pumptech

On Saturday, December 3, I put down a $500 deposit to have a new unowned 2016 Lexus from a Lexus dealer in Austin to Lexus in my area for purchase. I am the first owner of the car and it had 55 miles at the time of purchase. The car would be a Christmas present for my wife. By Monday, December 5, it had arrived and I had gotten a message saying the car “is finished with our inspection”. Later that night my wife and I went to the dealership to take a look. Little did she know the financing, pre-approval, negotiation, and such was already handled and we were really going to pick it up.




At first glance the car is beautiful no doubt. However, after one lap around the car I noticed some blatant scratches on the passenger "C pillar" as well as some imperfections and such on the hood and a few other spots. The salesman assured me these could be buffed out and I agreed they looked like they could, so we went ahead and went back to finance and signed the papers. It had gotten late and was past closing time at this point so we agreed to leave the car for the night and pick it up on Tuesday, December 6. However, by 1530 on the 6th I was notified that they had found quite a few other spots that needed some work so they needed the rest of the day to wrap it up. This immediately got me suspicious so I drove over to talk with someone and they showed me some pictures of the car covered in wax pencil. The markings basically entailed most of the car and was therefore receiving a full polish. I felt ok and thought it would probably be ok at this point.


When we arrived to pick the car up on Wednesday, December 7 it was during the day this time and it really opened my eyes up to some bigger problems. Immediately, I noticed that the hood in particular among other panels was full of scratches, scuffs, swirls, and little splotches that look like water marks but wouldn’t come off. This is all AFTER a polish and yet all these things still remain. It’s clear the splotches are in the clear coat at this point. The "C pillar" looked better but the hood took my focus and was a real mess. I told my Izzy that the car, and hood in particular, looked far worse at this point. He agreed, and said I should take it home for the weekend and bring it back on Monday, December 12 for more buffing and such. Excited to take it home we did just that.


Over that weekend, I put the car in the garage under my LED lights and used a flashlight for a closer look. To my amazement, every panel of the car had not only swirls in the paint, but linear scratches everywhere. Also, the hood was far worse than what I had seen in the daylight, and again this was after Lexus had polished the whole car. I got out my wax pencil and marked all the areas of concern. There literally wasn't a panel that wasn't marked.


After stewing over the ordeal and the preliminary polishing I began to wonder how much more polishing could be done before the clear coat was compromised. The very next morning I scheduled an appointment at a local paint and body shop where the head technician that looked at it is a Lexus and Toyota certified repairman. Upon simply approaching the car he said that it was really a mess and that he could tell that the car had already been significantly polished. He also noted that in his opinion, no reputable paint shop would polish this car again for fear of cutting through the clear coat. He said to tell them to take it back and confirmed some of my suspicions.
Straight from there, on Monday, December 12 my wife drove the car to Lexus and dropped it off to the sales manage.. He said he would call us by the end of the day with some updates. On my way to work I had my salesman get the GM to give me a call. I explained the ordeal to him so he would be on the same page. He was very sympathetic and agreed he would likely have taken the same steps if he was me. He also explained the complexity of unwinding such a deal in Texas. He asked me to give them a chance to take a look at it and see what could be done and keep him briefed on any updates as well. By the end of the day I had not heard from the sales manager so I texted my salesperson at 5:48pm to see if he knew anything. He still has not responded. The next day, Tuesday December 13, I called the sales manager twice and left messages regarding the progress of the car. In that same late afternoon after never hearing back from the sales manager, I called the GM and left a message explaining that nobody was calling me back. I finally got a text back from a separate sales guy after I told him about all the calls and messages I had made to this point to no avail. He did confirm the car was still in paint and body. This raised some significant concern.



By the afternoon on Wednesday, December 14, I still had not heard from a single person so I was very suspicious as to what exactly was going on. I decided to go to the body shop Lexus had sent the car to. It is on the same grounds as the actual dealership. When I arrived and explained who I was, they quickly called over to the dealer to let them know I was there. Nobody ever came over. The paint and body associate took me out to where the car was and explained that it was all done and ready to go. It only needed to be cleaned up some to get the polishing compound out of the cracks and such. He further explained that the entire car had been wet-sanded and then followed with a 3 step polishing process. I expressed my concern about such a paint correction and questioned how much clear coat could be left on the car. As well, I relayed what the body shop had said. I explained with such a repair on such an expensive car I had no intention of taking the car at this point. He agreed that this was an uncommon repair for a new car and that if he were me he would not take the car back either. Again, nobody from the dealership came over to advise. From here I left from work and called the GM letting him know the car had now been polished once by Lexus and now wet-sanded and 3 step polish by the collision center and that I was no longer interested in the car. He texted back in a few minutes that he was in a meeting and would call when he got out. To no surprise, he did not.

