After having this car only a little over 3 months, some horrible person opened their door on mine and left a nice scratch in the paint. I’ve used rubbing compound and polish to make it less noticeable but it’s on my LR door. I’m fuming to say the least. Found it later today after I’d been a couple places. This is why I was reluctant to buy anything nice. Someone dinged my ES right in the fender crease and cost me $600 and a “damage reported” on my carfax.

I’m guessing there’s no easy way to touch this up and I don’t want a body shop reporting it on carfax. It’s extremely difficult to get in a picture. I’ll see how bad it looks in the daylight tomorrow. I don’t even want to drive the car anymore, just keep it in the garage. The previous owner kept it pristine for 10 years other than rock chip touch ups. I drive the car maybe 2-3 days a week. It’s my weekend car and the intentions were to keep it immaculate. It’s a shame other people ruin it. I always park extremely far out when I go to the store. Of course, it’s a black car and shows everything.

This is why we can’t have nice things.

 

Ran into the same sort of thing recently. Dash cam
got the license plate of the only car that could have caught the damage (it was a parking lot scrape). Now I’m making a police report and talking to two insurance companies: mine is Safeco, the perp’s is State Farm. It all happened back in February; I just found out two days ago that both insurance companies have me looking up at the bus differential.
But here’s the good news. I took the car — LC500 — to York Coach Works in Poultney, Vermont. The rear quarter panel section was replaced, the paint (Caviar) was matched perfectly, and the repair cost was exactly York’s estimate, even though the damage was a bit worse than they thought.
I have to give credit to whoever designs telephone systems for these insurance companies. The last thing in the world insurance companies want to do is pay claims, so when you call up, it’s pretty near impossible to get through to a living human. You watch all these ads on TV for car insurance and you have the impression that they are “like a good neighbor.” That’s only true if the neighbor is Jeffrey Dahmer or Charles Manson.

 

Difficult to tell from the picture, but it looks like the scratch is in the clear coat. I have an old fashioned body shop that will buff, touch-up and/or use "paintless" dent removal techniques for a reasonable price. Pay out of pocket and nothing is reported to insurance or Carfax. A good detail shop may be able to take care of it or know a place that would. You should check around, I'm sure that you can find a place in your area.

I am told that Lexus did not offer any door moldings for the LS460 that would have prevented the door damage. They seem to have offered them for other models. If anyone has any ideas for door moldings, I would be happy to hear them.

 

The original and previous owner of my ES had the door moldings installed on it when new. I have a scratch/ding on one, but I suppose you can replace those a lot cheaper and easier than dealing with paint and body work.

The scratch on the LS is only noticeable in bright light at a certain angle, but it bothers me.