Lexus Assistance Experience

[olliesgrandad]

Yesterday I unfortunately was involved in a road accident. Fortunately I was unhurt due to the great car.  I decided to use the Lexus Assistance and accident management as promoted so heavily in all the car paperwork.  To start with all appeared good. My car had been hit quite hard on the offside rear wheel but still drove and had relatively minor panel damage. I was in the middle of nowhere. Initial call around 12.30. About an hour later the Aa arrived and put my vehicle details into his computer which immediately told him he wasn't allowed to recover it . Low loader called and eventually arrived at 3.30 with an hour plus drive to dealer. On the way I rang the dealer only to find Assistance had failed to notify them the car was on its way . We were given the address of the  approved body shop (a Vauxhall dealer)  only to find it was wrong and involved another mile journey. Upon arrival all was good and car booked in around 5.30. This morning I rang Lexus dealer who didn't know if I was eligible for a loan car. By now having spent 4shocked hours waiting  in the hot sun yesterday I decided I'd had enough and got my insurers to get the car to their repair centre. At least I know that I won't be worrying about transport and issues between dealer and bodyshp for the next few weeks .I am not blaming the dealer for this as Lexus are the ones pushing the service and clearly don't know their own vehicles or how to communicate with their dealerships about loan cars etc. 

After I told them the car would be repaired elsewhere they in fairness offered me a service loan car for the duration. But I was too miffed to be bothered.  They are losing out because they estimate repair costs at nearly  £6000 which is mainly suspension damage. 

 

[rayaans]

57 minutes ago, olliesgrandad said:

oYesterday I unfortunately was involved in a road accident. Fortunately I was unhurt due to the great car.  I decided to use the Lexus Assistance and accident management as promoted so heavily in all the car paperwork.  To start with all appeared good. My car had been hit quite hard on the offside rear wheel but still drove and had relatively minor panel damage. I was in the middle of nowhere. Initial call around 12.30. About an hour later the Aa arrived and put my vehicle details into his computer which immediately told him he wasn't allowed to recover it . Low loader called and eventually arrived at 3.30 with an hour plus drive to dealer. On the way I rang the dealer only to find Assistance had failed to notify them the car was on its way . We were given the address of the  approved body shop (a Vauxhall dealer)  only to find it was wrong and involved another mile journey. Upon arrival all was good and car booked in around 5.30. This morning I rang Lexus dealer who didn't know if I was eligible for a loan car. By now having spent 4shocked hours waiting  in the hot sun yesterday I decided I'd had enough and got my insurers to get the car to their repair centre. At least I know that I won't be worrying about transport and issues between dealer and bodyshp for the next few weeks .I am not blaming the dealer for this as Lexus are the ones pushing the service and clearly don't know their own vehicles or how to communicate with their dealerships about loan cars etc. 

After I told them the car would be repaired elsewhere they in fairness offered me a service loan car for the duration. But I was too miffed to be bothered.  They are losing out because they estimate repair costs at nearly  £6000 which is mainly suspension damage. 

 

Few things to remember - Lexus Assistance contract their work out to the AA who deal with everything. The IS300h cannot be towed due to the hybrid system and needs to have all 4 wheels on a loader so that's not exactly their fault. They send out the nearest AA man and they don't all have low loaders lying around, hence if one is required, you'll have to wait.

Are you with Lexus Insurance? If so a loan car should be provided. If not, they don't have to supply you with a loan car unless you ask for one and tell them to bill the insurance company.

You've sent your IS to an insurance bodyshop? Good luck with that one - it'll come back with panels misaligned and a poor paint job. Frankly I'd be impressed if they even managed to put the suspension back together as they're unlikely to have ever seen one let alone work on one

[olliesgrandad]

Well apparently according to Lexus the documentation supplied with my car was out of date. The Aa should know how to recover the car as they have a dedicated Lexus team who answer the phone as Lexus. 

As for the comments about the knowledge of the bodyshop you will note that the approved Lexus repair shop is a Vauxhall Dealer who has held the contract for 3 whole weeks. That clearly makes them Lexus experts....

[Spacewagon52]

Does not inspire confidence .... but hope it all works out. Provided no one was injured that is the main thing - cars can be repaired or replaced.

[rayaans]

On 2017-5-26 at 2:42 PM, olliesgrandad said:

Well apparently according to Lexus the documentation supplied with my car was out of date. The Aa should know how to recover the car as they have a dedicated Lexus team who answer the phone as Lexus. 

As for the comments about the knowledge of the bodyshop you will note that the approved Lexus repair shop is a Vauxhall Dealer who has held the contract for 3 whole weeks. That clearly makes them Lexus experts....

