But it was dirty, and I didn't have time to wash it, and ...

13" long series of deep scratches right in the middle of my hood. Nice. At least the Shell station is doing the right thing and paying for the repairs.

Now my question ...
Lexus dealership wants to repaint the hood (a given) and both front fenders so that everything matches. With that logic, wouldn't any mismatching between the fenders and the doors be even more visible?

Any advice would be most appreciated!

Oh yeah, and don't use that car wash no matter how tempting.

 

they should not repaint the whole front fenders. they should only be painting part of them to blend in the color. if they repaint the whole front fenders, then yes, you are correct, your next color mismatch will be at the doors

just cuirous, the scratches are only on the middle part of the hood? along the flow of the car or across the hood? if it's not close to the edge of the hood, maybe they can just repaint partial hood and blend in the color on the hood

welcome to clublexus, hopefully they will get things fixed soon

 

wouldn't painting the hood alone be sufficient?

the hood and fenders are at different angles to each other, that any difference in color could be accounted for by different viewing angles, even if they were the exact same color.

 

on the 3gs quite a bit of the fenders are horizontal at the top, so blending might be needed in that area

 

wow! i would be sooo pissed!

glad they are paying for it

i use auto car car washes all the time......touchless of course

 

Blending paint is good. Kind of just skimmed through the thread. But if they paint the hood alone there is going to be a difference in panels. When they paint like half your fender with color then clear the whole hood and fender together, just makes it so much nicer. And even harder to tell anything was ever done. GET'R DONE!!!

 

wow.... Shell? I approve! =]

 

Wow... I'm glad Shell station takes full responsibility. I wonder if they will still do if this happened to an older car. The only reason I brought this up was because clearly, your car is new. If it was an older car with somewhat scratches already, would they cover it?

Did it only damage the hood? I would think that the roof is also all scratched up? Did the shell station inspect the carwash and concluded that it was the rollers? or whatever scratched it?

 

If that's all you have, no need to touch the fenders. Take it to a good bodyshop, they should be able to apply new paint to the middle 1/3 of the hood, blending it into the old paint, then spray the entire hood with clear coat. If they do a good job polishing clear coat after it's done, you will never know it was fixed.

 

I get my GS washed at the same car wash every week for the past 2 years and have not had issues . I am sorry to hear about the drama

 

The scratches occurred only in the area pictured; center of the hood, along the flow and near the windshield edge.

After further discussion with Lexus dealership, they do intend to blend with the fenders. As rominl noted, the top portion of the fender is in fact on the same plane as the hood, and a mismatch in color would be evident. By the way, they want $1,200 to repaint hood and blend with the fenders. Seems like a lot, but since I'm not paying ...

Friday I got a call from the guy responsible for all of their (Shell) car washes in the eastern U.S.. He confirmed that they would pay. He was really apologetic, and said to fax him the Lexus quote and they would cut a check and send it that afternoon. They didn't ask to see it, get multiple quotes, or anything. I was shocked. It really took the wind out of my "I'm gonna rip somebody a new one" mindset. I'll update when I actually get the check.

He also said that three other cars were damaged in the same way, apparently after a section of brushes got caught on a pickup truck and were pulled off the machine. I'm sure if I was the only guy who suffered damage, they may have been less accommodating, but they really stepped up and took responsibility. Not using their car wash again (or any non-touchless), but maybe I'll get gas there a little more often.

Thanks to everyone for your comments and advice. This is a great forum.

 

Wow...that is really awesome that Shell stepped up like that!

 

Wait til he sees the estimate for painting the hood and the 2 fender, then the Shell guy might change his mind

 

glad that the gas station is backup things up. hope you get your car fixed soon!

 

I can imagine how pissed I would be. I am hoping they stand by the repair bill as well