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Sup guys,
I crashed my 2009 Starfire Pearl Lexus IS250 back in December 2014
Just getting around to giving her a proper eulogy.
My story starts shortly after having a conversation with my good friend and boss (who owned an IS-F at the time) about cars, something we were both passionate about. He convinced me that if I loved cars so much that I should splurge and get myself something I really liked. Was kind of in the middle of cars, just waiting for a current lease to expire on a Camry(), a car that at this point I hadn't even washed in over 2 years...
After a few weeks of research on pricing I decided an IS was what I was looking for. After searching for inventory around the area, I decided to pull the trigger on a used 2009 Starfire Pearl. She was absolutely gorgeous! Immaculate! The only issues was a tiny tiny area in the middle of driver door where the paint was chipped, other than that PERFECT! I was driving a head turner, an iconic (imho) luxury car. The always shiny paint, the sexy curvaceous shape, the cool glow from the license plate lights at night, wow, a car I thought I could never attain was finally mine
I took her home and washed her every single weekend for the first few months, I was so damn excited!
Not the type of person to have the same looking car as everyone else, I was looking for ideas on how to change the appearance to fit more my style. Ive done some modding before but that was along time ago! Here goes nothing i thought....first some plastidip:
This method didnt work out so well as the edges were crispy looking, not smooth at all.
Also plastidipped the "lobster claw" wheels.
(sorry no direct shots)
Buffed out foggy, yellow lens:
Yellow foggy lenses
The look on your wife/girlfriend's face when they see what youve done to the new car you just purchased is priceles lol!
Removed bumper to add HID fogs, plastidip grill and paint the inside of the headlights flat black.
Results:
Painted tail lights black, with white cutout around check/reverse area then finished with clear coat to maintain shininess of OEM light:
6000k Headlights + Fogs:
Upgraded to 2011 LED Headlights (expensive but well worth it, turned my 09 to a 2011!
Also removed rear bumper to install LED reflective lights: (not my car)
Wired mine so that they are off by default, even at night, and only come on when the brake is applied.
It looked better but still missing a couple of things. What can we do with the interior? I hated the tan interior, which was prone to scratching scuffing and cleaning dirty fingerprints all over. Not a fan of most car interiors, which should NOT be super flashy or complex, but instead blend into the background with the important areas (dash, radio, ***** and car switches) highlighted for ease of use. Lucky for me the IS classifieds had some great stuff so I bought some used black suede F-Sport seats, black headliner, black trim and every single seat belt (ebay) to convert the interior to black. I was not replacing the full dash due to costs/time/pain in *** so I decided to paint it instead. Removed EVERY SINGLE part of the interior except dash to paint, masked off everything:
Before:
Masking/Prep:
Lightly sanded every single piece, sprayed with some adhesion promoter, plastic primer, given a few coats of paint then clear coat.
Some types of plastic did not take to the paint, so I went ahead and dyed the parts to get the oem look.
After:
Painted/dyed trim and buttons:
Painted door panel: (used SEM Color Coat Satin Black)
Heres what the finished rear door looked like. Door handles, door grip and orange door lock painted with SEM Color Coat cloth white paint.
Put back together:
I also added a black Takeda intake, an Invidia midpipe for the grumble and an HKS Exhaust to complement the "aggressive" look, so you can just imagine the growl. The first day I was like how the hell am I going to get used to this noise? Now its more like..how could I ever drive a car without that growl lol!
You can see the HKS exhaust that I painted with black high temperature paint. Also the lobster claw styled OEM rims which I plasti-dipped black.
Something was still missing from the interior. The radio with no navigation was extremely dated, me being a techie, I just had to change that old school tan/black digital radio. Found a chinese company selling aftermarket nav/media player unit that fit perfectly into our cars, for only $450 bucks! count me in!
Im a designer by trade so while this unit gave me a ton of new features, the menus had me ready to barf! I spent some time trying to figure out how to change the menu to my liking. Opened up the device and figured out how to change the graphics around, come to find out it was running a verison of Windows CE which is right up my alley.
After some tests with colors and how they look during borth the day/night I arrived to this very minimalistic and simple color pallete, my new custom made menus :
The last piece I bought was a custom black perforated leather steering wheel from DCTMS which was installed on car for a total of 2 days before accident:
Now on to the sad part, the car after the accident:
Over 20k In damages, total loss
Sadly this was the only picture I took of the car once all the mods were finished.
RIP
2015 Ultra White on Matte Black Lexus GS350 F-Sport
Please let me know if you have any questions on anything, be it how to take apart a certain piece and ill be glad to help. This forum was the only reason I was able to get the car how I wanted it and have no problem helping anyone out with their whip.
Thanks for all Club Lexus, the best car forum on the web.
Yeah, tell us more about the accident and the items that were damaged to net $20k in damages?
When my wife wrecked her GTO of 6 months, sitting on the ground you'd not know it was totalled. Was 100% undercarriage damage due to her sliding down a HWY divider cable like a F'n skateboader. LOL! Damn semi trucks!
When my wife wrecked her GTO of 6 months, sitting on the ground you'd not know it was totalled. Was 100% undercarriage damage due to her sliding down a HWY divider cable like a F'n skateboader. LOL! Damn semi trucks!
Holy smokes. That car looks brand new when it is totaled. But I can see severe frame damage from the front all the way to the rear end. Loving the new GS though.
06-28-15, 11:23 PM
RIP Black/White Lexus 2009 IS250
part, the car after the accident:
That must have been some scary stuff
