Not trying to defend the interior designers here, but the trends in the auto industry, especially the luxury market, are towards “soft-touch” materials. I suspect the designers are in a bit of a no-win situation when selecting interior materials. If they are too hard and easy to maintain, they are criticized for the cheap interiors. The challenge is in finding a soft material that is also very durable to kicking and scrubbing. Again, I’m not defending them but I certainly appreciate the challenge they face.

 

Understood. But something is wrong when anytime passengers enter the front seat with a package, purse or other object they have to be warned not to accidentally scrape it across the dash lest they do permanent damage.

 

It is so sensitive that one can permanently mark it with a fingernail... Another member stated that the Toyota executive that signed off on this material should be sent to the mail room. I say send him/her to a Toyota dealership to do oil changes... One does wonder how issues like this can actually occur. Is there no testing?

 

If NASA and Thiolkol engineers allowed Challenger to launch knowing what they knew, then anything is possible 😟

 

Companion question: I've seen folks on this forum complain that there's at least one front sunshade sold specifically for the ES that still marred the edges of the dash. What sunshade do you recommend that doesn't do so?

 

I have a Walmart special and no issues with it scuffing the dash.

 

Look on the bright side. You can talk down the price of a used ES because of scuff marks everywhere.

 

No kidding. I believe you. The material that Lexus uses for the dash is some sort of “green” material that’s recycled that is very poor quality. We can thank the green crowd and the tree huggers for the dash problem in the ES 7th generation.

 

LOL. The default action is to shoot the messenger as it is easiest target. Lexus is the one that poorly implements it. Many of the new EVs use green materials and they are very nicely done.

 

I agree. There is a lot of "green" material being used these days that's very nice.

 

Yeah tbh blaming the "green crowd" or "trReE huGgErZ" sounds kind of mouth-breathy. Lexus had similar issues in the 2006 IS with their dash and door card suppliers. I think it's just a matter of cost cutting. And as said actual green companies have supreme interior materials. Rivian is one of the strongest in the nation and actually has recycled stuff and it has one of the grandest interiors of all time.

 

We used to own a 2015 Toyota Prius with an entirety green interior. The interior was well built but cheap looking and very utilitarian looking. You could tell that the interior of the Prius was not made from normal materials like the other cars.

 

Don't blame it on the engineers. They tried to stop it.

 

Yup, it is tale old as times. Water rolls down hill and so is sh|t