Peeling paint on 2006 Lexus RX 400h

Maintenance/Repairs
1

paint on hood peeling and chipping despite careful washing and waxing. also vehicle is always garaged. AND the black bars of the luggage rack is disappearing in spots. took it to a body shop, told me it would be expensive to fix both and deterioration of paint it defect from lexus factory

2

It is a 12 year old car. Did you have it since it was new. Where do you live? Desert, lots of sand blowing, constant exposure to sun? Do you live near chemical plants ,like the Houston ship channel. Lots of things can cause paint to fade and peel.

3

As you’ve been told, it’s probably going to be expensive to fix at this point. Going forward with your next car – or a repainted version of this car — suggest to

  • keep it parked out of direct sun when possible
  • rinse it off with a garden hose once a week to remove dust
  • wash w/soap and warm water, but only when necessary as that also tends to remove the wax
  • apply new wax twice a year, spring and fall

No harm to check w/your dealership to see if there’s a customer interest or recall bulletin on the paint job.

2 Likes
4

At the CarComplaints site one poster notes about RX vehicles around that time, that back when these vehicles were relatively new Lexus was helping individual customers with repairs and repainting. Yours is now 12 years old. Painting just a hood is not that expensive and if the bars that have discolored are the cross-bars (running from side to side across the top), you can remove them from the vehicle and just put them on when they are needed to haul stuff.

5

A hood from an auto recycling facility, if free of rust, could be a more reliable long term solution, compared to having your present hood repaired.

6

How well are the paint shops able to match the color these days? It used to be the case that if the colors matched immediately after the paint job, it wouldn’t match 6 months later. If you wanted it to match 6 months later it wouldn’t match right after the job was done. Has all that been figured out now? So it matches right after the paint job, and keeps on matching over time?

7

Not even a problem for factory paint. Now a custom vehicle special mix is a different story.