russianmd

So far, the only offer they made to me was to reimburse my 1k insurance deductible. When I asked the general manager of the dealership about trade-in value for a car without HIDs (and lower profile, e.g. ES330), he told me $35k for my RX400h... For a car that was sold to me at sticker price, and with less than 2000 miles.

So I am still not sure what to do. Meanwhile, I've been taking the subway and thinking that not having a car in NYC is not such a tragedy afterall. I may be losing quite a chunk of money, but gaining a piece of mind. This has taking far too much energy - I'd rather spend my monthly installments in nice dinners and cabs, which may soon be Lexus RX400hs in New York!

The arbitration service, by the way, said that since this was not a product defect, but a 'design issue', they would not consider my case.

LeslieRC

Sounds like you're beginning to see some good beyond this situation. It's interesting how cars can be the source of such extreme feelings and emotions - joy, pride, anger, frustration, etc. - and all becoming apparent within relatively short time frames. I am stunned (but not totally surprised) that the dealer is so obviously trying to take advantage of your situation. If you decide to sell and that's the best they can offer, you would do much better selling it outright. It looks like the perception I had that Lexus was being more responsive to your situation is also incorrect. For what it's worth, it would seem that you have a lot of supporters (including myself) on this forum. Good luck! Please continue to keep us apprised. By the way, my recollection and present sense is that a owning a car in NYC is a huge headache - parking, cost of insurance, parking, vandalism (which is the occurrence with your car), parking, etc.

katzjamr

Can the kit and the data dots be installed even if i have the thin plastic protection applie deflect rock chips??? thanks for all your help in advance.

russianmd

In case anyone cares, I am going to start a blog to vent this some more - freedom of speech, and all. And a lot of bitterness. Right now, no one returns my phone calls - not even the bodyshop, even though they still have the car.

http://suckylexus.blogspot.com/

CK6Speed

iTrader: (1)

You have my support. I don't care what comapny it is or even it it is Lexus. If you are not satisfied with the product and the customer service you have every right to speak your mind. Hopefully you will reach a large audience and maybe Lexus will take note. Personally I don't think they care.

russianmd

Agreed - I don't think they care. But this corporate indifference should not be acceptable. I deal with insurance companies all the time who deny payments for treatment they deem 'unnecessary.' This is done by people who have never seen my patients, who simply look at the diagnostic code (not even the chart itself) submitted to them.

Why should the big corporations always be on the winning side? I can at least be on the whining side!

LexRexBlue

It's a shame. I've had terrific caring from the dealership. When the dealership and I couldn't figure a problem on my old RX they and I submitted it to corporate Lexus for answers which never came. Instead, I received a call from what sounded like a japanese person at headquarters describing something totally different! I told him that wasn't my issue and complained to Lexus that if they were having someone look into things they needed to make sure the person could communicate! Eventually, the dealer figured out the answer to the problem themselves. To this day, the goodwill I receive is truly at my dealer's end. I have nothing but praise for them. They do make sure all is as terrific as it can be. There motto is that there really is a difference.They were the ones who installed my Data Dots. Just a note--I was never notified by Lexus headquarters about the existence of data dots and I'm not holding my breath.

koolaidman

how in the world did ur head lights get stolen. u have to remove the bumper and have the hood open to get them out

caha14

Dude, you haven't heard? Crooks bend whatever metal they need to around the lights, i.e. hood and fenders, and pry the lights out. The amount of damage varies from case to case.

This has been common with the RX, the Acura TL (2nd generation, 99-03), and the Nissan Maxima.

CK6Speed

iTrader: (1)

You are thinking like a service tech who does things the correct way and not like a thief who takes a crowbar and rips it out in under a minute. Serioussly, it is that easy and what they are after is the projector within the headlight casing so damage to the car or even headlight itself is no bid deal as they will open it up and discard everything but the projector itself. This has been a problem on various HID equiped cars for years.

koolaidman

lol i didnt even think of it that way.

krpster

It is certainly an unforunate series of events that have caused this issue to erupt. Underhanded criminals, furious owners, scrambling designers and manufacturers, dealerships and call centers stuck in the middle. Definitely and emotionally charged situation.

Is this problem a defect? No. The halogens are constructed in the same way and there is no problem. Is this a serious problem? Yes. Is Lexus trying to correct this issue? Yes.

