No problem, no derail. There is a fuel gasket recall thread here and some members received a fill up with the recall and others did not. Apparently it was dependent on which dealer you used for the recall. If I simply had the car serviced for the drip molding, I am sure I would not have received the fill up.

 

YES ! me too... a 2009 AWD

Dealer refused to do anything saying it's not the original painting, but it is. The car is back in the shop this week for the recall, and now the other side is doing it too, so I asked them to revisit.

Will let you know... otherwise I will be addressing this to the next level (Lexus Canada)

 

UPDATE

Last week I noticed that the driver side wrap on the molding was starting to separate from the metal. It's in the same area as the one pictured in my first post. It hasn't peeled off like it did on the passenger side. At least not yet since I've caught it early. I took it back to the same dealer. He contacted Lexus and they are not willing to provide a replacement and I pay the labor as they did last time. Well at $308 for the part, plus labor, that ain't happening.

My first thought was to gorilla glue it back, but I'm going to take it to a top notch auto body guy I know and see what he suggests.

I'm sure there probably is a good reason, but what I don't understand is why isn't this painted like the rest of the exterior metal.

 

I had a small crack in mine along the drivers side rear. I actually just filled it in with a little paint.

 

The color on the strips is a wrap that reminds me of mylar. If it has come loose, it has probably stretched in width and length blowing in the wind and it can't be reattached as it was cut to an exact fit when made.

Strips on both sides of my 2007 came loose in the 100 degree heat. Seems this is a common fail.

Dealer quoted about $750/side to order and install new strips.

 

That's high. The part is $308 per side and my dealer charged $65 to install one side. I understand it is something you could DIY, but you have to be careful not to break the clips that hold the molding on.

 

I remember on our LS400 we had issues with the plastic trim on either side of the windshield peeling in this way and exposing chrome metal underneath. That trim didn't spread back to the back the way it does on the LS, it was just the sides of the windshield, and it was a matte plastic type wrap. We replaced them ourselves with new parts from Lexus.

Seems like thats been an issue for some time...

 

That's interesting that you had that problem way back on a 400 model. I was thinking this occurred on the new 460 models in 2007 and that they have probably corrected it in later models.

 

hi. i was going to bring up another old thread asking about instructions on how to remove the strips. although mine is not as bad the pictures posted on this thread, i can see a few sections of the wrap starting to come off. was thinking of using epoxy to glue it back on again and hope i don't have to buy new strips.

thank you in advance for any insight...

 

I haven't gone to my auto body guy yet to get his advice. I hope to get over there on Weds., otherwise it will be sometime this week.

 

Yep, it was really ugly too...looked just like your pictures.

 

Glad I bumped into this thread. My car has the same thing on both sides but I didnt discuss it because my hood had been touched up prior to me buying the car and figured it was part of it. I know now. I took my car to a local high end painter and he said he can take car it of but cant promise exact color match so I'll probably be getting the whole car painted down the line.

 

I certainly wold not paint the whole care because of these removable strips. Hell, replacing them with new strips at $700 a side would be cheaper.

 

Why bother? I just removed the wrap entirely, sanded to rough it down, primered, then painted like it should have been from the factory. So far, no issues.

 

I noticed the same problem on my '07 earlier this year. The paint/covering on both sides seemed to have failed at the same time. I was initially thinking it may have been some cleaning solution that may have caused the problem, but now that others have had the same problem, it appears to be a defect. A few weeks ago I passed another LS460, and I noticed that they had removed the all the shrink wrap - so they now have two chrome strips that run from front to back.