Hi everyone,

Few days back i discovered that Hood hinges are having some corrosion. Lexus Quality? 🤔

 

Great..... Now I gotta go look......

 

Mine are clean, even though the car was driven in MI for 10000 miles and almost 18 months.

I think that hood is once adjusted and probably the paint on the bolts is damaged. Also, this one is not made for the US.

 

Yeah probably the hood was adjuster at the factory after the fact. Thankfully it's just the bolts. just get new ones or sand and paint those. coat in some rust protection or something. not the end of the world.

 

This is another reason why I don’t hold on to my cars anymore than 3 to 4 years. I live in the northeast where we have a lot of salt and brine on the roads. I used to own a 2008 Dodge Charger RT Road & Track Edition which was basically a sleeper Daytona. I had it for 11 1/2 years and babied it. It started to rust on the 9th year. I spent $4,500 on the 11th year to fix the rust. It was money wasted. I was very lucky and I ended up getting hit by an illegal alien and my Charger got totaled. I got $11,000 from my insurance company and I leased a Dodge Challenger RT Scat Pack Wide Body. I just purchased the Challenger and am selling it and using the proceeds to put down some money for the ES350 Ultra Luxury that I gave a deposit for. I’m going to keep the Ultra Luxury for 3 to 3 1/2 years and will sell it and buy another Lexus so I do t have to deal with rust, wear and tear repairs and with out of warranty repairs. It’s the best alternative to owning a car for many years and having to deal with rust and repairs.

 

What you do with your money is your business and yours alone. But if you're open to opinions, there are multiple reporters on YouTube (Savagegeese, Car Care Nut, Raiti's Rides) who are all on record with the opinion that the ES is an inferior driver's car to its German and Korean competition, but the one that stands alone as a better long-term bet to avoid exactly those kinds of problems beyond the warranty. Personally, I think getting one of these cars and then cutting it loose after 3 or 4 years is precisely the way to get the least value out of your investment.

I just sold my 2006 Acura. It has 157,000 mostly Midwestern miles, not a speck of rust on the sheetmetal and hardly any on the underbody. The two cars you named had something important in common with each other: They were Chrysler, not Lexus, products. I would not set my expectations of Lexus durability based on what happened to them.

 

Rust? Hm. Not to diminish your issue but these forum are a small sample size of ownership. When I read about an issue concerning my vehicle I do not panic. I merely check my vehicle and the wife's vehicle. I would not get rid of my vehicle based on what could be an isolated issue found on the forum.
I normally keep my vehicles for 10 years and then I pass them down to family. My 2011 E350 has 150,000 miles and has weathered alot if forum chatter. It is my daily work horse. I can only imagine 🤔 if I would have listened to people on the MB forum.
Good luck.

 

I live up in the northeastern part of the country where it snows a lot and where the highway department puts a lot of salt and brine on all the roads and where lots of cars rust because of this. Rust is expensive to repair. That’s why I don’t keep my cars for a very long time. The last 2 vehicles that I had, I purchased brand new and I kept one for 10 years and the other for 12 years. They both developed rust on them that would’ve cost $10,000 to $15,000 to repair the right way. It’s not worth it to spend that type of money for rust repairs. One can use that money to put down for a brand new car and not have to deal with the rust BS. It’s better off to buy a brand new car every few years than to have to spend thousands of dollars to the repair rust.

 

"...an inferior driver's car to its German and Korean competition..." Not to quibble, but it depends on what one wants as a driver. For instance, I love watching Raiti's Rides but he was a race car driver and every test drive is in sport mode (or sport+ if available) and he clearly prefers every vehicle to sport oriented in its driving character. There's more to life that looking to the 0-60 time. There's nothing wrong with that, but a car that does not have that characteristic does NOT make it "inferior", it simply offers a different option. My 2022 UL should be delivered this week to replace my current MB E-class (with "sport suspension"). Aside from the numerous intermittent electronic glitches the Benz has, it is a nice vehicle with a very solid drive train - however, it rides too damn hard and I feel every single bump and imperfection in the road, which, on big impacts (not uncommon on my local roads) it just pounds the whole structure. Enough already. Despite what auto reviewers love to pretend, I'm not out there "carving canyons" or driving on switchbacks along the California coast every day of the week. If someone likes that driving/ride feel, more power to them; but a lot of us find the nature of many, particularly German cars (as sold in North America, any way), undesirable for their lack of comfort - dare I say "inferior" to a more relaxed driving feel?

 

Perhaps I missed it, but out of curiousity, what year is your Lexus?

 

I live in northern NJ - plenty of salt, brine you name it. I haven't seen rust on any one of our cars in years and years. Wife's RX is now five years old - still looks like the day it left the showroom.

 

It's the same here in the Chicago area. They put a lot on the roads in the winter months and corrosion isn't the problem that it used to be.

 

Show me someone who has spent tens of thousands of dollars repairing rust on a car less than ten years old and I'll show you some prime beachfront property for sale in Idaho

 

Hey, we have lakes in Idaho But to your point, I agree.

 

Good points, and I chose to buy an ES (not even F Sport!) because I too wanted that tranquil drive. I was just using the term "driver's car" the way many others use it, to suggest an emphasis on handling rather than ride comfort. Sorry if I wasn't clear about that.