Stolen headlights from RX400h
#1
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Stolen headlights from RX400h
Last week, the headlights were stolen out of my RX400h. I drove to work and parked the car before I even noticed they were gone.
Yes, I parked the car on the street - but I live in Park Slope area of Brooklyn, which is nice in most respects, except there is NO garage space - anywhere. I'd have to walk 20 min and pay $375/mo for the closest garage.
The car is being fixed by the dealer right now. I am desperately trying to figure out how to prevent this from happening again - and was just told by the dealer's bodyshop that they can't install the grille guards on the car b/c it would interfere with the Synergy hybrid drive.
Any advice would be greatly appreciated.
Yes, I parked the car on the street - but I live in Park Slope area of Brooklyn, which is nice in most respects, except there is NO garage space - anywhere. I'd have to walk 20 min and pay $375/mo for the closest garage.
The car is being fixed by the dealer right now. I am desperately trying to figure out how to prevent this from happening again - and was just told by the dealer's bodyshop that they can't install the grille guards on the car b/c it would interfere with the Synergy hybrid drive.
Any advice would be greatly appreciated.
#2
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Originally Posted by russianmd
Last week, the headlights were stolen out of my RX400h. I drove to work and parked the car before I even noticed they were gone.
Yes, I parked the car on the street - but I live in Park Slope area of Brooklyn, which is nice in most respects, except there is NO garage space - anywhere. I'd have to walk 20 min and pay $375/mo for the closest garage.
The car is being fixed by the dealer right now. I am desperately trying to figure out how to prevent this from happening again - and was just told by the dealer's bodyshop that they can't install the grille guards on the car b/c it would interfere with the Synergy hybrid drive.
Any advice would be greatly appreciated.
Yes, I parked the car on the street - but I live in Park Slope area of Brooklyn, which is nice in most respects, except there is NO garage space - anywhere. I'd have to walk 20 min and pay $375/mo for the closest garage.
The car is being fixed by the dealer right now. I am desperately trying to figure out how to prevent this from happening again - and was just told by the dealer's bodyshop that they can't install the grille guards on the car b/c it would interfere with the Synergy hybrid drive.
Any advice would be greatly appreciated.
#3
Originally Posted by russianmd
Last week, the headlights were stolen out of my RX400h. I drove to work and parked the car before I even noticed they were gone.
Yes, I parked the car on the street - but I live in Park Slope area of Brooklyn, which is nice in most respects, except there is NO garage space - anywhere. I'd have to walk 20 min and pay $375/mo for the closest garage.
The car is being fixed by the dealer right now. I am desperately trying to figure out how to prevent this from happening again - and was just told by the dealer's bodyshop that they can't install the grille guards on the car b/c it would interfere with the Synergy hybrid drive.
Any advice would be greatly appreciated.
Yes, I parked the car on the street - but I live in Park Slope area of Brooklyn, which is nice in most respects, except there is NO garage space - anywhere. I'd have to walk 20 min and pay $375/mo for the closest garage.
The car is being fixed by the dealer right now. I am desperately trying to figure out how to prevent this from happening again - and was just told by the dealer's bodyshop that they can't install the grille guards on the car b/c it would interfere with the Synergy hybrid drive.
Any advice would be greatly appreciated.
i have read about some activists wanting to ban alarms in NYC, which is really ridicilous - aperantly they think thieves will steal your stuff anyway, it will just wake them up for no reason at all, lol :-).
#4
Lexus Test Driver
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If they want it they will get it. If you put any type of extra bracket on the car it will just be more damage after the thieves rip it out. It is very easy to steal the RX headlights as you found out. Like any other car it is just held on by a couple of bolts (3 or 4) and is mounted by plastic mounting tabs. A crowbar will easily rip that out breaking of the plastic tabs. This is no different than the Acura or Nissan mounting type as they as well use plastic mounting tabs on the headlight and (3-4) bolts. In fact, the RX has so much room it probably is easier for a thief to get their tools in and work. A thief is a theif and if they want your HID projector for a retrofit or to sell to those that want a retrofit they will continue to steal them. That is just the way it is. Cars with projector HIDs are more in demand than reflector HIDs, although the HID system itself is valuable and worth stealing to a thief. I believe someone posted that is only takes a matter of seconds to pop out the RX headlights. By looking at my RX330 headlights I can agree that someone probably can rip it out in under a minute, or maybe a little longer. Eitherway, a garage is your best bet, but still no garantee since you have to park at work or shopping or whatever. It's just an issue we will have to worry about until LED headlights get popular and thieves move on to that system and leave or HIDs alone.
