JonnyWil

Hi DanD, Sadly the car is not back yet, will be another week yet so around 3 weeks away in total :-( That is what I was wondering or even a Pheasant maybe? Superb response by the way :-)

Just to update with regards to the wings/ fenders being sprayed I have spoken with a freind that actually works in a bdoyshop who has confirmed this is standard when spraying a new bonnet to colour match the wings too. I didnt understand the process why as it is quite an art form but this is required to properly colour match the car. It also has nothing to do with the age of the vehcile or any fading of the paint work. At the end of the day, he is a friend, and expert in this field and has no reason to tell me anything other than the truth :-)

HI Rayaans, i do see you point and it is well made. My car was 1st registered in April 2015! With my repair work they state they need to paint the bonnet and front bumper which I do understand as the new bonnet will not be pre-sprayed and the bumper does have the small mark where the light lens scraped a small bit of paint off (bumper is just unlucky). But with a car that is less than 8 months old I see your point, how much colour matching should really be required for the wings/ fender. They did state the wings would not require the full 3 coat pearl but only the single top coat for matching. I have actually just emailed the repair centre to ask if you have to single coat spray the wings to match the bonnet then how does this then match the two front doors and the A pillar which are the next section of the car next to the parts already being sprayed. Will be interesting to see what they say :-)

Ah right, I can understand that a deer would trigger the system as the force applied would be similar to that of hitting a pedestrian if not more. I have seen the damage a deer did to a car years ago which was shocking but it was hit at about 40mph!! At least you actually know what did this, sadly I have no idea and even after searching the area straight after the incident, which is the most annoying thing for me!! So much so I have even purchased a dash cam now just in case the worst should happen again! Touch wood!!

Hi wh05apk, with regards to the airbags this is something I asked Lexus about and a friend who is a mechanic. The airbag sensor requires significatly more force to trigger this. They would expect that in an accident with a pedestrian this would never be enough to trigger the airbags, unless they were, no offence intended, a rather portly gentleman or woman but even that is unlikely! :-) The airbag senser control unit is part of the pop up hood unit so even though the airbags did not deploy that whole unit needs to be replaced as it is a one use system!

hi wh05apk, sadly mine was the same, I could not even find anything on the road or at the roadside to confirm what exactly had made contact but I was also told this was unlucky as the only damage done was the light lens scratching a tiny little bit of paint off the bumber when it flexed, the mark is around 5mm long!!! There was a smear in the surface dirt just above the fog lamp but not a single scuff or scratch to the paintwork once this was cleaned off.

Hi EvilAudi, can i just ask what triggered your Pop Up Hood?

Your missing the point, the pop-up hood is to PROTECT people been hit by the car NOT you.But sadly like many VW owners, no one these days seems to care about anyone but themselves. So what if my VW filling the air with NO, it doesn't bother me...Isn't it great how selfish we all can be :) As pointed out by others and most recently the 5k figure below, I think I'll settle for protection for myself until such a time as pop up hoods are more refined and will not cause you to be without a car for that long never mind the costs involved. Whether insurance pays or not is irrelevant, in fact I don't think I would want a car that has that much repair work carried out on it back again. Exactly what my whole point is, just how refined is this system!!

Oh and DanD just to add further details, this is my company car so the cost has no effect on me what so ever and all costs are covered by the insurance which is also paid by the company. Money is not the issue here as stated from the start the pop hood activating nearly caused an accident in a situation that didnt require it.

Just to update everyone, in the words of Lexus something small has made contact with the front offside corner of the car. No external damage to the car at all but enough to flex the bumper in and crush the sensor tube and activating the Pop Up Hood. Also in a representative of Lexus own words, I think you have been very unlucky and the contact was litterally just on the very edge of what was required to activate it!!! No sign of what was hit, checked all over the road and at the sides when this happened but nothing. Repairs needed, New Bonnet, Hinges (plus spraying and colour match over the wing and front bumper - three coat pearl!!!) F Sport Badges, Airbag control unit, pedestrian safety unit, pedestrian safety sensor tube, Pop Up Hood rams, bonnet stays plus all the assesment work to find out what happened. Grand total for all of that just over £5000!!!!!!!! I took one week for the assesment/ insurance approval etc and then will be another 2 weeks for the repair!!! This system is so the car companies dont have to design the car with the EU required 5 or 6 inches between the outer skin of the bonnet and the top of the engine block, they must have just twigged at the same time that we can make a fortune in repairs when these things to go off even if you dont hit a pedestrian!!! Im not questioning the safety feature but surley this could have been designed better so that when contact is made with anything, in my case something that didnt even damage the car!! The car doesnt then do something that causes £5000+ worth of damage!!! I wonder how popular cars with this system will be when they start to get to 6 or 7 years plus as deployment could have you facing an insurance write off!!!! I know people will say that is what your insurance is for but you wont get anywhere near what the car is worth to you and the added problems that then creates!! DanD, RX 450H, well lets hope as all drivers are fallible that you don't hit a pedestrian as I doubt there is a pop up hood on your model (please enlighten us) as this would do very little for a pedstrian due to the height of the front. With all due respect if you are so safety driven for both yourself and other road users and pedestrians is there a specific reason you require the large RX or is this just for the school run? When compared to the IS or CT I wonder which one a pedestrian would rather it be in the event of a accident?? If you say its for offroading then why did you even buy an RX?? So how much consideration did you give to the safety of other road users and pedestrians when purchasing your large 4x4? Only asking as you choose to question other peoples stand on other peoples safety!

