Moldings or no moldings
 

I will be picking-up my ES-350 in two to three weeks and wonder if I should have the dealer install the side optional moldings.
I prefer the new no moldings look. But, I'm worried about dings on my doors.
Maybe some of you (with and without moldings) can give me your thoughts on my dilemma.
oakplank

They give the car a much sportier look by breaking up the tall flat door panel and seem like they would interfere with a door of another car doing more damage otherwise than if not present. Several people have commented to me on the visual difference between this ES350 and my former simply due to the mouldings.

Mine came with them when it arrived at the dealer.

I prefer the no moldings look too. Fortunately, our car doesn't spend too much time in parking lots so dings aren't a big concern right now. If it did, I'd probably consider moldings for protection from the inevitable dings and scratches..

One CAUTION: Be absolutely CERTAIN your doors/windows are aligned BEFORE they are installed on the car. See ....window issue.....subject post, if they are off as to alignment and then they put the mouldings on you will have a problem not easily corrected.

no moldings for me or any of my cars

No moldings for me! If I should ever get them, then I'm sure i'd get the dings either above or below the moldings........besides I prefer the look without them.

No moldings for me. Some dealers offer an unlimited dent repair as an aftermarket option. 3 years can run you about $300.

Also, my ES only gets parked on end spots and away from other cars.

I prefer no mouldings as well and try to park away from other vehicles. The clean look has grown on me and I did see another white car with mouldings and did not care for it too much.

I prefer the great clean lines of my es350 without the mouldings. I park away from others when out shopping. I'm totally willing to pay $80 per ding for paintless dent removal when the time comes. I'm also not convinced that the mouldings would actually stop the dings from happening.

I have moldings mostly because I don't like the slab-sided look without them.

They won't prevent all dings, and maybe not even most dings, but I do have a scrape on one of my moldings where it did protect the door from what would have been a ding.

I'd recommend you get them if you like the look with them and forget about it if you like the stock look better.

I would think that a scraped molding looks as bad as a scrape or ding on the door itself. ;)

Perhaps, but far, far cheaper to replace the side mouldings on the car than send it in for body and paint work.

If the moulding has a scrape just think of what would have happened to the door panel/paint.

Retail on my sticker they were only 199 dollars for the pair, that much is spent just walking in most paint and body shops.:D

This is assuming that the damage was only on the molding strip itself. My '03 ES came with a factory installed molding that was part of the cars design. It was the same on '02 thru '06 ES's, yet I saw door damages above and below this strip on many of these models. I still insist that adding these moldings is a poor method of insuring against these mishaps.

No moldings is definitely a cleaner, more aggressive look. Moldings appear to clash with the car length "crease" running below the door handles.

My two cents regarding whether to get door moldings--sure, they are relatively cheap insurance against a major door ding (i.e., one that results in a ding that can't be completely repaired via painless dent removal or similar), or a ding/scrape that results in paint being scraped off the panel. Granted that I don't have any factual quantitative evidence to back up the following, but I would surmise to say that the majority of door dings are your basic small, shallow ding that does not penetrate the paint surface--e.g., dings that probably can be easily repaired via paintless dent removal. Other than the exception regarding dings resulting in paint damage, I'm in the same boat as amf1932--a dinged door molding can't possibly look any better on a vehicle than a dinged door panel would, from an aesthetic standpoint.

Me? My ES received a door ding roughly one month after I bought it; no--I did not have door moldings on it, but...$60 for a paintless dent repair vs. $199 (list price) for a set of replacement door moldings to replace the dented one (unless it is possible to buy a specific door molding individually vs. having to buy the entire 4-door set), I would think buying replacement moldings would be a somewhat-more expensive proposition than PDR). Also--I like it w/o moldings since it makes it a bit easier to wash/wax/buff the door panels; that...and I prefer the clean look of the ES w/o the moldings...but that's just MHO.