After reading this thread i went to check on my car and found out that mine are cracking also! My 16 year old Honda Accord doesn't even have these problems!

 

Yeah sux. One thing I wonder. Now that they've fixed it after 2 years if it fails again at let's say 5 years (warrenty over) do you think they'd still replace it since we have a record of getting it fixed so soon?

Also a question for the people in this thread with this problem. Obviously it isn't because of sun exposure, because I garage my car and use 303 on it frequently so I wonder if it was a batch of bad materials. So.....what year and build date is your car?

Mine is 2007 but i'm not sure how to tell the build date.

 

Maybe it's these new recycled plastics they use these days. I bought my car in September of 06 but i forget the build date. I've already had my front passenger door panel replaced because the leather was bubbling. I've never had problems like this develop on any of my other cars and all these problems show up on a 2 year old Lexus! Wonder what else is going to crack or peel off or come unglued next?

 

My build date was June, 2006 if that helps.

 

I'm out of warranty so it looks like I'll be attempting this repair on my own. Does anyone know how to remove the trim along the windshield so that I can access the rubber?

 

ill peep this wen i drive tomorrow

 

Did anybody else have the same whistle problem? Dealer replaced mine last weekend and I have a whistle sound at high speed on highway.

Did they have to take the windshield off to replace the molding?

It is annoying and looks like I will have to visit the dealer again.

 

Just wanted to post an update on my experience with this windshield molding trim issue:

I bought my 2007 IS350 2 months ago with 56k miles on it, out of factory warranty but it was Certified, however the Certified warranty doesn’t cover wear and tear items like this. The molding was already failing on the car when I bought it, even though it had undergone the Certified inspection which clearly stated no cracked or worn molding, weatherstripping, or trim. Clearly the techs had missed this or ignored it.

I noticed that the cracked windshield molding was only getting worse so I took it back to the dealer I bought it from, explaining the above – mainly, that I knew this wasn’t covered by the CPO warranty but it should have been fixed before I bought it. I also presented my service tech with the below attached document, which I created from multiple different threads on the issue on CL. It shows pictures of other peoples’ exact same issues, and shows all the threads dedicated to this one issue on only one forum (clearly there are similar threads on other forums). I just took screenshots of the first posts of each thread because printing out 5 threads at 10 pages per thread would have been overkill. I explained to him that this was not a normal wear and tear item, but was poor quality materials and poor quality workmanship. Clearly the parts chosen by Lexus for this application were low quality. In addition, many IS owners are having this same issue (which is the main point I wanted to communicate with the below document) and they’re from all different climates, all different mileages, and it doesn’t matter whether you garage your car or not; simply stated, the parts are bad.

The tech was very impressed with this document and asked to keep it and to show to his manager. In the end, they ended up replacing the molding for me free of charge. Now before anyone gets too excited, I should make clear that the dealership covered this cost and did it for me out of goodwill. They contacted Lexus to try and submit for warranty, but Lexus didn’t approve it because it wasn’t covered by the CPO warranty. The dealership didn’t push at all nor did they contact me, they just went ahead and did the repair. If they hadn’t been willing to just goodwill it and they’d called to tell me it wasn’t covered and I’d have to pay for it, then I would have gotten involved with the Lexus reps, shown them the research, etc.

So long story short, my windshield molding got replaced out of warranty by the dealer I bought it from out of goodwill, not on warranty. But if you’re having this same issue out of warranty, I recommend you print the attached Word document and bring it with you to your dealer and make the same plea I did. The total cost for the parts is under $100, and install is a DIY, but it’s more out of principle; Lexus states they don’t cover weatherstripping, but that’s because usually it comes down to a wear and tear issue, but in this specific case this is just failed parts.

 

Anyone else has whistle noise from windshield after molding replacement?

 

Woo hoo, I'm famous with pics and a post. haha

 

Nice job of whipping up that doucment and standing your ground on that "principle"...i would have done the same thing.

Regarding the windshield trim molding rubbers...mine is very slightly starting to frey on the edges in a couple spots, nothing bad. '06 w/ 30k miles...NORTH car.

 

My '08 is at the dealer having the driver's side moulding (A-pillar) replaced under warranty. I,too, use 303. So its not like the rubber s/b all dried out and not protected.

 

for you guys who have replaced these, is it a PITA or what? Do the clips normally break from being brittle? I am about to order some from sewell, just trying to see if i need to order any extra clips with them. The ones on my 06 are completely rotted and break off if you touch them.

 

^ It's really easy. The clips (10 of them) break because they are one use clips. You have to break them.

Read this thread if you haven't already: https://www.clublexus.com/forums/is-...g-removal.html

 

ok thanks a lot