DDLexus

Hey everyone. I am new to this forum, but wanted to tell a quick story.

It appears that most people registered on this site have a NEW Lexus. Few have registered with a 98 or later car. I just bought a 98 GS 400 and was amazed at how well the paint looked. I've had many cars, BMW, Acura, SAAB, and Honda. After a few years, and lots of miles, the paint just doesn't hold up. I wanted to let everyone know that the paint on my 98 with 50K miles looks unbelieveable. I would park it next to new one and it would be very hard to see any difference. Sure, the front plastic spolier has some bug damage, but the rest of the car is almost perfect. I think part of the reason is the plastic panels around the car. These panels can take a beating, and clean up easily. I know Mercedes has a reputation of putting numerous coats of paint on their cars, I imagine that Lexus has also adopted a similar program.

So, for all the people who have a newer Lexus, you are in for some long-term happiness in the paint department.

Cheers.

Damon

GS4Will

Damon,

congrats and welcome.

according to several good bodyshops i talked to in the past, they all agree that LEX cars have one of the best paint, if not the best, in the world of mass production cars.
my 1st gs3 was a 94 and i bought it in 95w15k miles. when i sold it in 98 w95kmiles, the paint still shines as if it were new(i also waxed every other week). the new owner is a pro-detailing guy, and he knowswhat is considered a good-paint car.

good luck

william

ceoart

I would not say this holds true for my Black GS430. I have waxed the car fully every 3 weeks. Plus I wax the back at least twice a week because the parking spot I have is partially under my building near the Ocean. The back end of my car is not covered fully and every time it rains it leaves water spots that are very hard to get off. Plus the paint scratches so easily. In two years I think it will not be looking so good.

GlobeCLK

iTrader: (5)

CEOART:

maybe because your car is BLACK (shiniest color when clean, ugliest color when dirty). Black is superhard to keep clean, so just good luck I guess!:eek:

mooretorque

PearlGS4, welcome. As far as older cars, you'll be happy to know that my daily driver up until January of this year was a 93 Pearl White Metallic SC300 5 speed which I bought new as a special order, rcvd in June of 93. Kept it (carefully and properly) washed, carnubaed about 3 times a year (my pre-Zaino days) and, to the day I sold it (to one of my partners......how's that for confidence in all aspects of Lexus quality?) with 93k miles on it, mouths would go wide agape when I would tell someone that the car was 7 years old. And my daytime parking was always outside, never sheltered or covered.

You gotta do the right things with it, but that's damn good paint and clearcoat. Congratulations!!!!

biggie27

yah I have a black GS400 and its a pain in the A$$ to keep clean but when its clean its the most buetiful color the GS comes in ( closely followed by the mika blue ) Im about to buy some Zaino products from what Ive seen it should bring my car back to new if this works Im personaly gonna fly down to the Zaino headquarters and kiss there CEO

PS. I live in Seattle so you can imagine how hard it is to keep the car clean

whitediamond

There is a new product that just hit the shelves of your local auto parts store called DUCKY. It is specifically for water spots and works as advertised. It EASILY removes water sports by just wiping on and then off. Not harmful to the paint or clear coat. I swear by it.

Jazziz

Biggie,
When you go to Zaino, please throw in an extra kiss for me as well!

Thanz

Manaray

Yeah, Black sucks in many ways...but boy, when it's clean, it's the best color!

I just take mine to a local detailer who clays and waxes (using a special wax for black cars only) and I can't tell you how great it looks...the black looks very DEEP...

What bugs me about Lexus's black paint job (and I suppose all black paint jobs) is how obvious the orange peel is. I had my front doors, front fenders and hood colorsanded (the rest to be done next time) and man what a difference! The colorsanded parts are smoothing looking like glass at ALL angles and at all times of the day...

But right now, my car is dirty as hell and my front rims look like I sprayed them with dirty purple pearl...did about 30 miles of canyon "touring" today...almost took out two deers and a few bicyclist! Don't they know better than to be on a clean smooth canyon road with a GS430 coming at them at close to 100 MPH? Oh, I think my bug kill count is like at...oh, in round figures...a BILLION. Dammit, who's idea was it to have bugs on canyon roads???

Saw a banged up Porsche on the same canyon...guess he was going a little too fast...his paint looked good though...

D-MAN63

So whats the best color in terms of easy to clean? Silver? I remember someone mentioned it was silver. For me its easy to clean silver but you just don't get that "extra" shinyness that comes in darker colors

RealMarty

Yeah. It's a trade off. I've had 2 silver cars and one more on order. Easy to keep clean winter and summer. Gold is a close second, but I like the silver better.

But, you're right. It doesn't have that deep a shine. To me it's not an issue. I'm not looking for a mirror. Just a damn good car that I can drive and not spend days washing and waxing (I don't get spending an entire weekend doing Zaino). Silver/Gray works for me.

dgangi

Silver is probably the easiest car to keep clean. My 2000 GS is the titanium silver color and it is very easy to keep from looking dirty. My last car, a '95 G20T, was also silver and always looked good.

My other car, a light plum Saturn coupe (funky light silver/purple color) was also easy to keep clean, so I would guess any light color metallic paint is easy to keep looking good, so gold is probably easy to keep clean too.

My friend has a black Grand Prix GTP and it looks stupendous just after it has been waxed. But a few days of road driving and the dirt and swirl marks start to show and the car looks bad. My white Tahoe looks great too when it is newly washed but one small water puddle and - splash - small dirt splotches are all over the doors and it looks like sh!!t.


Thx...Doug

BBD

ceoart I own a Black GS400 99 model ,, and ok 1 its VERY hard to keep the car clean everything shows however if you wash it after the rain wax it every now and then you will be ok, I know small bug damages and little bitty scratches would show more than a White Lexus, but I made the chioce of black knowing that I would have to wash the car more than I had to wash myself anyways its a nice paint Job ...

PS* I am thinking next year I would get the Dupoint Color Black you know same as the Ferrari colors and see how it would work I heard it had 5 layers of paint and Looks Awsome. need to make some calls here and their and see if it is really worth it or not. any comments about this ?

GlobeCLK

iTrader: (5)

yah silver is the easiest to keep clean color. That's why in my lazy family we have 3 silver cars! (only my dad's cars aren't silver.)

bitkahuna

iTrader: (20)

Black is the car color for masochists.

I see lots of black cars and even ones that have just been waxed usually have swirl marks when looked at in sunlight.

Somehow they need to do an enamel/lacquer type finish that will make a rock hard smooth black finish - then it should only need rinsing off! Of course this would probably cost a fortune and might even weigh a lot, but it would be cool. Black paint is just hard to do. Lexus has excellent paint work, but on black Mercedes might just be better. I've seen a few S500s in black and the finish looks incredible.

Of course I have silver, because I'm lazy. And while it will never had the highly reflective shine/gloss of black, I get to sleep in late while others are out using lots of elbow-grease on theirs! In lower lighting (afternoon/morning) though the slight shadows on the fender flares are very cool.