Just to add the Pop Up Hood system is only active between 16 and 34 mph, anything outside of this and the system will not activate, the Lexus handbook also states other situations that could potentially deploy the pop up hood and I will add these later today when home as they are funny at least. In response to ganzooms message I totally agree that safety systems are there for a good reason and many protect both the driver and any pedestrian. As a father myself I would have to say I would prefer the accident to be with a car with a pop up hood. But I also have to consider the occasions when this activates when no contact with a pedestrian the dangers it could create which could then otentially harm a pedestrian as a result. I ask the same question, if a car vears on the road and hits you or your child, would you have preffered it didnt have a pop up hoods that activated due to a minor impact such as a bird which then resulted in the driver taking action and hitting your or you child. I agree the later is much less likely to happen but if and when it does im sure the person on the recieving end wont even care about statistics.

Hello again, Update on my car and Lexus has confirmed there was an impact on the car which has triggered to Pop Up Hood. In their own words the impact has been small and on the lower front offside corner of the bumper. The bumber itself is fine and Lexus have also confirmed there is no damage to the bumber and only removing this has shown the sensor tube has been crushed slightly at that side. So what they are saying is the pedestrian protection system can deploy when something small hits the bumper and causes flex in the plastic. As someone mentions above, a child kicks a football in the road, £3000 bill, a bird strikes the front of the car £3000 bill!!! Or even worse a child kicks a football in the road, you dont see it, it them triggers a extreamly loud explosion/ bang and something appears in your line of site, you brake and try to avoid and run over the child at the side of the road. Or a pigeon flys out infront of your car, makes contact with the bumper and triggers the Pop Up Hood and your natural instinct is to react to a loud bang or something that in a split second appears in your vision. Ok these are just possible senarios but who is going to question just how possible this could actually be? What is everyone elses thoughts?

Hello All, new to this site but only found this post due to what has happened to me last night!! Driving along at around 30mph, smooth road, then all of a sudden a massing bang and I thought a large piece of metal had land on the front of the windscreen! Naturally I braked hard and swerved to avoid whatever looked like it was about to come through the windscreen nearly crashing the car through a set of barriers, luckily just avoided!! Once stopped and inspected the car I slowly realised the Pop Up Hood had activated!! The car was only registered in April and has done about 20,000miles. On inspection by the AA and a mechanic that lives near me they both confirmed there is no reason this safety system should have deployed, the AA guy also put that in writing for me, bless him. On talking to Lexus they have also said on inspection there is no signs or any damamge to the front of the car in fact it is was very clean with not even a small scratch you would come to expect anyway with the milleage. Im currently waiting for the dealership to examine this further and confirm what the outcome of that investigation is. This could have been much worse as the noise was extreamly load and when something large and white (colour of my car) appear in your driving view in a milli second of course you react to avoid it, the fact its attached to the car makes that a little tricky of course!! :-) Am I the only person that has had an accidental deployment of the Pop Up Hood, I would be interested to know???? To be fair to Lexus they had a hire car at their cost ready for me and have that for 3 days but if the repair will take longer they will extend this at their cost or provide a Lexus courtesy car. The servie department has also be fair in stating the inspection shows no damage to the car so points to accidental deployment. Im pretty sure in my experience of Audi this would have not been the same stance!!! Even though the customer service has been superb from Lexus Im still pretty annoyed that the system did this for no reason and when the car had never had and form of front end knock etc. As for someone advising you this could be reset in 30 minutes that is funny, the rams come up so far they have even cracked the paintwork on the top of the bonnet, the hinges are bent around 40 degrees out of place so this will never be a cheap quick fix even with colour coded parts held in stock!! It will need a new bonnet, hinges, Pop Up Rams and other work to reset it all. Of course there has been no mention of cost to me by Lexus which is fair of them again but even still the outcome of this failire could have been far worse and what if I had crashed, would they have been able to tell if the crash casued the pop up hood to deploy or did it happen and cause the crash, that would be a very interesting argument im sure. Anyway just wanted to add this to the subject as could this be the start of an ongoing fault like the Mondeo Light switch about 20 years ago that Ford said to my mum, its driver error or you must have done somehting or knocked it to then 6 months later Ford recalling all vehicles. Maybe a bit ott but if it starts to happen more then this suddenly will become useful to people :-) I was going to add some pictures but will only do via URL unless anyway can tell me how to do it another way??