Wow! Thats a horrible job! I would never accept that.

 

Yep. Chrome delete/expert/vinyl/expert here. Done many jobs. My very first attempt was better than this job. Definitely make them fix that. 1) They used horrible vinyl, looks like 3M. Horrible quality. 2) Lots of glue lines=bad application. 3) no prep 4) bad lay down of the vinyl 5) no attention to detail, super wild razor blade cuts. careless. should have used knifeless tape where possible.

Given this kind of trim, it's very tricky and challenging as the metal sits directly on the rubber seal and it's challenging to get a clear cut... but that's what you're paying for. looks like a careless/sloppy worker did the job. They took a knife and tried to trim the seam and you can tell where they carelessly ran the knife down the paint too. a super careless cut. having done tons of these jobs, i can tell you that was a careless cut that people don't even make on their first DIY try. whoever did this had an IQ of 70 at most. promise you.

 

I heard from the manager today and he agreed this is not how they do business and that the wrap looked bad. We emailed a couple times back-and-forth and he was waiting to have a meeting with the team that did the install and told me he would call me after speaking with them this afternoon. I did not receive a call back this afternoon so I will reach out to them in the morning and let them know I’m expecting my deposit refunded and I’m having a friend who works at a paint and body shop give me an estimate for right around $1000 that would include repairing the scratches and replacing the window trim they cut. I’ll let you know how it goes after I speak with him tomorrow.

 

Gosh reading this reinforces my preference to avoid these after market "improvements". What agita to have with a brand new car.

 

I saw a nice chrome delete, after-market option from Home Depot.

 

looks like something out of the Tournament of Roses parade!

 

Looks like they are on their way to Wally World

 

Love it - plenty of room on top for grandma.

 

Finally spoke with the owner today and he is refunding my money of course and offered to redo the wrap using his best technician for free. He said that the senior installer Had been training this guy and they thought he was ready but clearly he was not. Being a Friday the experienced installer had left so nobody was there to review the guys work before turning the car over to me. He also offered to buff the car out to see if they could mitigate the scratches and then go from there. But to be honest you can only see one of the scratches without me pointing out where to look and that scratch is about an inch long and it looks like a white dog hair laying on the car. Of course at this point I have a bad taste in my mouth from the whole experience and don’t want them to touch the car.

 

I would take it to a different shop and have them pay for it. Understandably you don't want them within 10 miles of your car.

 

That paint is violated with a knife. Open question to the paint mavens on this board: Is buffing enough to properly fix it?

 

If the cut penetrated through the clear coat, buffing will not do anything to improve the situation. Only refinishing will fix the damage in that case.

 

I agree completely buffing is not going to get rid of the scratches it might make them less noticeable but it won’t get rid of them. The only way to get rid of them completely would involve a repaint of some kind. And at this point I don’t want to mess with repainting the car either because that could lead to a whole Other set of headaches and it’s just not worth, the car is gonna get some scratches eventually over Its lifetime. Somethings gonna fly up off the wheels of another car or somebody’s going to walk to close in a parking lot it’s just gonna happen at some point but I try like heck to prevent the opportunity for scratches to happen because I’m a car guy.

 

Yeah man the best you could do is leave it removed. I had a chrome delete on my ES but this never happened to me. I removed it only because I detailed it every weekend and I could see the small parts it could start lifting at so I just took it off after a few months. I don’t think I’ll do it again either although it looked great. I always say lexus should have matched the f sports with the dark chrome all around. Instead they gave us dark chrome in the rear and front bumper then regular chrome on window moldings. The non f sports are regular chrome all around.

 

at this point I’m done with the chrome trim and I’m gonna get some wheels to match the trim, maybe OEM Lexus wheels or a nice aftermarket wheel. something like this example really pops with the chrome trim.