By mid-afternoon on Thursday, December 15, I still had not heard from a single person. I called the GM and explained that I would be off the next day by 2:00 – 3:00pm and to have papers drawn up to buy the car back.



On Friday, December 16, I heard absolutely nothing from anyone and couldn’t have cared less about digging into it at that point. Finally, today, December 17 around 2pm I got a call from from another sales person that the car was ready. With no intention of picking the car up I went straight to the dealership to find that the GM was not there. The salesman that had called had no idea of the ordeal and was unaware that I had told the GM I would not be accepting the car and that I had asked for papers to be drawn up to sell the car back to the dealer. From there I spoke with the sales manager who said he never got any of my messages. Never mind the fact that he told my wife he would call the same day it was dropped off with updates, and “clearly” nobody must not have asked him why he hadn’t ever called back. He told me that he had shown a colleague his voice mails that showed no messages from me. By this admission, he clearly knew from someone I had tried to call, yet made no attempt on his part to clear up any misconception of voice mails. As well, the sales manager did not admit to being aware that I had no plans to take the car back and that I had asked the GM to arrange a buy back of the car. Sales manager further explained that any options at this point would be beyond his control and that only the GM could arrange those things. I additionally asked who the regional manager was. He told me he did not know who it was and had no contact information other than his name was “Pat”.



In one last effort, I called GM's cell phone to have him come to the dealership to sort things out. He did not answer. I later texted him to ask again that he arranges a buy back. He responded very quickly that he was at a funeral and would talk with me tomorrow (Sunday, 18th) or Monday the 19th.



I am not sure how the paint got damaged. If the damage was there all along, I think Lexus should have spotted it easily. They then should have informed me that they had received the car from Austin not as they had expected and that they could not sell it to me. This leads me to believe that the scratches came from the detail and subsequent polish further damaged the entire car. However, this does not explain the “water marks” in the clear coat that were obviously a defect from the factory and wouldn’t be caused by a bad detail or even incorrect polishing. I also have no doubt that the dealer would not have disclosed the wet-sand and 3 step polish had I not gone to the body shop myself for investigation. They never updated me on what sort of correction was to be done nor did they have my permission to use such an invasive paint correction. It is my intention at this time to return the car for a full refund including tax, title, license, interest accrued, and extended warranty/protection plan purchase. In addition, this has been a Christmas present that has been totally ruined by their incompetence and illusive behavior.

mmarshall

Welcome to CL.

Sorry you had to go through such a run-around and bad experience....I hope you and your wife have a Happy Holiday in spite of a ruined Christmas present. What you describe seems to be quite unusual on a brand-new Lexus, as Lexus and Audi have some of the best paint jobs in the business. What happened to the paint, though, is not necessarily a factory defect. It could (?) have happened on the process of being transported from the factory to the dealer, or from being exposed to some of those severe storms that Austin sometimes gets blowing things into the paint....or even to road debris from a previous test-drive.

I'll give you two suggestions. First, if you decide to look at any other Lexus products, here is the location of the next closest Lexus dealership, so you won't have to deal with those bozos any more at Lexus of Austin....you could try Lexus of Lakeway, which is just a few miles west of there, up in the hills, out by Mansfield Dam (I know the Austin area fairly well, having once lived there).

http://www.lexusoflakeway.com/?refer...xus-of-lakeway

Second, for minor scratches stains, blotches, discolorations, spots, swirls, etc......that don't go too deep into the clearcoat, you don't even have to screw around with technicians or body-shops. I have found SCRATCH-OUT liquid (which typically runs $4-5 a bottle), to do a superb job of buffing out the minor surface stuff. it basically goes o like wax...shake the bottle, put some on a damp or dry soft rag, make sure the affected area is clean, and just rub into the affected area, wait a few seconds, and wipe the haze right off. Sometimes, it will take a couple of attempts, or some harder rubbing, to get out more stubborn stuff (I recently had to rub very hard for several minutes to get out some bird-dropping splotch/deformation). Or, it it doesn't take deeper stuff out entirely, it makes it less noticeable. It is not a wax, of course, and will actually remove wax...but it leaves a baby-butt-smooth polished surface on the paint. often just like new. Of course, really deep stuff, or stuff through the paint, will still need a body shop. But, for a lot of minor everyday irritations/imperfections in the paint, SCRATCH OUT will do a nice job.



(Make sure, of course, that you get the Scratch-Out scratch-remover and not the rubbing compound...the rubbing compound WILL screw things up)

http://www.formula1wax.com/products/...-reg-liquid-51

97-SC300

iTrader: (17)

Sadly this is a sight we see all the time.

