My is 350F Sport and has no sensors in that bumper. I can't speak for your model but based on pic you provided sensors located in main bumper while replacement trim is just that- extra trim. With that said, whole bumper cover needs to come out to replace that trim.

 

Yes the actual sensors are not in this piece but listening to what the shop guy was telling me there are various wires/connections that are in the way of disconnecting that piece. In fact I would have thought the piece was removed entirely from underneath but found out that the interior trim pieces in the luggage area need to be removed to access some stuff from the top. In any case probably useful to know what you may be dealing with.

 

MAXUM, did you have to recalibrate anything or did you just RR the lower cover? Did you pull power by disconnecting the battery?

If so, what other parts did you have to remove to uninstall this cover?

 

Honestly, if you can fix it yourself by replacing the bumper than do it. If you file a claim against his insurance that is fine. However if you take it to a body shop it will get flagged as rear end damage to "carfax" type of places, which will lower your value of the car. While this looks like nothing, details won't be put into carfax and the value will drop. I learned the hard way, sometimes a perfect bumper isn't worth the loss when it was time to sell. If you can replace it without the use of a body shop, then it won't get reported but I don't know if just the unpainted piece can be replaced or if you need to paint a bumper. If you were to sell, someone would see that bumper and call it normal wear and tear, however, if you had a body shop fix it the "carfax" wording and value drop would be much worse than it really is.

 

Who on this site has replaced their lower cover by themselves?

Any issues?

 

The only time a claim appears on a Carfax like service if it's processed as a claim through insurance. In the past I've had body work done on my own dime and the shop didn't report it. In my experience it's the insurance companies that do the reporting.

 

Perhaps that is the case in Canada, I know that the insurance company does not report it here in the US. A year or so ago we had a hailstorm, both of my kids cars had about $2500-3000 worth of damage each. State Farm covered them both. I had them both repaired using Paintless Dent Repair (PDR). I confirmed with the shop and they said that some shops report it, but they don't.. I just reran the carfax and they still show no damage.

 

Really not interested in the carfax or insurance reports.

I'm just curious if anyone has actually replaced the lower cover themselves and if they have run into any issues.

 

I finally went ahead and replaced the lower bumper cover on my NX 350 turbo.

Looks easy but it was not!

Engineers today are in love with adding dozens of 'clips, push pins and other weird fasteners' mostly hidden, It must be the love and goal of their life. Engineer to engineer, "I bet we can make it even harder to work on at any cost! Lets go!"

Note: this was a 'trim' piece of plastic. Should have been easily replaced but took all day. Note: I took my time since all the pieces were thin plastic and easily broken if you weren't carefully. You can't just start yanking parts off the car or disaster will follow.

FYI: Yes you do have to remove the complete bumper cover just to get to the lower cover. Poor engineering. Any good engineer would have the lower cover attached separately using a maximum of 6 BOLTS or their love of life 'push pins' with covers to hide any exposed fasteners heads. The icing on the cake was that Lexus was too lazy or cheap to drill the holes for the mud guards. Tough to do once everything is installed unless you delight in removing tires for there is not enough clearance to get to the area to drill the holes. Remember each hole cost ~ 0.0001 cent, Lexus could go broke or have to raise the price of the car another $1000. These 6 small holes don't come cheap.

No need to pull power, everything works as it should once everything was reassembled There is only 2 connectors you need to disconnect but wait theirs more! Lexus in their wisdom decided to place these two connectors next to the bumper mounting bracket thus making it hard to get to for disassembly even though there was ample room on either side of this bracket for mounting, true engineering genius!

There is more but I won't go into it. But before everyone starts to flame me please note that I have spent my whole career working in an electronics R&D labs both in electronics and mechanics on the products that we built so I know 'good from bad' engineering. Electronic and mechanical.

Lexus needs to send their engineers back to school starting at engineering 101. Better yet, after they graduate each and every one of them should have to work in the repair shop and let them try to work on what they designed. I got a good bet that they would soon be changing their designs or quilting in frustration.

Bottom line, poorly thought out engineering.

 

I agree with the complexity of things these days, especially cars. Back in my younger days I would have no problems doing minor to more significant tinkering with my vehicles. Swapping a carb (look it up) or even intake manifold was not that of a big deal. For my other current vehicle even changing a burnt out instrument panel light is a major project. The only thing easy with cars these days is having the mechanic separate your money from your wallet.

 

No battery disconnect or recalibration needed for my 350F Sport. Keep in mind this model only has cross traffic sensors in rear bumper, no sonar back up sensors.

 

I didn't think it was that bad removing entire bumper cover and getting that trim replaced. To be fair I've done this in my other vehicles and own trim removing tool kit that makes removing many plastic clips a breeze. Also use Techinfo.com repair manual makes any repair job easier while eliminating guesswork or broken parts.

 

Yes I own a double wide box full of tools and not cheap ones. Everything that could possibility be needed. I go slow on purpose not to compound a problem but still, come on engineers we can do better.

I've been wrenching for over 55 years too so I'm not 'lost' on a repair.

I will look up your repair site since Lexus does not have a third party service manual.

Thanks.

 

Cars nowadays are becomming too expensive and extremely difficult to repair. It would be nice for engineers to return to simpler designs at least in the repair category.

I won't even mention all the regular and specialized tools and high end electronic scanners just to diagnosis a issue.

Heck, you can't even buy a simple inexpensive service manual anymore, Haynes does not make one for this car and the Lexus info site is too expensive for casual use.

Cars now days are not going in the right direction, you put it in drive and it backs up! :-)

 

Blame the stock market. Value engineering to save a penny per car x 4 million cars = $40,000 more corporate profit.

As stock holders and investors everyone expects corporate profits to always increase compared to last year, not as consumers the same people don't want to pay for the price increase for that increased corporate profit.
Guess where that profit now comes from....