So I will try to be brief regarding my situation, but what I was told by my Lexus service rep was a little bit startling and if it is true should be known to all 2IS owners.

I have a 2012 IS350 which the warranty was about to expire on, so I decided to bring it in for a few things while it was still covered. I had the well known bubbling headlight defect, which Lexus confirmed and covered the replacements at 100%. Eventually I had them replaced and brought the car home, but the LED strip on the driver and passenger side were different colors (similar to the difference between '11 and '12 models). I called them and they said the had mistakenly ordered and installed the wrong part number on one side, they ordered a new head lamp assembly and installed it about a week later. I should have checked before going home, but since they said this was the right part number, I took them at their word. When I looked at them at night, again, different colors side to side. (On a side note the deemed my fog light inoperable, wasn't plugged in).

I contacted my service consultant and scheduled an appointment since he seemed to not believe me. I pointed the different out to him and the repair specialist who said "maybe at certain angles but its not a lot". After getting nowhere, I spoke with a manager who was very quick to note the difference in color. He agreed to have the headlamp replaced with a 3rd assembly and inspect it prior to me picking it up. He called that evening and said the new assembly had the same discoloration and asked me if I could leave my car with them to "work on it" and have a technician come in to examine what was going wrong. After 3 weeks of no updates, I called them and was told the technician looked at it yesterday, but said there was nothing they could do. The manager told me it is an issue known by Lexus but there is no solution, and the headlamps just have to be different colors.

My question is for anyone else that has had this replacement, have you had this issue or heard of any of this?

I will be picking the car up tomorrow and will post an update then.

 

Well I have a 13 IS that I had both headlights replaced for bubbling. I did not notice any difference in color. Did you have one or both replaced?

 

Both driver and passenger. I picked up my car yesterday and the manager I spoke with had a much different outlook than he did over the phone. He said they have tried a bunch of different thing but all 3 replacements on the passenger side show up a different hue. They said the pugged in to the driver side but the color was no different. They said they installed my originals which did not have the color difference upon reinstallation. He said he is still waiting to hear back from the engineer, said I should have an answer before the end of the week.

I had called Lexus corporate to confirm there being a known issue with discoloration and they seemed genuinely concerned at that thought..

 

Ohh ok. Well hopefully they get it right. at least they are trying to correct the issue. Good luck on it.

 

When you said they're different between driver and passenger side, which side appear whiter? Maybe they got the driver side wrong?

 

Driver's side is bright white like to 12-13 OEMs normally look, passenger side is a dimmer hue/yellowish.

Service rep (not manager) got back to me yesterday and said the issue is because the headlamps are manufactured at different places. Doesn't really seem to be a legitimate answer at this point, since they have had multiple engineers inspect it and multiple assemblies put in, just seems like something you should know right off the bat.

 

Even they are manufactured in different places, they should have the same color -- manufacturing to the same spec. If they're newly manufactured, maybe they're all messed up by the manufacturer.

 

So unfortunately I have an update and looking for insight/advise...

I had both my headlamps replaced under L-SB-0005-12 (TSB for bubbling paint inside the assembly), the LEDs did not match from passenger-driver side on the replacements, so they replaced the units with different part numbers (incorrect for the TSB but matching colors). The issue was the part numbers were known to be defective and lead to bubbling paint. I was told they are still covered under the 12 month warranty from the time the are installed.

Now... I was cleaning my car and noticed the driver's side is bubbling again. I contacted the service manager and was told "I am happy to inspect the headlights for you but, as noted back in January when we replaced the newer headlights with the older model because of the color discrepancy, we knew that this could be a possibility. We will have no recourse through the Lexus factory to address the issue, because it was documented on the work order from January that you accepted this possibility & preferred it to the color discrepancy in the LED strip. I could always try to clean the lens for you?" (this was not documented). I asked why this was not covered under the 12 month warranty for all parts when a different service manager confirmed it would be and the response was "I understand how you feel regarding the timeframe since installation. It is disappointing. However, because the parts we installed were not the correct parts for the repair (the updated parts were the correct parts) there is no warranty for this condition, because it will just happen again."

Any advise or recommendations? These quotes were not paraphrased from Lexus, copy and pasted via email.