Our '04 GX is coming up to the 5 year mark and has 50,000 miles on it. Recently, the light gray finish on all 4 wheels has started to blister and bubble. Our dealership offers a free high-tech car wash, so the GX gets washed every week.

Went to the dealership and they contacted Lexus corporate. Corporate says they would replace one of the wheels and we would have to spring for the other three. What's up with that?? We even told corporate that we would be willing to swap out the wheel on the spare (which is perfect), thus corporate would only have to replace 3 instead of 4. No such luck. We are still fighting with them. This is after our family has purchased 1 RX300, 3 GX470's and 2 ES350's from them.

Anyone else have this issue with their wheels??

Thanks.

 

Unfortunately, the wheel blistering is common. Each dealer treats the problem differently since there is no mandate from Corporate as to how to handle the situation.

If you do a bit of searching in this forum you should be able to locate some threads.

Here is one that I just found:

https://www.clublexus.com/forums/gx-...corrosion.html

Good luck and keep us posted.

 

Here's my story. You really need to fight because they will find any excuse in the book as to why it's your fault and why they are not going to replace them.

https://www.clublexus.com/forums/gx-...ims-fixed.html

 

My wheels are doing the same thing. I figured it wasn't worth the headaches to try and get replacements from Lexus or the dealer. I'd go after a replacement off ebay or the forum if it really bothers you.

 

I have heard that some dealers are swapping wheels with ones that they have repainted, not new.

 

I guess painted rims are not a good idea.

 

I've had plenty of painted wheels that never had this problem.

 

And un-painted wheels never have this problem

 

Not necessarily true. Most machined wheels are still clear coated, with the exception of some aftermarket wheels. If they weren't, you'd spend an awful lot of time polishing them.

I've seen the clear coat bubble & peel on machine finished wheels, just like on our painted GX wheels. It usually turns a whitish color before it starts flaking off.

I still like machined wheels better than painted ones. When my GX wheels went south, I bought some 4Runner sport wheels with a machined finish.

 

Some clear coat wheel do bubble but its not a wide spread problem like the GX's wheel. In fact, most other Lexus painted wheels do not have this problem.

 

You can probably have the wheels refinished for about $80 a wheel, as long as it's not a hypersilver color, which will inflate the price up to $120 a wheel. Hopefully the F will not have this problem.