Im sure they literally just send the closest AA guy and go from there.

The bodyshop won't be a "Vauxhall" bodyshop. Itll just be based on a Vauxhall dealer site. However, it has to be done to Lexus standards i.e. panel gaps exactly the same as new. Insurance bodyshops don't have this. 

My wife's IS went to RRG Bolton to be fixed - 30 miles from where I live, came back and the panel gaps measured with a caliper are bang on even though bumper and fender were replaced. 

Problem with the insurance bodyshop is it works to a cost to save the insurance company money i.e. by cutting corners. You may find clips missing under the wheel arch, poor painting etc and they don't bother to check this - they send it out if it looks 80% OK and rely on the customer to notice

[Martin F]

On 26/05/2017 at 10:02 AM, rayaans said:

You've sent your IS to an insurance bodyshop? Good luck with that one - it'll come back with panels misaligned and a poor paint job. Frankly I'd be impressed if they even managed to put the suspension back together as they're unlikely to have ever seen one let alone work on one

What a load of bollox !!!!

So you think only Lexus bodyshops possess the skills to use rulers and verniers and have access to relevant paint coding systems,etc ? All those other OEM approved bodyshops must be totally incompetent then and not even able to bolt a suspension component back to the right torque setting 

I agree that bodyshops who are performing insurance work are constantly squeezed on their margins, but like everything in life there are good and bad ones (no doubt even bad Lexus approved ones). 

OP .. don't forget you have the ability to reject your car once you see it on delivery or collection, try not to get carried away in the moment of you receiving your nice shiny car back and look round it with a fine toothed comb, whoever the bodyshop is. 

 

 

 

[rayaans]

3 hours ago, Martin F said:

What a load of bollox !!!!

So you think only Lexus bodyshops possess the skills to use rulers and verniers and have access to relevant paint coding systems,etc ? All those other OEM approved bodyshops must be totally incompetent then and not even able to bolt a suspension component back to the right torque setting 

I agree that bodyshops who are performing insurance work are constantly squeezed on their margins, but like everything in life there are good and bad ones (no doubt even bad Lexus approved ones). 

OP .. don't forget you have the ability to reject your car once you see it on delivery or collection, try not to get carried away in the moment of you receiving your nice shiny car back and look round it with a fine toothed comb, whoever the bodyshop is. 

 

 

 

Nope but the majority are and there are plenty of people out there who care about their cars and can back that up.  

The general population won't notice a misaligned panel or poor paint. Take a look down the road and you'll see. 

There are some strict standards to pass to be certified lexus approved bodyshop, not anybody can just pick up the contract based on being the cheapest. 

It's similiar to how foxs biscuits work. The biscuits going into an M&S branded package are better quality than the Foxs branded biscuits which are better than the ones in Asda packaging.

Now I know for a fact that the RRG bodyshop did the car and it then went to my dealership where an engineer checked everything and only then was it released. You don't get then with a normal bodyshop, hence why cars leave with panels misaligned and poor paint. My previous RX300 was done by an inaurance bodyshop after someone decided to go into the side of it whilst parked.  They managed to paint it metallic black instead of solid Astral black. Don't ask me how that was passed through.

There's a reason insurance companies choose the repairers - it's all about cost

[Casa1862]

When I recently needed repairs I originally took it to Lexus, bit of rip off I think. Lexus then sent it to a third party repairer, as it happens the third party repairer was on my insurance companies approved list, my insurance company refused to let Lexus handle the repair, all that would happen is Lexus send them an inflated bill for doing nothing, the work would be identical. Lexus dealer desperately tried to challenge the decision  but my insurance refused, Lexus  tried to say that when the car was returned to them they'll hold onto it until they get paid from my insurance company, at that point I just wanted my car back,  I was getting  annoyed with their attitude, the insurance company simply told me to collect it from the repairer directly. I probably could have requested that Lexus deal with it but difficult to argue when Lexus added very little value, in all honesty they delayed the repair so they could get their cash. Not saying they don't deserve to get paid, but the additional fees they charge are unreasonable.

The job was perfect, Lexus wanted to charge a massively inflated price for at the most checking the car and issuing an "approved Lexus" paperwork. The loan car they said they provided was not a Lexus and had the same third party logo plastered on it so hardly their car. 

[olliesgrandad]

I have received an apology from Lexus HQ admitting that there were issues in communication between the various agencies involved in managing my accident recovery and that they had failed to deliver a satisfactory service. 

My car is still off the road and I am in a Vauxhall Astra auto. Good news is that so far that is 1000 miles not on my Lexus. Strangely the auto version of the Astra gets the most powerful 1.4turbo petrol with 150bhp so at least it goes quite well but is otherwise pretty uninspiring