1Putt

RF, sounds great... pun partially intended. I have the lamisafe windows so mines should be at least as good as u reported. Still haven't driven it on freeway yet

roadfrog

Soooo, do you think it might be a good idea to run a bead of sealant along that trailing edge?

jmcraney

If you are satisfied with the results as it is now, and it remains stable, I don't think you would want to do anything. But, if you think it can be improved then one way to deal with it is to complete all the sealing without the trim. You can use a metal plate to cover the registration holes, or three coins such as US dimes or some other suitable material. Once you get everything sealed up and your are certain that there are no leaks in that area then you would want to apply the trim. To apply the trim you would have to remove the registration pins by breaking them off and trimming them smooth because the mating holes have been covered. You would want to remove the three gaskets (triangle, white and black) from the trim. Then apply the trim with just enough adhesive to make it stay on and just enough pressure to attain the desired appearance. You would have to position the trim before the adhesive cures to make sure it looks correct. You would want to use a slow-curing adhesive that has little shrinkage. It would be a mistake to use a contact adhesive for the final step. If you do this carefully you can cover all your sealing handy work and your finished job will have a pristine appearance. It is a good idea to dry-fit the trim before you stick it on to be sure that it will cover all your handiwork.

CJITTY

I remember talking to one of the Lexus engineers who was at the LS unveil here in Atlanta last year and he talked about these new aero fins but they are designed to work in concert with the fins on the rear taillights of the 2013..the whole air flow pattern thing. So I have to wonder if it is better because you actually did the seal on the backside properly or does the fin actually help in addition to the silicone and sealing the gaps. In other words, if you did the wind noise fix with a 2007-2012 trim piece without the fin, would you have the same result...I guess we won't know for sure.

roadfrog

Interesting points everyone. I'll just leave well enough alone. There is no question that whatever I did - it worked! LOL. But I have to say that comparing the two panels is night and day, The new panels are rounded at the edges and very rigid and thick. The leading edges are curved quite aggressively.

1Putt

OK, finally drove on the freeway for only about 10mi or so, I can clearly tell the car is quieter than before. For whatever reason, there's less overall wind noise and buffeting. I just installed the 2013 pieces as is, with silicone around each of the clips in the back and some toward the trailing edge before the adhesive strip. I did not drive the car for almost 2 days after the install to let things setup
My wind noise didn't seem as bad originally, but I could tell the original triangle pieces were starting to come up towards the top. With the stereo off, now the road noise from my 22" tires is more pronounced... lol

CJITTY

Put aside the rear fins for a second..my point is when doing the unofficial yet highly successful wind noise fix, is it the new fin style on the 2013 part a better solution than using the 2007-2012 piece. With sealing the gaps with the silicone and when done right, does that fin really matter? Not criticizing at all..I like the look of the 2013 style, but I did the wind noise fix on my old 46p and my car was like a tomb after..I cant see how this part would of made it even quieter..but for looks, anyone doing the wind noise fix should just go with these new pieces anyway as they look better

1Putt

I'd say if you already did the jmcraney fix using the original pieces and it was successful, leave it alone. Unless you absolutely need to have the looks of the 2013 pieces.
If you haven't done the fix yet, you have 3 choices- 1) jmcraney fix, 2) 2013 piece w/ targeted silicone use and 3) hybrid method- using alum/metal plate and sealant over the registration holes and grooves in trailing area by window, then following up with the 2013 pieces and sealant after removing the alignment tabs and adhesive gasket material on the back

vincentesq

Thank you gentlemen! I purchased the new plates and the noise is definitely better. However, once in a blue moon, I hear a whistling noise that was not there before. It is coming from that area. I wonder if I still have a leak somewhere.

jmcraney

Sir, the wind noise at the corners of the windows is completely unrelated to the presence or absence of a "fin" on the the trim part. The noise is caused by a sealing issue behind the trim. On some of the cars, and yours is likely one of those, the trim, fined or un-fined, will not effectively seal the area behind the trim because of an issue with the mating surface and not because of the trim. There are lots of ways to overcome this problem and I have provided details for a DYI repair that has been used by many with some success. If you need some help with this you can contact me via the Private Message feature on this site.

Check here for the instructions: https://www.clublexus.com/forums/ls4...noise-fix.html

vincentesq

Thank you, JMCRANEY, I have done the seal on the groove, but not the metal plate. Do you think I need to do the metal plate? The whistling is only once a while, not all the time. I've driven about 500 miles, and only heard it about 2-3 times.

jmcraney

The LS460 design uses the trim pieces at the window corners to provide a seal where the window channel meets the chrome window facing. The seal is accomplished by foam pieces that are part of the triangle trim piece. For this to work, the triangle trim piece must fit snuggly to the car. The triangle trim piece is attached to the car with a contact adhesive gasket that comes on the trim and is exposed by removing a zip strip from the trim before applying the trim to the car. The trim is pressed onto the car and if all is well the contact adhesive fully contacts the car and the trim is snuggly attached to the car sealing all areas under the trim. For some of the cars this doesn't work because, no matter how forcefully you apply the trim, the contact adhesive doesn't fully contact the car or the piece is left under tension because it was applied forcefully and will pop up later. The triangle trim has three holes under it, a round one and two rectangular ones. These are called registration holes and they and are there for a couple of reasons, the main reason being to register (align) the trim during application as it is attached with contact adhesive and must be perfectly aligned when it is pressed on, probably by a robotic process. The triangle trim has three pins on the back that correspond to the holes in the car and these pins assure proper registration (alignment) during application of the trim to the car. If the trim fits on the car properly the registration holes are completely isolated from air and noise intrusion by the contact gasket. But, if the contact gasket doesn't fully contact the car, air and noise passes through the contact gasket gap and enters the car through the registration holes. So, the question becomes, how do you fix that? It seems pretty easy except you want to maintain a pristine appearance so you have to do it in a manner that is hidden by the trim. I initially tried to fix this by applying a glob of sealant to each registration pin but it was very difficult to get a perfect seal. After much thought, I concluded that the only certain way to fix the problem was to completely seal everything before the trim was applied. To seal everything before applying the trim you have to do away with the registration scheme. Nothing magic about the metal plate. It is just a way to efficiently seal those holes and there are lots of other ways to do that. I was trying to find a way to help others and needed to settle on something so I chose the metal plate because I was certain that it work well. If you seal everything and let it cure then you don't have to worry about disturbing the seal when you put the trim on. Since the registration holes were eliminated in the sealing process, the registration pins must be removed from the trim before it can be applied. Without the benefit of the registration pins, special attention is required when applying the trim so that it can be positioned to give a pristine appearance. If you use the sealant/adhesive that I suggested you have about 30 minutes to properly position the trim. As I said, there are lots of ways to do this that will yield excellent results but completing the seal before you apply the trim seems to be the only certain way and picking a sealant that has very little shrinkage during curing is also important.

vincentesq

Wow, thank you very much. I will do that if the whistling noise comes back. So far today, I only drove about 25 miles and I did not notice anything at all. Maybe I lucked out.

LordBowral

They don't need to be siliconed on ... Just stick them on with the adhesive strips they come with and they work perfectly.

jmcraney

Well, that's the problem, they don't work perfectly on some of the cars and that is what caused the problem to begin with.