chbow

Hi, my 07 ES UL has started to peel at the edge of the glass of the rear roof panel. It was originally just at the rear corner and I assumed it must have been scratched and the due to dryness started to peel. Then I noticed it at the other rear corner. I asked them to look at it at the dealer and the service advisor told me it was from the UV rays which dried it out, and not to worry about it. I bought and applied einszett gummi pflege stift to those corners and all seemed well. Now that it got colder here in NY the corners again began to pop up but today I see it's started to pop out very much in the middle of the panel which seemed fine before!! The SA had told me that this (gasket, molding?) comes attached to the roof and to fix it I'd have to replace the panel! I'm scared my UL is sick of the panoramic roof just for show and wants to be able to open anyone ever hear of / seen this? Any advice? Thanks!

chbow

Here's some pics of the original issue

garsarno

I would take it to a reputable windshield shop for an evaluation.

scfz1000

i had a similar issue on my 2007....i just used JB weld to hold the piece back in place...and plan to colour the jb weld " black" when i get a chance to make it blend in.

your right you have to replace the whole piece which sucks.

chbow

Thanks for your response, to be honest I was really hoping that you or some other senior members would say "ah the old roof problem, no big deal..." but I am planning on finding a good place to ask, thanks.

chbow

Wow ok, at least I'm not the first! I hear you on the JB, I had thought more along the lines of a glass shop using some type of caulk. Now that it's started to pop off in the middle where before it was perfect its no longer a simple patch job, though. I'll add some pics of what I woke up to yesterday and why I'm pretty freaked out... I just emailed Lexus also to see what they'll say.

chbow

As promised... That's smack in middle of the panel, by the way

scfz1000

wow can't explain that last picture...mine were more like the first pictures you showed. Also mine were on the sunroof piece that opens up so it was easy to access for me to repair.

xanderES

iTrader: (8)

I have not ever owned a UL, but i can tell you that this will not be a cheap repair. Even if you had an extended warranty this wouldnt be covered as it is a "wear and tear item."
I would think that this would be in line with replacing the moonroof rubber seal. Im not sure, but id assume the process would be the same for the panoramic roof removal. To accomplish this you would need to remove the seats, steering wheel, all the interior trim, the dashboard, the headliner, as well as possibly the side curtain airbags and moonroof drain lines. On top of all this lthere will also be a relatively high chance of creasing the headliner. Youre looking at ~700-1k at just labor getting to the seal on top of actually removing the panoramic roof and whether or not they sell the rubber seal seperately.
If these processes for removal are indeed the same, you're looking at something very similar to what I just explained.

chbow

I know, the corners were at least plausible, I figured the stress started cracking the piece, but this seems whatever was holding it to the glass just gave and somehow there seems to be more in the loop than could fit! Maybe it's compressed when attached?

chbow

Wow, to be clear and I don't know if this changes anything but this is the rear glass panel. As far as I know (from the dealer and looking at Sewell) they don't sell this separately it's part of the glass itself. At this point I really don't know what I should do. I haven't spoken to any good glass people yet though.

garsarno

That's why I have turned into such an advocate for the extended warranty. The majority of the time, there are no simple, reasonable fixes. Everything is a module part and the whole part must be replaced. But it is worth some effort to have different evaluations done just to see if it a plausible repair, especially if the car is out of any kind of warranty.

BC93

Sorry to pop on here late. I'm still shopping and considering the UL package. Came back to the forum to research some more. I wondered if there were any things to look out for with the panoramic roof. I was specifically interested in cracking or damage from falling items: acorns, hail and such. I hadn't even considered if/when the gaskets might go bad. I saw a post on another forum where a member was quoted $2700 in 2008 for glass replacement.

Would be very interested to hear back from chbow on how things worked out.

garsarno

Had a 2007 Ultra with the panoramic roof. Took delivery in 10/2006 and traded 10/2011, no issues ever with roof.

BC93

Good to hear! Thanks garsarno. I figured it's pretty rare to have a problem when a web search doesn't bring up a whole bunch of examples.