Windshield trim chipping under coverage?
In any case, I'm going into the dealer I bought the car from this Saturday to address several issues, one of them being this weatherstripping going bad. My car's an '07 IS350 with 56k, so out of factory warranty but under both CPO and VSA warranties. What I understand from the dealers and reading the forums is that replacement of this windshield molding IS covered by the factory 4 yr/50k warranty but NOT by the CPO/VSA warranties, because weatherstripping and exterior trim are excluded items.
I plan on going in to my dealer armed with as much info as possible. I've printed all the photos on this thread of others having the same issue. I want to make it clear to the dealer (and the area Lexus rep if it gets that far) that this issue is NOT wear and tear and does NOT have to do with how the car is used, it's simply a failure of poor quality materials and workmanship. There are people on here who garage their cars all the time and people who leave their car outside in the winter, all with the same problem.
What I ask is this: if you have this issue, can you provide more pictures? Also, has there ever been a TSIB for this? I need all the ammo I can get.
Thanks!
I bought my 2007 IS350 2 months ago with 56k miles on it, out of factory warranty but it was Certified, however the Certified warranty doesn’t cover wear and tear items like this. The molding was already failing on the car when I bought it, even though it had undergone the Certified inspection which clearly stated no cracked or worn molding, weatherstripping, or trim. Clearly the techs had missed this or ignored it.
I noticed that the cracked windshield molding was only getting worse so I took it back to the dealer I bought it from, explaining the above – mainly, that I knew this wasn’t covered by the CPO warranty but it should have been fixed before I bought it. I also presented my service tech with the below attached document, which I created from multiple different threads on the issue on CL. It shows pictures of other peoples’ exact same issues, and shows all the threads dedicated to this one issue on only one forum (clearly there are similar threads on other forums). I just took screenshots of the first posts of each thread because printing out 5 threads at 10 pages per thread would have been overkill. I explained to him that this was not a normal wear and tear item, but was poor quality materials and poor quality workmanship. Clearly the parts chosen by Lexus for this application were low quality. In addition, many IS owners are having this same issue (which is the main point I wanted to communicate with the below document) and they’re from all different climates, all different mileages, and it doesn’t matter whether you garage your car or not; simply stated, the parts are bad.
The tech was very impressed with this document and asked to keep it and to show to his manager. In the end, they ended up replacing the molding for me free of charge. Now before anyone gets too excited, I should make clear that the dealership covered this cost and did it for me out of goodwill. They contacted Lexus to try and submit for warranty, but Lexus didn’t approve it because it wasn’t covered by the CPO warranty. The dealership didn’t push at all nor did they contact me, they just went ahead and did the repair. If they hadn’t been willing to just goodwill it and they’d called to tell me it wasn’t covered and I’d have to pay for it, then I would have gotten involved with the Lexus reps, shown them the research, etc.
So long story short, my windshield molding got replaced out of warranty by the dealer I bought it from out of goodwill, not on warranty. But if you’re having this same issue out of warranty, I recommend you print the attached Word document and bring it with you to your dealer and make the same plea I did. The total cost for the parts is under $100, and install is a DIY, but it’s more out of principle; Lexus states they don’t cover weatherstripping, but that’s because usually it comes down to a wear and tear issue, but in this specific case this is just failed parts.
I can't believe Lexus is penny pinching the customers for something so little. This is a Luxury car for christsake, at least treat us a little better than Honda or Toyota.
Like I said, I got Honda to replaced the weather striping on my Civic while it was under the bumper to bumper warranty. No hassle or questions asked. The service guy just looked at it and said "wow... it's starting to fall apart. We'll get you a new one under warranty so no cost to you."
I can't believe Lexus is penny pinching the customers for something so little. This is a Luxury car for christsake, at least treat us a little better than Honda or Toyota.
Like I said, I got Honda to replaced the weather striping on my Civic while it was under the bumper to bumper warranty. No hassle or questions asked. The service guy just looked at it and said "wow... it's starting to fall apart. We'll get you a new one under warranty so no cost to you."
