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Just happened to me last week. Car is 3 months old -- Lexus of Stevens Creek refused to replace the screen -- said it was my fault. Opened a complaint with corporate and they are dragging their feet making a decision. Never touched the screen with anything.
How can this be anything other than a defect?
My first Lexus and will be my last if they refuse to replace.
how did it happen? It shouldn't happen (from what I know) unless it's touched somehow and you mention you never touched the screen.
Can you bring it back to Stevens Creek and ask them to use a damp microfiber cloth and wipe the screen as if removing a smudge and there should be more marks showing up after that.
Just happened to me last week. Car is 3 months old -- Lexus of Stevens Creek refused to replace the screen -- said it was my fault. Opened a complaint with corporate and they are dragging their feet making a decision. Never touched the screen with anything.
How can this be anything other than a defect?
My first Lexus and will be my last if they refuse to replace.
same here if i don't get the screen replaced. my case manager has been out since Friday so I don't have any updates yet. good luck and let us know how it goes.
The marks appear to be behind the surface of the screen. They returned the car to me with a haze on the screen -- clearly they tried wiping it with something. The haze wasn't there when I dropped it off. I let them know that -- thankfully I had "before" pictures. Here's what it looked like when I got it back.
No clue -- wife's car. They said carwash probably did it with overspray from cleaning the inside the windshield. Not sure how they can prove that.
I looked through the owner's and nav manuals -- nowhere does it say how to (or how not to) clean the nav screen. It also doesn't say to not wash the inside of the windshield for fear of damaging the nav screen.
Either way, it's a defect and should be replaced under warranty. The fact that wasn't the automatic answer infuriates me.
This is a big problem I found, especially with Japanese products. Just like how dithering is a colour enhancer for colours on a LCD display, the Japanese like to use the coatings on the surface of the display to increase contrast and decrease reflectivity.
My Sony Cyber-shot camera also suffered from this:
They said the reason they wouldn't replace it was because it was behind the screen. Go figure.
I want to reply with what I'm thinking...but the site probably bans those words...
that argument from them would drive me crazy
The car wash company may have tried to clean the screen (wipe it down), but whatever they used, if you went to Lexus and asked if it's ok, they would probably say "yes, that won't hurt it"
try this:
use paper to cover the left half of the screen, then wipe the right side with a damp microfiber towel and see if the problem increases. If it does, take it back to Lexus and have them repeat the same test on the left side.
Got a call from the corporate office this morning. The representative I had been working with has been very nice and helpful all along. He informed me that that the defective screen will be replaced under warranty.
He also told me that decision was made last week and asked if the dealer had contacted me to make arrangements for the repair (according to him, they were supposed to). They have not.
While I am happy with the outcome, I am frustrated with the process to get here. It should not take an appeal to the corporate office to get a clearly defective part replaced under warranty on a 3 month old car.
The car wash company may have tried to clean the screen (wipe it down), but whatever they used, if you went to Lexus and asked if it's ok, they would probably say "yes, that won't hurt it"
...which is why I developed this custom microfibre NX Screen Cover to use whenever I visit my car washing/detailing place.
...which is why I developed this custom microfibre to use whenever I visit my car washing/detailing place.
Well, that's neat, but it shouldn't necessary. I've had nav screens in cars dating back 10+ years (Nissan, Infiniti, Honda, BMW) and I have never had any issue with the screen being affected by something happening at a car wash. Have you?
If Lexus wanted us to pay attention not to damage the screen from cleaning it or the windshield, then why isn't there a clear warning in the owner's manual? As I said in an above post, I searched through the entire owners manual and nav manual and there is no mention of how to (or not to) clean the nav screen or the windshield. There is no warning that it could be damaged if done improperly (assuming common sense is followed). Given this, Lexus rightly assumes that owners will follow "typical" methods for cleaning the inside of their cars (including going to the car wash) and not expect anything to happen to the nav screen.
Clearly this issue, while infrequent, is certainly not isolated. It points to a defect in the design of the screen (by using a coating susceptible to commonly used cleaning techniques and/or allowing liquid ingress behind the front glass due to incidental overspray when cleaning the inside of the car).
Update -- Lexus corporate decided to replace my screen under warranty, which was the only logical outcome. Hopefully anyone else with this issue gets the same response.
05-16-16, 12:18 PM
