toneekay

Here's my 2cents... Considering you have hail damage, IMO, that's enough for me to get rid of the car with all the other maintenance issues you have. IF you are only using this car to get you from point A to B, then the cosmetic issue may not be an issue at all, and all you'd need to worry about is the maintenance. These cars, and many other Lexus models are rock solid and reliable as long as you keep it happy (up to date with maintenance, prematurely addressing issues that may arise, etc).

It helps to have to do a lot of the work yourself, you save on labor, and so for... However, if you're going to these places that are charging high dollar for parts and labor, then you are going to the wrong places. I'd recommend ordering online from RockAuto like mentioned above, and taking all the parts to a smaller independent shop that specializes in IMPORTS (Toyota/Lexus even better). They typically give you a price, and then you can try to negotiate, etc... Once it's all said and done, get an alignment and you should be set for the next 100K+ miles.