I had to take my car (2014 GS) in for a minor fender bender (parking lot bump), and when I got the car back I noticed all the transparent glass on the car came back with an "orange peel" waviness. I took the car back to the body shop and they ruled out overspray after trying to get it out, and took it to a local Lexus Dealership -- Jim Falk in Beverly Hills, CA.

Here's how they responded:
"We took the car to Jim Falk Lexus this morning. The service manager immediately said that he has seen this ripply effect on glass before. He asked whether the car had a special coating or tinting that was done at the dealer where the car was purchased from. Some dealers sell a special coating as an added service (usually a waste of money). He said that the car would need to go back to the dealer where you bought the car as this is an issue that sometimes surfaces from the special coating that was done on the car. We are bringing the car back to the shop shortly. I will send you the contact info of the service manager at Jim Falk Lexus who examined your car if you have any questions for him."

Do you guys know if this is a defect due to "special tinting"? I sent an email to Anthony @ Longo Lexus to see if he put anything on the glass, but I don't remember paying extra for this service. I wanted to reach out to the community to see if anyone has experienced this before. Note: We did not apply any special coating to the glass.

 

Never heard of such a thing...are the windows tinted?

I'm wondering if this could be a windshield ainti-chip film I've heard some about.

 

Front windshield isn't tinted, but all the other windows are tinted. The front windshield has the same orange peel effect as all the windows.

 

Very odd...

 

I scheduled an inspection with Longo Lexus (original dealership). I'll let the forum know just in case anyone else runs in to the same issue in the future.

My guess is: there is a rain repellent film/spray applied on the GS (I read about this in random posts) and the paint oven may have melted it? Just a wild guess. I'm hoping thats the case, and it can be "polished" out. Oh well... we'll see what they say.

 

Aquapel, I believe. There are special materials and procedures to remove it. Check with PPG - I think they developed the Lexus system.

 

I've used Aquapel, I've never had that happen. The GS has a water repellant coating, but only on the front side windows, not the windshield or the other windows.

 

The treatment I looked into a few years back was applied by the factory in a proprietary process that PPG had developed for Lexus (and possibly other mfgs, I don't know). I'm not sure how it differed from your aftermarket application, but it was quite involved according to tech folk I spoke with at both PPG and Lexus. Dealer eventually had to totally strip the Aquapel from my windshield, then reapply it. Still didn't work - original problem (traces of CPO stickers applied) remained. Only went away when windshield was replaced.

 

Yeah I've heard of that, the Aquapel was just an application of what any of us can buy...similar to a slightly more durable RainX.