I am guessing it was a dark colored car? Jet black, dark blue, etc.?

Lexus paint tends to be on the soft side (although far from the worst). The problem is not only in the soft paint, but the lack of care taken by the people touching the paint. Most people, including dealerships and 99% of car wash places only care about getting the car clean, with almost zero regard to safely removing dirt. A proper wash for one person with a 2-bucket method, pressure washing, pre-rinse foaming would easily take 1-2hrs from start to finish on a fairly dirty car if you include the time to wash wheels inside and out, wheel wells and wipe the jambs. All these places are doing this process in probably a 1/5 of that time so naturally the process they use will include skipping some steps, rushing through other steps, and just a general rushed, uncared-for procedure. The end result is you get a bunch of swirl marks, RIDS (random isolated deep scratches) similar to the straight scratches you've described, water spots (if car is washed in the sun or indoors and left to dry on its own using hard water, chemicals, etc.), streaks, so on and so forth

Avoiding all of this takes time and you'll be lucky to find someone who will care for your car this way. That's why people with enough passion and the time just skip everyone and do it themselves.

You're not alone, we have had thousands of customers with similar stories (we are a high-end detailing service in Illinois) about getting a brand new car in this condition. We always say that, if allowed, to take the car straight to us to do a new car prep, which involves the removing of all protective film, carefully removing all adhesive residue without scratching the edges of the panels, removing all stickers, etc. Dealerships often times have a 16 year old kid doing alot of these tasks paying minimum wage so you can assume most of them do not care about being super careful. The typical process is as follows (and what I believe happened here)...

1. Car comes in and is driven off the truck.
2. Kid removes all protective film, scratches a bunch of panels in the process.
3. Removes the obvious spots of adhesive residue without the proper chemicals and often times using an aggressive not-paint safe towel with too much pressure and scrubbing... this scratches the paint VERY easily.
4. Car is washed, 9/10 times improperly with dirty rags and water, not TOP-to-BOTTOM hence causing swirl marks and more RIDS. If not dried in time, water spots develop which cannot be wiped off (depending on the area and how hard their water is).
5. They realize you can't give a customer a car looking like that so they run it to their detail department/bodyshop out back and have their guy run a quick "buffer wheel" LOL over it to make the paint shiny and fill in some of the damage they've caused.
6. If you're really unlucky, the buffer guy won't mask any trim and if he's really stupid use too much product that just fills all the cracks and crevices, emblems, with compound or heavy wax/glaze. You'd be lucky if they don't stain unpainted trim (which happens alot).
7. After buffing, the car looks shiny, but is filled with holograms, micromarring, haze, and machine induced swirl marks from not finishing down properly, using dirty buffer pads, dirty towels, etc.

We see this time and time again. It's because organizations like that exist, that the company I work for exists and I have a job. Because people bring us these cars to fix and do it correctly. It could cost way north of $1000 for a proper paint correction and quite a bit more if we have to fix previous work and/or get into add-on paint protective coatings and other services. Sadly, most people are okay with getting cars in this condition from the dealer. If your car was a metallic white, silver, metallic beige or a similar color, you'd probably not even have this problem, that's why I am betting your vehicle is 100% jet black, or a similar dark color metallic/solid paint. Those paints show everything and even one bad hand wash can destroy it.

I know this isn't helping much. I think your next step is to find a local high-end paint correction specialist, explain the situation and have them measure your paint with a paint thickness gauge to really see how much paint is left on there. If they truly wetsanded it and it's been buffed that many times, the paint reading should be super low (under 3mils for sure would be my guess).

Don't listen to the bodyshop guy that said "no reputable shop would polish your car JUST because it looks like it's already been buffed", that guy is borderline moron and has no clue what this business is all about, take it to a place that can measure how much material is left to work with, you can't make claims like that just by looking at a car.

We've seen cars with super deep scratches all over, completely FK'd turn out amazing and 98% perfect, and other older cars with light swirls that look like you can restore, but not enough material to work with or do anything with to improve because paint is so thin.If that's the situation, you can present the dealer or Lexus Corporate that you received a brand new vehicle with less than substantial amount of clearcoat to last the life of the vehicle. Even if you don't have any burn spots on the paint from their current work, the point is, they thinned out your paint to the point of it now being very vulnerable to premature clearcoat failure down the line. You're in Texas, so with the heat in that area, having thin clear might spell big trouble for you in a few years down the road.

Google search: CQ Finest, Opti-Coat Pro, Modesta installers in your area. Typically shops that use those products have a wide range of knowledge on paint correction, taking paint readings, etc. Look at various shops and pick one with the best and most trusted reviews/feedback. Take it to that shop, have them measure every panel and go from there.

