Gabeshell

Good evening guys. As many of you have read I'm having some peeling paint issues on my 03 GS3. What I'm looking for is a reality check to see if I'm being reasonable. Sometimes you're just too close to a situation to be objective.

Ok, here's the deal. Two days after I bought my car new I ended up with peeling paint on the hood, fenders and now it's beginning on the hood. The car had 200 miles on it when this happened and I reported it to the dealer the same day. Long story short, after two months I'm still waiting for Lexus to make a decision on how to handle this problem. Their current answer is to paint the hood, fenders and now fix the roof as well. At this point Lexus will not agree that the paint on the entire car is a problem. I feel that the paint on the entire car is a problem.

Here's the problem. The service manager and area rep both told me that if more than one body panel is repainted, that the car cannot be sold as a CPO Lexus. Therefore, the trade in value will be considerably less. In addition, the rep told me that if they paint the car, that the car will never look the same as the day it came out of the factory. I see a few options and they are as follows: 1. Lexus strips and repaints the entire car so that this issue does not come up again.
2. Lexus strips and repaints only the areas that are affected so far and then has to paint other areas as they show the defect.
3. Lexus buys back my car and gives me another. The only issue with this is that I would have to pay the deprectiation on the vehicle as well as lose the first 3 payments I've made...the PA lemon law states that the comsumer has to pay 10% of the value. This would equate to approximately $5500.00 with the 3 payments I've made.

I just feel that the option that Lexus has given me, paint the sections as they show a defect, is a legitimate option as the paint can never look the same and it disqualifies my car as a CPO. I think that I'm between a rock and a hard place right now. Can anyone please give me some advice on what they think is a reasonable resolution to this problem? Thank you for any help or advice you can provide.

TXLeXTC

heres my .02. before i even got to where you point out this car can never become a CPO now, thats what was on my mind. this is a high end car, and people check that stuff when looking for one. i would push lexus HARD. have you talked to lex corp yet? i would basically tell lexus that they need to give you a replacement car, NO 5500 back to them. i would tell them that if they dont want to do that that you will be happy to give them 5500 to get out from under the lexus name and you will go to bmw (or benz or whatever) and i would mean it. if you cant trust them to take care of you on a BRAND new car, then i couldnt stay with them. i would put it on the table, and be seriously ready to walk. heck id tell them to stick it in the body shop for the time being, and then request that they drop you off at the nearest bmw dealership so you can explore a new ride. i hate to bag on lex, but this seems like total BS. speak with corp and be firm. dont let them push you around, this isnt a small investment!!!

Iceman

Do you have any pictures? How bad is the paint?

bitkahuna

iTrader: (20)

Lemon law?

Gabeshell

I have to borrow a digital camera and I'll post pics. The hood has a 1x2 inch section with the paint just gone and there are numerous areas that have paint gone that are the size of dimes. The primer is still on the car, it's just the paint that its gone. It's hard to describe how bad it looks without the pics to back it up. I wouldn't be as upset if the car were a few years old and had a couple of miles on it, but two days and 200 miles is just bad. The part that upsets me the most is the way how Lexus has handled the situation so far.

Gabeshell

Yes Bit Lemon Law applies, but the problem is that I am required to give the manufactuer 3 attempts to fix the car. Until that time the clock keeps ticking. While the clock ticks, the car depreciates and that means more money that I would have to pay should a replacement vehicle be authorized. That also can mean that they can paint my car in three different areas before the law goes into effect. The possibility exists that I could own the car for a few years and then go to trade it and have had the car painted several times and I can only imagine what it would look like at that point. I do well for myself, but I put most of what I had into buying this car and just don't have a lot left over at this point. Therefore the money is an issue until I can save a bit. I traded out of my Acura TL because of the transmission problems with that car. I wanted a Lexus so that I would be almost 100% assured that I would have little to no problems with the car.

panther_v

just wondering if you have checked the car damage history from the dealership where you bought the car?? most of car arrived in the states with no problem, no damage. these cars are processed at the port then ship to the dealers. however, a handful of cars arrived damaged; could be a chip, or dint somewhere. most of time, the cars are fixed at the port facility then shipped to the dealer. you might want to look into this and see if this car was damaged when it arrived at the port and was fixed before deliverying to the dealer.

i have a co worker who used to work at port. he drove those cars from boat down to the processing center. he told me about this "secret" that most of people don't know about. a lot of damaged cars are fixed before shipping to dealers. we, the end buyers, just don't know about.

good luck with your fight w/ the dealer and lexus. i hope they take your car back and give you another one!!

mooretorque

Your description makes me think that something had to have happened at the factory when the car was painted. If such is the case, then you'd have to assume that, sooner or later, ALL the paint on the car IS going to peel. I'd continue to push very strongly for a total repaint at the least.

It already doesn't and won't.

Good luck. And I agree with other posters; get Lexus Customer Satisfaction involved, too.

Hameed

Hey Gabeshell,

Take a look at this post https://www.clublexus.com/forums/sho...threadid=74866 .

My problem that is decribed in the thread above is NOTHING compared to your problem. Not only is my problem nothing compared to yours, my car is also out of warranty and is 4 years old.