Last edited by CK6Speed; 07-29-05 at 06:17 AM.
#5
Originally Posted by russianmd
Last week, the headlights were stolen out of my RX400h. I drove to work and parked the car before I even noticed they were gone.
Yes, I parked the car on the street - but I live in Park Slope area of Brooklyn, which is nice in most respects, except there is NO garage space - anywhere. I'd have to walk 20 min and pay $375/mo for the closest garage.
The car is being fixed by the dealer right now. I am desperately trying to figure out how to prevent this from happening again - and was just told by the dealer's bodyshop that they can't install the grille guards on the car b/c it would interfere with the Synergy hybrid drive.
Any advice would be greatly appreciated.
Yes, I parked the car on the street - but I live in Park Slope area of Brooklyn, which is nice in most respects, except there is NO garage space - anywhere. I'd have to walk 20 min and pay $375/mo for the closest garage.
The car is being fixed by the dealer right now. I am desperately trying to figure out how to prevent this from happening again - and was just told by the dealer's bodyshop that they can't install the grille guards on the car b/c it would interfere with the Synergy hybrid drive.
Any advice would be greatly appreciated.
Whatever happened to the fix Lexus was supposed to be working on?
This issue has been in a couple of articles a few months back but it seems that it is now forgotten.
I've asked my service adviser to let me know the minute Lexus has a fix.
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Originally Posted by cantsleepnk
Sorry to hear about your headlights.
Whatever happened to the fix Lexus was supposed to be working on?
This issue has been in a couple of articles a few months back but it seems that it is now forgotten.
I've asked my service adviser to let me know the minute Lexus has a fix.
Whatever happened to the fix Lexus was supposed to be working on?
This issue has been in a couple of articles a few months back but it seems that it is now forgotten.
I've asked my service adviser to let me know the minute Lexus has a fix.
When I called the dealer, he acted like it's the first time he'd ever heard of it - even though at their own body shop this was the third RX in three weeks that this has been done to.
BTW, the bodyshop people also told me that while the bracket will not preven the theft, it will deter it - it takes that much more effort and time to get the lights out, instead of a couple of minutes. So the suggestions for alarms are appreciated, but they are useless - since the vandals will be gone by the time anyone takes a look.
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#8
Lexus Test Driver
I'm sorry man, the same thing happened to me and my 01 LS430. The only thing I could do was go to my insurance company. I ended up out 1000K. It sucked. It happened about 2 months ago. Hope all goes well with your situation.
--John
--John
#10
Originally Posted by russianmd
I called Corporate customer service on Mon, and they told me they would get back to me within two business days - will post whatever they have to say when they call me back.
When I called the dealer, he acted like it's the first time he'd ever heard of it - even though at their own body shop this was the third RX in three weeks that this has been done to.
BTW, the bodyshop people also told me that while the bracket will not preven the theft, it will deter it - it takes that much more effort and time to get the lights out, instead of a couple of minutes. So the suggestions for alarms are appreciated, but they are useless - since the vandals will be gone by the time anyone takes a look.
When I called the dealer, he acted like it's the first time he'd ever heard of it - even though at their own body shop this was the third RX in three weeks that this has been done to.
BTW, the bodyshop people also told me that while the bracket will not preven the theft, it will deter it - it takes that much more effort and time to get the lights out, instead of a couple of minutes. So the suggestions for alarms are appreciated, but they are useless - since the vandals will be gone by the time anyone takes a look.
In fact anything you try to do will help - doing nothing will simply leave your unprotected and much easier target for the thieves. Alarm is just an first step so they cant continue to work in silence. And who knows, since your car is an proven target, they might come back again in a month or so...
You can see I sell alarms :-).
