Lexus Approved Body Shops

[Steviewevie]

On taking my car to Toyota for an estimate on body repair (thread and pictures on this in the Lounge :tsktsk: ), they told me that to keep my 12-year body corrosion warranty, I need to get the work done at a Lexus-approved body shop. It was news to me that my 9-year-old car is even still covered by the original corrosion warranty !

Other than by phoning around different places and asking, does anyone know if there's a way of finding out which body shops are Lexus-approved ? Or are most of them these days and it's not an issue ?

Any information would be useful, thanks.

[Boxbrownie]

Thats not unusual......virtually every manufacturer has "perforation" warranty of around that time.....some a lot more!

http://www.rmif.co.uk

Take a squint in there......you might find some info usefull to you.

[Parthiban]

Aren't the only Lexus approved bodyshops the ones that have some sort of affiliation with a dealership? I wouldn't have thought it was something they just handed out to many dealerships, and more likely it just applies to those within the Lexus family (whether actually owned by the dealership or independent)

Either way I've found the Lexus bodyshop I use to not really be much more expensive than an independent so happy to pay a bit extra for the piece of mind :)

[Steviewevie]

Yeah I phoned around a bit, I even phoned Lexus UK. I'm coming to the conclusion that probably the only Lexus-approved bodyshops are their own body shops, or if they don't have a body shop themselves, the ones they send their work too.

Given that my car's corrosion warranty has less than 3 years to run, and all the body shops that I've spoken to offer a 3 year warranty on their repairs, I don't see it's going to make any difference to me. For instance, if a non-approved body shop repairs a rear panel and then a front panel started rusting, I don't see how Lexus could get out of that front panel still being under their warranty, with the repaired one being under the body shop's warranty.

[Parthiban]

Yeah I don't think they'd make a fuss about the rest of the car, it would only be the resprayed panel that they may not cover.