I would do this if I were you - write a letter to corporate and send it by next day courier delivery and then take the car back to the dealer and demand a brand new one and they pick up the tab for all losses. That is the least they can do to keep you as a customer. Peeling paint on a brand new US$50K car! That is simply atrocious and completely and totally unacceptable.

I wish you all the best. Be sure to let us know how this goes. I am very curious..........

TTurboPimp

iTrader: (12)

I have been in and around all aspects of the car industry for most of my adult life, and I consider myself to have more knowledge than the average consumer, so heres my take. I have no doubts that if the paint has peeled on three of the panels, then the problem will not only continue to spread on those panels, but most likely do so on other panels of the car as well. If it were my car, repainting the panels as they show signs of defect would not be an option. You would like to think that a quality shop would be able to match paint perfectly, but thats not always the case. Paint is actually mixed at body shops to match a paint code, it is not uncommon to have the color of the mixed paint vary from batch to batch, slightly, but different. If you have ever looked at paint samples at a body shop, they actually have samples of a particular paint code at different variations of the shade, this allows them to match the mix up with whats on your car, same exact paint code, three or four different shades that slightly vary. At least if the entire car was repainted at once, then you would have an even application of paint that is made from the same mix, thus being the same shade. Then you get into the re sell value of the car, you will never get what you should for the car if you are selling to an educated buyer that knows what to look for. You should demand that they give you a new car, if they opt not to, which they will, then consult a lawyer to see what your options are. No matter what the legalities are, I would hope to think that Lexus Corp. would want to do the right thing for customer satisfaction. you might have to make a scene to get them to do that though, if your passive they will probably do whatever would be the minimum $$ loss for them to resolve the situation, which would be re paint the problem areas as they come up. I would think that you would have a better chance at getting a new car from them before you could get them to re paint the entire car. They would just repaint the problem areas and put the car back up for sale if they gave you a new one.

F'd up situation, good luck with it.

SUPRA OWNER

be firm not passive. Let them know you are not keeping this particular car no matter what they do to it. I feel for you but if I was in your shoes I would be going crazy. I would have made a big scene at the dealership that they probably would have giving me a new car or call the police to shut me up. Contact a lawyer tell the dealership you want a full refund or a new car. Do not hesitate or wait any longer because its going to make it harder for them to give you a new car.

Same thing happen to one of my co-worker. He bought a brand new toyota camry after owning and driving the car for 1week. He notice paint over spray on the inner parts of the front fenders. He takes the car to a body shop and they confirmed that the front bumper was repainted. He went to the dealer and raised hell actually went crazy because they naturally tried to deny it. After all the hastle and frustration they gave him a newer car for the same price. He was actually buying a 2001 camry and they gave him a 2002 just to keep him quiet.
Later:Jose

Gabeshell

Thank you for all of the useful posts so far. I'm sure now that I'm not being unreasonable about wanting a new car. I have no intention of sitting back and being passive about this. I had to pursue Lexus for the past month...they didn't even bother to return my calls...I contacted Lexus Customer Service and they never even bothered to call back and I had to call them 5 days later. I also have now spoke with the area rep. I had an appointment scheduled for Feb 26 to meet with the rep. I found out this past Friday that the rep wasn't going to be at this meeting...I asked the service rep at the dealership why I was bringing my car in then. His answer was to have the hood repainted. I can't believe that they tried to screw me that way. I would have dropped off my car and then gone to work and waited for them to call and let me know the rep was there and to come back over...that was the arrangement I had set up...Little would I have know that they would have been stripping my hood while I waited for the call.

Well, I filed a complaint with the PA Atty General office and also contacted Kimmel and Silverman. They are the largest lemon law legal firm in the U.S. The service manager got involved Friday evening and told me that he would try to resolve this issue the beginning of this coming week. At this point I really don't have a lot of hope that Lexus is going to give me a new car, but I have to see what they offer. I can gurantee that I won't go away or stop complaining. I already have decided that I will contact the Local TV station consumer reporter as well. The dealership won't want the publicity either. Here's hoping!

Harleyman1

I saw someone paint lemons on their car and parked their car near the entrance to the dealership on a busy weekend. It made me hesitate about thinking of buying a car from that dealer. I don't know if this stratgegy was effective but it surely made an impression on me.

TXLeXTC

Also have you spoken to the dealership manager?? If not you should head in there and as to speak to him (nice and calm) go into his office and then lay it all out. at this point i would not speak to anyone that was not in upper management at the dealership.....

TTurboPimp

iTrader: (12)

I agree with TXLeXTC, your wasting your time communicating with the service writer! You need to go to the service manager, then the GM of the dealership, then the owner himself. You might even condsider skipping over the service manager, for all you know the people who can really make this decision might not even know about your situation. I had a situation where I took my Supra TT to the dealer to get the oil changed, I would have usually done this myself, but it was cold as hell outside. While it was therethe dented and scuffed the rocker panels on both sides trying to get it up on a lift(it was lowered). One of the detail guys came out and told me before the service guys brought the car out. Of course the service guys didnt say **** to me, and when I pointed it out, of course they denied it. The service manager told me he didnt have any proof that they did it and he would not cover it. I immediately called the GM and *****ed, then asked for the owners number. The next day I got a call from the Service manager telling me they would cover the expense to fix it. I geuss my point here is they arent going to roll over and do anything for you at the first few attempts, be persistent and you should come to some sort of understanding. Dealers are shady as hell!!