This windshield molding IS covered by the factory 4-year/50k mile warranty. There is and should be no question about that. If your car is still under the factory bumper-to-bumper warranty and you're having this issue, stop reading now and go to your dealer to get it fixed for free.
This windshield molding is NOT covered by the Certified Pre-Owned (CPO) or Vehicle Service Agreement (VSA) Lexus-offered warranties. Trim pieces, molding, and weatherstripping are not covered under either of these warranties.
Hope that makes it more clear. My post was intended to help those who are out of the factory warranty, since their repairs won't be covered.
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I bought my 2007 IS350 2 months ago with 56k miles on it, out of factory warranty but it was Certified, however the Certified warranty doesn’t cover wear and tear items like this. The molding was already failing on the car when I bought it, even though it had undergone the Certified inspection which clearly stated no cracked or worn molding, weatherstripping, or trim. Clearly the techs had missed this or ignored it.
I noticed that the cracked windshield molding was only getting worse so I took it back to the dealer I bought it from, explaining the above – mainly, that I knew this wasn’t covered by the CPO warranty but it should have been fixed before I bought it. I also presented my service tech with the below attached document, which I created from multiple different threads on the issue on CL. It shows pictures of other peoples’ exact same issues, and shows all the threads dedicated to this one issue on only one forum (clearly there are similar threads on other forums). I just took screenshots of the first posts of each thread because printing out 5 threads at 10 pages per thread would have been overkill. I explained to him that this was not a normal wear and tear item, but was poor quality materials and poor quality workmanship. Clearly the parts chosen by Lexus for this application were low quality. In addition, many IS owners are having this same issue (which is the main point I wanted to communicate with the below document) and they’re from all different climates, all different mileages, and it doesn’t matter whether you garage your car or not; simply stated, the parts are bad.
The tech was very impressed with this document and asked to keep it and to show to his manager. In the end, they ended up replacing the molding for me free of charge. Now before anyone gets too excited, I should make clear that the dealership covered this cost and did it for me out of goodwill. They contacted Lexus to try and submit for warranty, but Lexus didn’t approve it because it wasn’t covered by the CPO warranty. The dealership didn’t push at all nor did they contact me, they just went ahead and did the repair. If they hadn’t been willing to just goodwill it and they’d called to tell me it wasn’t covered and I’d have to pay for it, then I would have gotten involved with the Lexus reps, shown them the research, etc.
So long story short, my windshield molding got replaced out of warranty by the dealer I bought it from out of goodwill, not on warranty. But if you’re having this same issue out of warranty, I recommend you print the attached Word document and bring it with you to your dealer and make the same plea I did. The total cost for the parts is under $100, and install is a DIY, but it’s more out of principle; Lexus states they don’t cover weatherstripping, but that’s because usually it comes down to a wear and tear issue, but in this specific case this is just failed parts.
Hey thanks for listing this, I ended up going a couple of months ago and they didn't do it for me saying I was out of warranty or it wasnt covered, the normal bs, so I need to do a service soon so I'll give this to them and see what happens!
I keep the car inside 98% of the time and I apply nothing to it.
Qty FP Number Description
10 75545-53011 clip, windshield
1 75551-53020 moulding, roof dr
1 75552-53020 moulding, roof dr
10 75547-51021 clip, windshield
14 90269-A0006 rivet
The dealer replaced my windshield trim yesterday. I had to call Lexus Corp. to explain to them how aggressively my trim was cracking, and I also had to explain to them how well kept my car is and it is other cars out there with this same issue, they gave me a call back (a week later) and said they would pay for the parts, but I would have to pay for the labor. The parts cost $214.32 and the labor was $55. They even "Warranty" the parts for me.
The quality on this car is equivalent to Chevies I've had. No where near the Toyota's I've had. I won't be buying another Lexus when the time comes. Love that motor though.






