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.

LexFather

Sorry to hear this. Can u post pics of the damange? HID theft is an issue in the NE, though mostly on NIssan Maximas and Acura TL/Cls b/c they are so easy to steal. Lexus did a better job of making it harder for thieves to steal but there have been a couple reports of it happening to RX owners.

spwolf

what about alarm system? dont they have to pop the hood in order to steal the headlights? If they dont, you can do some custom setup, but yes, without an alarm system they can steal anything they want from your car.

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 :-).

CK6Speed

iTrader: (1)

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.

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.

accuview

If you park outside, use a car cover to keep your car away from prying eyes. Anything to bring less attention to the car will help.

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.

playa3uhh

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

bizzy928

I'm sorry to hear that. I hope everything works out!

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 :-).

LeslieRC

How can an alarm system be set-up to detect someone removing a headlight if the thief doesn't need to access any interior surface of the vehicle to get the job done? It strikes me that any system that is that sensitive would be constantly alarming. I own an `04 GX470 and I was surprised/horrified to see how easy it is to remove the headlight units from my truck. I was having a clear bra kit installed on the GX and the technician didn't like the way that the headlight covers were seated, so he pulled one off (they are attached by an adhesive) and out came the headlight unit! When I asked the technician if this was "normal" for the units to become detached so easily, his response was that they just "pop-out". I agree that alarm systems are a right step in vehicle protection, but they are not an end-all or be-all in themselves. Frankly, after 28 years of owning cars and experiencing all manner of vandalisms (slashed tire, stolen radio, stolen lug nuts, attempted break-ins, etc.), not to mention hits-and-runs, I am convinced that the best security system for a car is a garage. Even parking in a driveway off the street in front of your house is no guarantee that your car won't be vandalized. What happened to "russianmd's" headlight unit reminded me of when I was a child living with my family in Manhattan in the early 1960s - my father owned a Plymouth convertable and one year he had to replace the top 3 times because idiots kept slashing it. After the first time, he left the doors unlocked, so the would-be thief could take what they wanted and not damage the top. After the second time he parked in a different area, thinking that it might have been the same person. After the third time, he traded-in the car for a hard-top. I was about 8 years-old at the time, but I 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 (car covers, alarm systems, etc. notwithstanding). I am sorry about what happened to "russianmd's" RX.

CK6Speed

iTrader: (1)

I agree overall. While I disagree slightly about the effectiveness of alarms, it's only that a well installed alarm can keep your car in place rather than getting the entire thing stolen. No garantee, but it does stop most of the joy riders out there. As to the headlights, like you said as long as projector HIDs are in demand they will steal it from any car they can get it from. RX330s just happen to be one of the easier ones. My take on it is even if you put all the extra brackets to make it harder to steal and put on an alarm that will scare them away, it pretty much doesn't matter because the damage will already be done. In order to set the alarm off they will need to attempt to steal the headlights. So, while they try and rip it out, the extra bracket might make it harder and the alarm might go off and scare them away, but you are left with a half removed headlight with broken mounting tabs, and maybe even fender and hood damage if they tried harder because of the extra brackets. The damage will be the same or greater whether the headlights are still there or not. What are you going to do with broken mounting tabbed headlights? You will probably change them out for new anyway. Hopefully your insurance will do that and not give you money to repair the headlights as that would suck on a new car. Fortunately for me nobody has attempted to steal my headlights, but I do park in a garage at least while I'm at home.

russianmd

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.

LeslieRC

As a lawyer who dislikes overly litigious people, I agree with "russianmd" about making manufacturers accountable when they have prior knowledge of hidden defects in their products that could result in physical harm or needless financial loss to consumers but do nothing to correct those problems. I think Lexus makes a truly wonderful product and that the company is committed to excellence and customer satisfaction. As someone who has owned 5 Lexus automobiles (I now own 2), I would be extremely disappointed if the company doesn't pick-up the gauntlet and correct this defect.

russianmd

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?