Have an expert check it, NOT some lazy guy that just eye ***** it and tells you his opinion as fact.

Good luck.

Allen K

iTrader: (4)

You've given them enough opportunities, I'd escalate to corporate

pumptech

and thats more of my point tho i did not really ask any direct question. my question is do i have much of a case to argue here? i did drive the damn thing home for the weekend.

I wrote the above over the weekend but did drop in and catch the GM today as he never called back. I did voice record all that was said today. I will update with more detail on what was discussed but in general, he reiterated what he had already said the first and only time i talked to him regarding the complexity of reversing a sale like this. He kept referring to it as a cooling off period. i disagree, i don't think I'm being unreasonable. I understand it may be complex, but i don't give a damn about that. What i want to know is...is it possible. the answer to that i gather is yes but makes it expensive for them. He said he thought he was clear about reversing the sale, and between that and him having bigger fish to fry, thats why he did not call me back for a week. he made these comments at the same time my wife was driving to take the car back. they hadn't even seen it at that point and didn't know how sever it was. he was trying to tell me that whatever was in the clear coat was not a manufacture defect in the paint. I disagree. If it takes a buff job, and a wet-sand/3 step compound to get it out its not a simple repair. he also tried to tell me they most likely put new clear coat on the car and that clear coat is just a wax. i let him know i wasn't falling for that.

He said if he bought it back it would be 15% less and i would eat the tax. lets just say this wasn't one of the $50-$70k models. I'm not gonna eat that much. he also hinted but came short of confirming getting me in to something else same or lesser value would avoid either of us eating the tax. Problem is iv got a pretty sour taste in my mouth at the moment and i don't think I'm gonna do the same car. he also said that the first time we talked about this he thought he was clear of how difficult a reversal was. He explained that between this and him having bigger fish to fry is why he hasn't called me back in a week.

I plan on meeting with a lawyer in the morning and see what my options are. I just don't know. He may be more accommodating at this point than i am aware of and he may have dug himself into a whole. I just don't know. in my opinion, whoever did the first buff job to get the scratches out the day after i bought it ruined the whole car.

Htony

Sorry to say this. If you signed the bill of sale? Then the car is yours making things more difficult. If you hire lawyer it'd costs time and lawyer's fee. And your wife ,
fun of getting new car is not there by now. Hope the issue is resolved soon before year's end. Looks like this sort of things happen more often with custom ordered vehicles. My idea of buying car is to buy what I see. It does not have to be brand new. Most paint is clear coated. to protects paint.

pumptech

yeh, it may be that simple. the lawyer is a good friends practice partner so it may not be that painful on that side. my perspective is that the car and paint is under warranty and basically it has been corrected to less than factory. My other perspective is that when they buffed the car the first time they jacked it up so bad that it needed the wet stand and 3 step. it also appears that the 'water marks" or whatever in the clear coat is a factory defect. There is lemon law in texas, i just don't know if these issues will qualify it or not. The ****ty customer service is pretty irrelevant in the scheme of things. It can honestly only be about the clear coat and/or lack there of.

S2000toIS350

What dealer did you use?

if it wasn't Sewell, maybe you can take the car to them to get it sorted out.

Mike728

I'm sorry you're going through this ordeal. I hope it doesn't ruin your Christmas.

As other's have said, the water marks are not a factory defect. That can happen under the right (wrong) circumstances in less than a day. As 97-SC300 advised above, take it to a reputable detail shop and see what they have to say. If they come back with a quote and can guarantee a proper finish, take the quote to the dealer and ask for a refund of that amount. If they come back and say the paint is too thin, get that in writing and use that as buyback leverage. Securing a lawyer was also a smart decision, sadly.

Good luck and keep us updated!

pumptech

Was at a Houston area dealer.

pumptech

My my lawyer friend said under no circumstances sign anything or take the car home.

also, the "water marks"is just the term I'm using because that the best description I could give. Recall, they did not come out with the initial polish done by the dealer. I t was only after the body shop did the wet sand and buff that the marks came out.

mmarshall

"Water" marks, BTW, (or water spots) are usually due to acid rain or some other substance that mixes in with rain water and corrodes at least the the surface layers of the paint....sometimes deeper. It is common downwind from industrial areas and large power-plants that emit a lot of pollutants.

Aron9000

They can also occur if you have really hard water(like well water with lots of calcium, iron, etc) and wash the car but let water dry on it.

pumptech

Again im just calling them water marks because that the best description I have. I do not think the were water marks. Some in fact were Toni clusters of bubbles in the clear coat.

mmarshall

Yes, if they are actual bubbles in the paint, that is a sign of either a goof at the factory or a poor re-paint job.