aznkorboi

Sooo... We plan on selling the wife's 2009 Lexus IS 250. I heard good things about car max and that it makes it an easy transition to selling the car. I also heard they are very strict and even use a paint thickness tool to see if the paint and panels are factory?

Regardless, I was planning on doing a full detail on the paint. However, I noticed alot of issues that don't seem as easy as buffing off with compound.

What are the steps to restore scratches that have clearly passed the paint but has not reached the metal? Do I use the sanding method? Or do I use touch up paint? How difficult is it? Can people notice easily?

Or, if anyone has gone through selling through car max before, is it even worth it to do?

I saw this on amazon: https://www.amazon.com/gp/huc/view.h...PYDSWAIWTY%2C1

Thank you!

97-SC300

iTrader: (17)

Picture 1: Looks like it's completely through the paint. Would need touchup paint several layers of base coat, sanding off the excess blob, then clearcoat touchup, also sanding the excess after paint cured. Long, tedious process and results will never look perfect. EVER. Unless you respray the entire panel. If you don't have the time or experience to do the above, Dr. Colorchip is the quickest touch up system that requires no sanding, still improves the look of scratches and chips but like the above step, will only improve it slightly and not really a method to fully restoring the defect. Dr. colorchip will be much quicker and safer but won't look as good as traditional touchup done by a master touch up guy.

Picture 2: That looks like a permenant clearcoat etching. Either chemical or bird crap, tree sap, or something similar. You cannot repair that. Full respray necessary.

Picture 3: That scuff at the bottom is going to be next to impossible to do a quick repair on. Unless you have an aerosol can of your car's base coat and the proper sanding,primer, and prep tools, don't even try anything as it will only look worse or not worth the hassle. Touchup on a big section like that is not easy to to properly. Dr Colorchip might work if you take the paint and just smear it on with a rag, but definitely don't use a small brush on that.

Picture 4: The pitting of the paint is too far gone. That looks like it was sand blasted to be honest.

You need to be realistic with your expectations. Repainting the entire front end properly is going to cost alot of money that you will NEVER make back, especially selling to a place like Carmax.

It's an honest used car with paint defects that are to be expected and are very common on an older daily vehicle. That car is never going to look perfect anyways, no higher mileage, used car ever does.

roblim

I don't think those blemishes will deduct from your trade in value. As long as your car is in good shape and doesn't have a lot of miles, they will probably put it on their lot. If your car is in poor condition or is a car that they can't warranty (too expensive), they just auction it off to dealers. Carmax has their own repair facilities and they will be able to fix those small issues. Again, i don't think those things will reduce your trade in value so i would not worry about fixing them. Sometimes carmax pays well but most of the time they are pretty low. That has been my experience with them.

Wandl

+1

Even if this was a private party buyer; let's face it the car is 8 years old it will have some expected blemishes from 8 years of usage. They are not anything major to be honest so I don't think it would be a great financial decision to splunk significant $ or effort into it.