Most Expensive Car Wash Ever!

[Haylands]

Hi all

Old sweats on here will remember when mine got rear ended earlier in the year, it had a new boot lid, bumper and lights and the rear panel was straightened.... well

I was passing the repairers whilst it was getting done (they are a Lexus/BMW/Mercedes approved body shop) so I popped in to see how it was going, they let me have a look at it as it was being fitted back together...

Imagine my horror to see the boot with no carpet or side panels in it, instead everything in the boot was covered in water, they had jet washed the car with the rear bumper off and the boot seal off. The satnav dvd had a puddle on top of it and the spare wheel well had about 2" of water in it.... well after I had calmed down they stated that they would dry it all out.... not good enough was my reply I want everything out of the boot, dried and inspected by Lexus. I also want the assurance that if anything in future fails and it is attributed to water ingress then they foot the bill. I took pictures of the car and they assured me it would be sorted.

Anyway Lexus had the car for a day and inspected what they could.

About a month ago the button on the boot that lets you open it if you are outside the car, with the smart key in range, stopped working. I booked it in and they had it in on Tuesday. They spent three hours on it and decided that the switch itself had gone, they took it apart and found no water damage, in fact no damage at all but it would work with the boot open but not with the boot shut!!!! They thought it was something in the switch loose and moving when the boot was shut. They ordered a switch, £47 which I said I would pay for as it looked like it wasn't down to the body shop. It was infact the first failure on the car in the year I've had it...

Anyway in it went this morning to have the new switch fitted, they lent me a RX400h....very nice, I got a phone call after another three hours to say it wasn't the switch but the car needed a new rear half wiring loom and a new rear BCM (ecu) as it had rotted away inside the plug where it plugs in below the satnav DVD. They had remembered the earlier issue so had phoned the body shop who said they would pay all the costs...

So it is booked in next week for a new rear wiring loom and a new BCM (body control module) total cost including fitting (1 & 1/2 days) £1750

Quite a lot just to open the boot......

I do feel a bit sorry for the body shop, they had some plonker working for them who was a bit dim and its cost them all this money.....

Wonder what will be next to go.... and wasn't it lucky I popped in when I did....

Pete

[Parthiban]

I guess it's a good result to a slightly bizarre situation.............why on earth did they wash it with the bumper off? Surely washing it would be the last thing they'd do before giving the car back?

[Haylands]

Never got to the bottom of that... I think they washed it off after they straightened the rear panel, they painted the complete back of the car with the bumper off so they may have been cleaning the panel behind the bumper.... if that was the case it sat with water in it for 3 days and even the oven bakeing for the paint didn't dry it off.....

The water got in the sides of the boot via the holes in the rear wings that attach the bumper....

[floggit]

Sounds like you had a result seeing it when covered in water at least the bodyshops paying up no problem.

I wonder how many other cars may have been treated to the same treatment by the monkey and if they owned up to it ? lol

steve.

[GoldfingerLS]

This is exactly why I am against steam cleaning the engine of the car. When it is steam cleaned water and condensation in the electrical connectors will remain (even though it may be very small) and problems like this will only arise well after when the corrosion starts to set in.

Thats why when ever I go to see a car for sale I always look for signs of the engine being steam cleaned. Above is a taste of what you could be paying to put it right.

Thankfully Pete won't have to foot the bill in this case.