So recently I was driving on the freeway, and out of nowhere a piece of debris rolled in my lane, and i ran over it. When i checked the damage, thankfully it was only the bottom grille that got hit. Can you guys give me suggestions on how to fix it (insurance or not) since only a small portion of the grille was damaged (and some scratches on the bumper).

 

Pictures?????

 

Pictures would be a great help. Unless you are just amazing with written prose.

 

Here are the pics. I didnt see the damage done in the second pic till today

 

Sorry to see a banged up nebula gray.

Hope you can fix it easily and inexpensively.

 

I had to replace the grill on mine last month. The total at the dealers collision center was 260.

 

Wow I was expecting it to cost more. That's not as bad as I was predicting

 

The plastic grille, aside from being a huge eyesore to some, is another one of those "What was Lexus thinking?" moments. It's way too easy to damage. For those living in the snowbelt, there's probably little reason to replace a damaged grille until spring.

 

Lol. It has grown on me and I just pretend people don't see it as an eyesore. I've been driving around a lot for Christmas shopping and since there are a lot of Christmas shoppers out on the road, I can't count how many times people in the opposing traffic have stared at my grille as they pass by. Even shoppers passing by while I'm parked, have pointed at and chattered something about my car. It's kind of hilarious.

 

I have gotten the same attention ever since i got my car in July and even more now with more people driving around the malls. I even found a forehead mark on my driver side window the other day. Someone wanted a look inside my "Snow Bunny" . Overall i think the IS F Sport stands out a lot and people notices the IS3 more for the grill then anything else. She's one of a kind

 

Sorry about your grill BayArea420. I know it hurts when something like this happens. Hope you get her fix and back to the way she was before.

 

Since nobody seems to give ideas, let me give you one.

If you want to try to repair it yourself, I would suggest you figure out if the bumper can be placed back into shape as it looks it got a cut under it. Same thing with the grille, but I wouldn't take too much time fixing the grille as it is all the way down there and given the fact the design on the grille itself makes it perfect to hide defects, I would concentrate on fixing the painted section of the bumper.

Once you are done with placing the bumper back into position, then you need to clean up the scratches off the paint. Depending on how deep they are , you need to use either a soft polish compound or for very deep one, you might have to wet sand it and then gradually polish it using different compounds.

If the cut on the bumper is too visible, you would have to fix it with fiber glass, but that would require sanding, and re-painting which it would need to be done to the entire bumper more likely. In that case you are better off taking the car to the dealer or a shop and find out prices on both repairing it and replacing it.

Good luck.

 

That is not bad at all. Thanks for the info!

 

I think i'll just take it to a body shop, thank you for the ideas though

 

That must've been some greasy forehead! Lol.

I agree, the F-Sport grille makes it stand out - one of the main reasons I opted to get it over the non-F.