dano

The story of my GS starts like this:
"I began life as a 2 year/10k mile a year lease vehicle. My first owner kept all services up to date and always took advantage of the dealer's free car washes. Although I like being clean, the car wash was not touchless. To you humans it is like being scrubbed with a garage broom. As a result my beautiful Obsidian skin was covered in swirls and light scratches....but I was always clean.
At the end of my lease I was kept by the dealer and sent through the Lexus certification process. During the process an overzealous paint technician thought it would be a good idea to touch up any slight scratches and stone chips in my paint. Although he did a fine job, leaving just very thin lines to cover the scratches, he also applied some good sized blobs to cover the stone chips. Honestly the scratches could have been rubbed out with polishing compound, they were that light! He then put a coat of quick wax on me to hide any other imperfections.
On a rainy day last December a retired gentleman and his wife took me for a test drive. He didn't spend much time looking me over because it was rainy and cold. But I must have impressed him with my power, features and quality because he ended up taking me home. After a couple days in my new home my owner gave me a bath by hand. It felt so good! But My joy was short lived because after he dried me with the leaf blower and the micro fiber cloths he became very upset. He could see all my scratches and paint touch ups. He was most upset with the paint touch ups. There were several over 2" long and 2 of them were on my hood. He called the dealer to complain. They said they would see what they could do about it at my first scheduled service. My owner doesn't drive me much so that could be a year from now!
I heard him tell his wife he regretted bringing me home. I then saw him spend hours on the internet trying to find a safe way to remove my paint scars. He came very close to buying a product called Langka to remove the paint blobs but my touch up had been on me for several weeks and he figured it was to late for the product to work. It's designed for fresh touch ups. He then decided to do something radical. Last week he purchased plastic razor blades and was going to try to scrape off the touch up paint high spots. That didn't work. The blades were too dull. To my shock and amazement he then put a real razor blade in the holder and spent the next several hours very lightly scraping away all the paint touch up high spots. Although this caused some minor scratches around the touch up area my unsightly scars were pretty much gone.
Yesterday, after another wonderful bubble bath and careful drying my owner opened a box containing a Porter Cable polisher. He put on an orange general purpose pad and began applying some 3M Finesse It 2 on my paint, paying close attention to the areas where he removed the touch up. With a little patience he was able to remove the scratches left by the razor blade. After removing the 3M Finesse It he put on a clean orange pad and applied Meguiars #2 polish, working it well into my paint. That's when I started feeling better about myself, as I could see him smiling as he looked at me. After removing the polish the final step was to put on a coat of Meguiars Black Wax with a red finishing pad. That stuff was weird. It comes in a tube. Kind of like grey toothpaste in consistency. He didn't use much because it spread so nicely and just a small amount covered a large area. He applied it to my entire surface and let it set on me for about a 1/2 hour to dry. He then removed all the Black Wax with micro fiber cloths then went over me again with the softest polishing cloths I have ever felt.
As he stood back and admired my new found beauty I felt like the proverbial garage queen. He called his wife out to the garage and exclaimed "would you look at that.....just look at that!" His wife said..."yea....whatever" and went back in the house. Next, my owner grabbed his iPad and he and I went for a drive. He cruised very slowly through downtown, looking at my reflection in the store windows. We eventually arrived at a nature center parking lot and he got out with his iPad and began taking tons of pictures of me. I felt so happy that he finally loved me! After the photo shoot he took me out in the country and slowed down to a crawl on a long straight stretch of road. That's when I sensed things were going to get interesting.....and I was willing to let him have his way with me. The second he planted his foot on my go pedal I realized he was going to take me to a place I'd never been before. In equine vernacular I knew he was going to "ride me hard and put me away wet." That's what he did......and it was AMAZING!!!

Sevn86

Enjoyed reading the post dano. Car looks great!

SC300Es

Black cars look so awesome!!

Ed

MEAHT

iTrader: (1)

Was it weird that I got a boner? That's true love right there

Looking great Dano

SRC350F

Ah goodness what a great story. Thank you! Now you are making me want to call my dealer to cancel my touch up services as I get the feeling it will be a poor job and just get a clear bra. Am I right in thinking this way about ding shield?

Also I got the protection coverage from lexus, the autobutler. I was going to continue using the service since I paid for it but I am now reconsidering... it may be doing more harm to the soft paint thoughts guys?

dano

Frankly, I would investigate the Langka touch up system and try doing chip repairs yourself. Once you get the hang of it, according to the guys who've used it, the stone chips are virtually undetectable. The clear bra has always intrigued me and I had it put on mr FJ Cruiser but was dissatisfied with the installation.
If the dealer sold you a "protection" package the profit margin on said product is close to 80% for them. So, if you gave them $800 for a "lifetime" protection package that includes paint protection, ding protection and interior protection the dealer pocketed around $640! IMO, if you are a little bit motivated and think of your car like it was your daughter or girlfriend and you really don't want someone else touching her then buy the Langka kit ($20), a Porter Cable 7424 DA polisher ($129 at Autogeek.com --- it's extremely easy to use and you CAN'T hurt your paint, trust me) and do the repairs and paint protection yourself. If you get a ding (or several) call the Dent Wizard. They come right to your house. It's usually $75 a panel. Oh, and buy some leather conditioning from a Harley Davidson dealer. It's the best I've found for taking care of your leather seats. A can of ScotchGuard works great on your carpet, as do WeatherTech floor liners.

islandbeef

The ride looks great, BTW!

caha14

I enjoyed reading every word; looks great, and congratulations!

FWIW, I've been using Langka for 11+ years, and it's a pretty solid product. It will remove touch-up paint no matter how old; it just takes a little more effort but the product will work.

dano

Thanks! And good to know the Langka works on old touch ups. I had read reviews that if the touch up was more than a few days old it was impossible for the Langka stuff to work. Then there were other reviews that said just what you said. I'm ordering it for any future stone chips I may incur.