Unfortunately due to the nature of automotive design, testing and manufacture it takes time to develop and implement changes to a production vehicle. Pleasde consider that first a countermeasure has to be developed. Then a viable design has to be established that will adequately fix the problem, that will work on the current vehicle, can be retrofit to the vehicles in the field and also be carried forward to the next model. Once complete prototype parts must be fabricated and tested in all of the above scenarios. Once proven the parts then must go out for tender to suitable suppliers who then have to design and procure tooling, equipment and facilities to manufacture the parts. Logistics of component delivery has to be setup and then a substantial pipeline of parts must be accumulated for all of the production facilities globally as well as the parts centers for the in-field retrofit. Meanwhile the production facilities must prepare for the additional work required to install the new components and procure and setup tooling as well. All in all a lengthy process that simply can't happen overnight.

It is dissapointing to hear that they are giving you such terrible service. I have had similar instances with the body shop portion of the dealer I used to go to. The service side was great but I got the same kind of treatment from the body side....no calls, messages ignored, etc. I hope that you don't write off Lexus as a result of this dealership. Is there another that can be used?

krpster

There are two portions to this fix:

• The addition of a steel bracket
• The addition of ID labels/dots

The bracket
This bracket is intended for two purposes

• Reduce the ability to remove the headlamp from the car
• Cause the headlamp to "self destruct" if it is removed

The bracket attaches to the bottom of the ballast (at the bottom of the assembly) and to the body at the fender. If someone tries to force out the headlamp the plastic tabs may break but the steel bracket will hold. If further pressure is applied the bracket stays firm to the fender and the ballast will break away from the headlamp assembly and will cause premanent damage to the unit making it unusable/unsellable.

The ID marks
The intent of the marks is to allow for tracability of the headlamp to it's original vehicle. This data is linked to the VIN. The problem in the past is that theives caught with a set of headlamps in their arms could not be charged since it could not be proven that they did not belong to the individual, even if the defaced vehicle was just down the street. If the cops did not physically catch them in the act then they had no recourse but to let them go.

The downside to both of these countermeasure is of course that in the short term is does not prevent headlamps from continuing to be stolen and or damaged. However, in the long term these deterents will greatly reduce the number of thefts since the RX headlamps will no longer be considered "easy to steal" and theives will move on to the Nissan down the street.

CK6Speed

iTrader: (1)

If I understand this corectly this still doesn't address the problem. The thieves don't care about damaging the headlight casing itself anyway. They are after the projector within the headlight casing which shouldn't get damaged at all. Well, let my amend that. There are two thieves. The 1st is those that want the projector to sell to those that want to do HID retrofits. The 2nd is the thief that wants parts to sell to those victoms that got their headlights ripped off in the first place. So, I guess you can stop one set off thieves but the primary reason why the lights are desirable to steal is still there. I've been keeping up with HID stuff since late 98 or so. The RX330 HID IMHO is desireable because of its good cut off. S2000 HIDs are desirable because of its color and sheer brightness. Older TL/CL and other HIDs that use refector type optics are NON desirable because it doesn't have the projector. The system itself nowdays are cheap on the aftermarket that the hardware (Ballsat/Ignitor and D2S/R) are not as desirable as it used to be although there iss still a demand.


Again, I may be misunderstanding the data dots but it doesn't seem toa address the problem. Does that data dots go on the prokector itself? I can't see how they can do that since that would require Lexus to open up the headlight casing. When a cop pulls over an guy in a Civic with a HID retrofit using a an RX330 projector, how is the cop going to know if the data dots are scrappeed along with the casing? All they will see is the front of the projector.

The other idea that another RX330 owner would be running around with stolen headlights which probably has broken mounting tabs is also kind of odd. It sounds like Lexus/Toyota Coporate still doesn't understand the "Why" it iss being stolen and the "How" the stolen parts are being used.

Now, I'm not all bad news The brakets does sound like it will make it harder to pysically remove the headlight. The question is now how visable is that to a potential thief? If a thief comes up to one of these beefed up headlights on an RX with his crowbar, will he reallize before he takes action or will he find out after he already tried to rippped it out damaging the headlight, hood and fenders? Either way you are left with a half broken headlight and body damage. The only difference is the headlights will still be there and may or may not be reusable.

Over all I do give Lexus/Toyota credit for at least trying to address the problem even if personally I think they are still on the wrong track.

krpster

I think that the RX and the Nissan units are so desireable is that the headlamp assembly comes complete with the projector and the balast and are easy to steal in one piece. Unlike other cars like BMW that have the balast mounted separately from the projector (on the fender, etc). The projector on its own doesn't work very well without the factory balast.
The intent isn't to catch someone after they have already refit the components into another car. It is to identify the units immediately following theft as I outlined in my previous post.
I think maybe you misread my post