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Good News And Bad News In One Day....


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Well, last Friday got off to a good day with a new car kit fitted. I opted for the Motorola IHF-1000 as this is the one Lexus fit if you have it factory ordered. Have to say it is fantastic, has radio mute and the voice comes through the speakers, colour scheme matches the dash perfectly and has a superb set of voice commands. It can store 20 names in the unit and these remain even if you swap phones, really easy to use.

Piccy below of the install, I had it mounted on the centre console rather than under the drivers side air vent as this was a more natural place for me to use it. No damage to the car, it is stuck on and the wire goes down the side of the gear lever surround.

carkit3sd.jpg

Now the bad bit, waiting in Tesco's car park to pull in a space when a half blind octagenarian :tsktsk: reverses straight into the car!!!!! :ohmy: Nothing too bad, damage is limited to broken reflector (been quoted £29.67), two deep scratches and a scuff.

damage8vw.jpg

Now to my dilemma, this is no where near as serious as the damage Saracen is looking at right now but one of the replies said stay away from companies like Chips Away. Having never had the need to use them before, does anyone think they'd be suitable for this type of job? I could always go through insurance as it's company owned but I'd probably end up with a full bumper respray and a different colour!l

Cheers.

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Now to my dilemma, this is no where near as serious as the damage Saracen is looking at right now but one of the replies said stay away from companies like Chips Away. Having never had the need to use them before, does anyone thing they'd be suitable for this type of job? I could always go through insurance as it's company owned but I'd probably end up with a full bumper respray and a different colour!l

Cheers.

On know....it's like a virus! I'm gutted for you.

Seriously, that is so bad - blind git clearly didn't check behind properly.

As far as the repiar is concerned - well I too haven't ever used Chipsaway, but yours should be unoticeable even if someone like Chipsaway "had a go". Lighter colours tend to be easier to touch up.

Problem with the insurance is that you might get stung for Excess if the offender wasn't insured. Do you know if they were? If they are go for the insurance jobby - afterall you were not to blame at all - and you ought to be able to claim back everything including your excess of their policy.

Good luck pal.

PS - BTW - that handsfree looks so simple and smart!! My courtesy car had the Lexus branded one, and it was so easy to use the Voice Rec on it - just press and say "Pairing" and it asks to enable the pairing on the phone etc...

Just that American accent is annoying and unexpected first time you hear it.

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I think chips away paint a square area and that they struggle to match lexus silver so I don't think it'll look good and they may just refuse to try - they did when I asked. Worth asking them about it but you may need to get the bumper sprayed properly.

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PS - BTW - that handsfree looks so simple and smart!! My courtesy car had the Lexus branded one, and it was so easy to use the Voice Rec on it - just press and say "Pairing" and it asks to enable the pairing on the phone etc...

Just that American accent is annoying and unexpected first time you hear it.

Cheers guys, I'm waiting for a decision from our fleet dept at the moment to see how they want to play it. Our insurance excess wil be pretty high so they may let me organise the repair and charge it straight to the business.

Taking on board Chips Away's lack of ability to match silver it may be the bodyshop for me after all...

For the car kit, as I work for Orange (well, their owners - France Telecom) a very good friend of mine is the Technical Manager responsible for our car install operations and can sort anything. The old Motorola kit had the daft American bint talking to you, they have released a new version, which handily I have, with a proper english accent. Much better. If people are interested in the same kind of thing they also do a lower spec model (IHF850 I think) with a few less voice commands but identical piece of kit. They are around £90 instead of £200 plus install.

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So sorry!

Chips away do a fantastic job & are used by the majority of franchised garages BUT they use a cellulosic-based paint that after c.2years will shrink everso slightly.However the job has a 2year guarantee,would not be so noticeable in a light colour & in the bumper corner with all the angles con-verging.Get a quote & see if the guy gives you confidence & what he has to say about shrinkage:you will save a packet!

TEL :driving:

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I wouldnt bother with the likes of chips away or dent/scratch wizards. They are thiefs and heritics, useless... dudes . I had used them on my previous car. After 2 washes the paint came away. Looks like its a month where lexus's are getting ....bumped

Edited by Javadude

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My heart goes out to you, my 220 was also dinged by a half blind bat in a car part too lat week, same colour a yours and all, sounds like a conspiracy. I fitted the nokia car kit also a great bit of kit, i opted to mount the button on the steeing column a you can't see it. i also got one of those magnet things on eBay that secures the phone to the dash, so i can see text messages, this is the business and i put it under the dricers side air vent, its also adhesive so theres no damage to the car. have you thought about getting the turtle wax colour stick, you get it in the colour of your car and like acrayon build up a layer of wax flush with the surface and polish it in to fully blend it with the rest of the paint job, it takes about half an hour to do a good job, i've used it on my previous cars and it has worked a treat.

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Rich Bee, sorry to hear about your ding. Can't comment on Chips Away etc but my dealer has done work on a friends bumper after he scraped it backing into a wall and it looks superb (but cost £200).

Not sure what is happening with world at the moment but everyone and their car seems to be attracted to the IS and not in a good way!

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spoke to chipsaway about a scratch on lower part of rear bumper,about 2 inch long.the guy said they would have trouble matching the colour ( light gold )

how honest is that. :)

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