think this is normal? And have you experienced this type of problem?

We bought our 08 RX400h back in March of last year. It has been serviced at the dealership for it's 5,000 mile check up, 10,000 mile check up, and 15,000 mile check up. At each check up the car is completely washed on the outside and detailed. My husband and I waxed the vehicle once over the summer and once right before winter hit in the fall last year. On wednesday of last week my husband and I noticed that we had several little rust spots all over the car. When we looked at the hood we noticed that there were some Rock chips that were starting to form rust but also there were tiny small craters that had bubbling around the hole and there was rust everywhere. I was concerned about the rate of corrosion since we routinely washed our vehicle and it was in the garage through the winter and only exactly a year old. We have had several new cars in the last 10 years ( 99Audi a4, 03 Toyota Tacoma, 03 Honda s2000, 06 Acura RSX type S) Each of them survived through the harsh Michigan winters and had numerous stone chips but they never started to show any sign of rust if they did at all for that matter until about 4-5 years down the road. The Acura was a lease that we turned in back in january 09 and there wasn't an ounce of rust on the Acura but several stone chips along the hood. This car spent alot of time driving back and forth from Michigan to New York throughout the year and atleast 3 trips during the winter. I'm just trying to compare the experience I have had with a few differant vehicles and the elements that they are exposed to. Anyways... I am wondering if anyone has experienced an issue with their paint on their Lexus RX Model or any Lexus Model for that matter? I have taken the car to the dealership and got no where with them. They believe this is quality and was poor maintenence. I have proof that the car was properly cared for through documentation of services. Their diagnosis is Rail Dust and the explanation for that Rail Dust is more than likely due to transfering of the vehicle from the Manufacturer to the Dealership by Train. The dealership also asked if we had "ever washed the vehicle". Which was a stupid question to me because if they looked at their logs they would know that it was ATLEAST washed three times this past year. Thats the very minimum and that They washed it. http://s255.photobucket.com/albums/hh147/l...e/Lexus%20Rust/ Here are the pictures of the marks all over my car. I'm curious what everyone thinks. Do you think that after only one year and being washed several times and waxed twice that this is an acceptable rate of corrosion if it is only due to stone chips? THe Dealership says that this is normal and that Lexus still has top of the line paint quality and is better than any other vehicle. I have to say that THIS particular vehicle I don't think that is the case and that I disagree that THIS particular vehicle is living up to that LExus Quality standard.