#11
Lexus Test Driver
Originally Posted by spwolf
Anything that makes theft harder will deter 95% of the thieves. Unless you live in particulary bad neighbourhood, where you would be too scared to take a look, alarm that goes off will prevent most thieves from acomplishing job. In fact, they probably wouldnt even attempt it. It takes a lot of heart to keep stealing from the car when you have 130db siren screaming in your ear. You can also get one of the pagers for your alarm so you would be alerted when it goes off.
In fact anything you try to do will help - doing nothing will simply leave your unprotected and much easier target for the thieves. Alarm is just an first step so they cant continue to work in silence. And who knows, since your car is an proven target, they might come back again in a month or so...
You can see I sell alarms :-).
In fact anything you try to do will help - doing nothing will simply leave your unprotected and much easier target for the thieves. Alarm is just an first step so they cant continue to work in silence. And who knows, since your car is an proven target, they might come back again in a month or so...
You can see I sell alarms :-).
#12
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Originally Posted by LeslieRC
learned two good lessons from my father's experiences with that car - you can't stop someone who is determined to mess with your stuff and if you park your car on the street, something will eventually happen to it .
Last edited by CK6Speed; 07-29-05 at 06:19 AM.
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I appreciate the sympathy from everyone. I totally agree that parking the car in a garage is the way to go - however, to pay $375/mo on top of the car payments and insurance is simply not an option. Frankly, I wouldn't have gotten the car if I knew that would have to be a fixed cost.
There were earlier threads about this happenning, including a newspaper article that quoted a woman blaming Lexus. She was ridiculed on the forum by a couple of people who said that it's not Lexus's fault for making a 'hot' item. True as that may be, Lexus has a responsibility to to its customers to make vehicles more secure - and by the time I got this car, certainly they've been aware of the problem for at least two years - since RX330 with HIDs hit the market.
From googling "Lexus stolen headlights", I've seen police reports with headlights stolen from cars in driveways, parking garages, streets, yards - basically anything short of private garage. Living in New York, even if I could spend $375/mo on a garage, that's still not a guarantee that the car will be safe when I go out to dinner.
As you can see by my handle, I am a doctor - and really hate overly litigious people. But this incident (and yes, this is my first NICE car ever) makes me feel angry enough that I think state of NJ was right for suing Nissan for the same problem.
There were earlier threads about this happenning, including a newspaper article that quoted a woman blaming Lexus. She was ridiculed on the forum by a couple of people who said that it's not Lexus's fault for making a 'hot' item. True as that may be, Lexus has a responsibility to to its customers to make vehicles more secure - and by the time I got this car, certainly they've been aware of the problem for at least two years - since RX330 with HIDs hit the market.
From googling "Lexus stolen headlights", I've seen police reports with headlights stolen from cars in driveways, parking garages, streets, yards - basically anything short of private garage. Living in New York, even if I could spend $375/mo on a garage, that's still not a guarantee that the car will be safe when I go out to dinner.
As you can see by my handle, I am a doctor - and really hate overly litigious people. But this incident (and yes, this is my first NICE car ever) makes me feel angry enough that I think state of NJ was right for suing Nissan for the same problem.
#14
Lexus Test Driver
Originally Posted by russianmd
There were earlier threads about this happenning, including a newspaper article that quoted a woman blaming Lexus. She was ridiculed on the forum by a couple of people who said that it's not Lexus's fault for making a 'hot' item. True as that may be, Lexus has a responsibility to to its customers to make vehicles more secure - and by the time I got this car, certainly they've been aware of the problem for at least two years - since RX330 with HIDs hit the market.
As you can see by my handle, I am a doctor - and really hate overly litigious people. But this incident (and yes, this is my first NICE car ever) makes me feel angry enough that I think state of NJ was right for suing Nissan for the same problem.
As you can see by my handle, I am a doctor - and really hate overly litigious people. But this incident (and yes, this is my first NICE car ever) makes me feel angry enough that I think state of NJ was right for suing Nissan for the same problem.
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So two business days have passed - no word from Lexus Corporate. I called them, was told someone would get back to me right away. Nothing for another day. Called them again - the person 'in charge of the case' is away until next week.
Nice, huh?
Nice, huh?