Dmitry,

Thanks for the feedback - sorry to hear that you did not get any improvement.

One thing that I need to remind you of is that my original procedure (since edited) implied that the problem was with the front passenger door. It is a bilateral problem. You need to make sure that they did both sides.

Did they give you any indication that you had those big gaps like my car had? If yours looked like mine I am sure they would have told you about it.

Jeff

 

Are those covers only held on with glue or is there tabs that hold them on?

 

On my car they were put on with some double-sided tape and they have some locking fingers that are sort of one time things that provide a blind lock. The locking fingers will probably break off if your pull them off.

 

Jeff:

My 07 "L" is an early build and also has some wind noise starting at moderate speeds with winds at cetain speed, directions, and combination thereof. I intend to seal the plastic trim triangle at the outside perimeter using the blue masking tape and do a test run to see if there is any reduction in the noise before I pry the plastic fingers to install your suggested remedy.

James

 

James,

I think that is a great idea. You might consider some heavier tape like duct tape that will add more dampening. Of course you have to be concerned about tape residue from duct tape and whether you can get it off without damaging something. Starting with the blue masking tape is the better approach.

Again, most owners may not have a problem like I had. If you don't some times have the sensation that something is about to grab you by the neck then don't consider taking you trim off.

I think I have gotten my information to Lexus. I had an email from them yesterday asking me to provide my "proposal" in writing. I think that at least we know that they will soon be aware of what I found and they should be able to assess the applicability and start providing some help for those who might benefit from it.

Jeff

 

Good to hear that Lexus is at least willing to listen and or review your fix.....

As for dimapb, I truly hope the dealer did do the fix Jeff posted. Because dealers get paid on warranty repairs from the manufacturer's bulletins in flat rate time plus materials and their is not such thing available, I wonder what they wrote on your work order as far as time and materials, they have to post that. If you see something on your work order that says "straight time" it would refer to a flat time a dealer needed for a fix that was not in a Lexus manual. They have to be authorized by Lexus first.

 

Jeff, et all,

My salesman at the dealer verified that he presented Jeff's information to the service manager. The service manager supposedly told him that he (service manager) is familiar with this triangle problem. I am making an appointment Monday to try this for my car and also my business partner's car. We obviously do not have the major problem that Jeff has had but I don't see how it can hurt and try to make it even more quiet.

I have also just emailed the salesman the latest input from Jeff on the proper technique in the fix.

 

I call Lexus Corp. and address my issue of the wind noise for them. They gave me a call back and said that there is a special group of designer looking for to solve this problem. and they said they will give me a call back again to see what they find out. but until now,(almost a month) they have not call me yet.

 

Christmas is coming too. And so is the next leap year in 2012.

 

I have initiated a buy-back because of the wind noise about 2 months ago. For that reason, dealer is not allowed to work on my car when it comes to wind noise, but because I built a good relationship with the service manager, he just did it w/out recording it. No paperwork exchanged hands and Lexus was not charged for this fix. I was really hoping that this would solve my problem as I really like the car and don't want to go thru hassle of the buyback process, but in my case, it didn't work.
In reference to another post above... Lexus Corporate is probably one of the worst customer service companies I have dealt with in my entire life. They never call you back when promised and keep giving you BS excuses.

 

I am sorry to hear that diampb did not have any improvement in his LS460L wind noise problem. So far his is the only report that we have other than mine. I still feel that my situation is vastly improved. I have some noises, in fact new noises, ones that I probably couldn't hear before because they were masked by noises that are no longer there because of my sealing. But they are noises that I would expect to have and they are not objectionable. So far I seem to be the only known case of crossing over from the unhappy LS460 owners to the happy owners. We really need some more inputs and maybe we will hear from others this week.

I agree with diampb in his assessment of Lexus Customer Relations. It seems to me like they have just about shut down. I sense they are under intense pressure, perhaps legally and financially, over this "wind noise" issue. I sort of had to force feed them my information about the fix I did on my car. They would not return my phone calls and threatened me for sending an email to one of their internal email accounts - an address I got from the Lexus dealership rep. Someone else in this forum said that Lexus is probably looking at the information that I sent even though they emailed that they were not interested in my ideas. I think that is probably true and perhaps they are already thinking about what I found even though they have not received the stuff I mailed them on Friday.

So, if they decide that my fix could help others then they could probably move very quickly to make that type of fix to the cars that it would apply to. I think the way that I did mine could be considered permanent. The beauty of my fix is that it doesn't require any parts (you reuse the trim that you take off), the material is readily available (you can get the sealant at Home Depot and one tube should fix 4 cars), no special tools required (a small putty knife), no special facility required (you can do it in the parking lot, or at a residence or a contract body-shop etc.), a technician should be able to do 4 cars an hour (no special training). I don't think anyone could tell by looking at mine that I did anything to it. A faster curing sealant would expedite the process and I think that is also readily available.

I know some of you are probably considering drastic action. diampb says he is giving up a car he likes. I was about to do what ever it took to be rid of my problem. Maybe waiting another week to see what happens would be better than pushing your car over a cliff tomorrow.

 

Once again we seem to have LS owners who appear to have absolutely intolerable wind noise, and others who are scratching their heads wondering what in the hell these guys are talking about.

Jmcraney - I can't tell of you have an '07 or '08 LS ... that may be worth knowing, since it seems much of the dissatisfaction was with '07's. Which do you have?

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Okay, this is going to be tough, since defining what constitutes wind noise is difficult.

For our purposes, let's say that true "wind noise" is a rushing, or roaring, or whistling noise such as you would expect to hear if a window in a rapidly moving car is open a tiny bit and outside air is coming into the cabin or being sucked out of the cabin through that opening.

Let's NOT include any intermittent swishing noises made by air currents or crosswinds tumbling over the outside of the car and not directly affecting the air inside the car's cabin. We'll deal with that separately.

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The car has some "swishing sounds" near the window but it is not loud enough to bother me.

My old car was in general much louder and therefore such swishing noises would have potentially been drowned out.

 

Mine is an 07, but I drove a new 08 and it seemed to have the problems too. My demo ride was not long enough to get a real good assessment.