09LS460

The previous owner of my car was not so gentle with how often he used the top surfaces of the car as a shelf for boxes and everything. I went to a few body shops to have them look at how to address and one recommended wet sanding the entire car with 3000 grit paper which the guy said most of them (there are a few deeper ones) would disappear.

The price would only be $65 to do this, but I've never heard of wet sanding an entire vehicle to remove surface scratches (granted they're all over).

Have any of you done this? I'm eager to have the car looking 100%, but this idea caught me a bit off guard (though he seemed totally comfortable with it and acted like it was commonly done).

Please either talk me into or out of this.....

CJITTY

This is not a real post is it? $65?? Sandpaper?? Cmon son

True paint correction techniques costs hundreds of dollars by professionals ...Google or YouTube paint correction for details

rico9803

It sounds crazy but I found this on autogeek.net
http://www.autogeek.net/how-to-remove-scratches.html

Lextrician

3000 grit sand paper with a polish and wax is detailing and will not harm paint only clearcoat!!! u need a polisher or a professional. you need to have detailer take care of you.. i need the same as well besides my hood which i now the cause of that my roof has deep scratches but gloss black wrap will handle that!!

Mikey100

Don't let FACTS get in the way of a Good Story.

What Uncle Jitty is telling you i simple: The EXPERIENCE and KNOWLEDGE and CARE of WHO performs the detail is far more important than the cost of materials and labor.

Looking @ a cost of $ 65 to "fix" a problem this severe (and trust me .... what was described is SEVERE) is like using ScottTrade to correctly close-out a $72 Million portfolio. If you're laughing, then you'll easily see why no SANE owner of a Flagship LS460 would consider letting anyone touch their paint for $65 !

The COST is not the issue - WHO does the work and their credible and documented experience should be your guide.

Good Luck, Mikey Lulejian - Fishing out on Lake Oconee, GA

PhatDad

True dat what everyone is saying. I can't even get my car waxed for 65 bones!

09LS460

Trust, the cost is not the issue for me as I just want to have all the little surface scratches taken care of.

My Lexus dealer is the one that put me in touch with this guy , and the guy seemed absolutely positive that with 1 or 2 exceptions, the scratches will all be removed and the car will look perfect.

I don't think you could even really capture before/after pics of these types of scratches as they don't really show up that well in photos, but this guy was completely matter of fact and sure of the results........

Nospinzone

Except for possibly the deep scratches, you could do it yourself for less than $10. Get a good scratch and swirl remover. I've used several quality brands, the one I've found that works best is the house brand sold by Harley Davidson dealerships.

caha14

Overall, I tend to agree with fellow members above. A few additional thoughts, starting from the bottom...

If someone was offering to wetsand my whole car for $65 (which in itself is ridiculously cheap) AND they are completely matter of fact and sure of what they are saying, I would - absent any other information (such as a sample of his work) - run. FWIW, I have hardly ever seen perfect results from people who sound so matter-of-fact, but anyway, moving on... The reference from your Lexus dealer should help, but for me, that does not mean much either - everyone has different standards.

If the whole car were to be tackled with 3000-grit sandpaper, it then will need to be polished to get rid of all the sanding marks. This is laborious (enter the strangely-low $65 quote again, unless he's just talking about a small section), but beyond that, it strikes me as overkill, and will ultimately remove more clear coat than the alternatives, even if marginally so (since 3000-grit is pretty friendly).

Sanding is done to reduce orange peel, to "blend" deep scratches that have been touched-up with paint with the adjacent area, or to more-quickly level off deeper scratches, among other things (Autogeek, as suggested above, and other sources do a much better job of explaining this and contain much more knowledge than I possess). I just did some wet sanding on my LS and LX recently, but that's another story...

If the scratches are what they sound like, mostly surface scratches on the lighter side (just a lot of them), your car needs to be polished by a professional with the proper-strength polishes (I am not one, but if you were in my area, I would offer to help with my polisher). Fine, fine scratches will be eliminated, and others could likely be made almost invisible. The latter, if severe enough, could - again - be "leveled" more with sanding, but IMHO, that's probably not necessary, at least not for the whole car.

I am extremely particular about this sort of thing, and the only time I have allowed sanding to take place was on a scratched bumper from a knucklehead who wasn't paying attention when backing up, and in that case, it worked wonders. But this was much, much uglier than what you are describing.

So I would vote for professional detailing or Nospinzone's recommendation.

*******
For reference, I paid $60 for the aforementioned repair on a section that was 3" x 12".

$65 at a $40-an-hour labor rate is basically 1 hour 38 minutes. For sanding and polishing a whole LS. Exactly. That's what's making everyone suspicious. We could be wrong, and these people could work fast and produce high-quality results, but it just doesn't sound right.

09LS460

I'm going to bounce the idea off a few other shops (body and strictly detail) as well to see what their opinions are.

With the trunk, the scratches aren't localized (the whole horizontal surface had items placed on it all over), so the whole top part would have to be done. The roof, a bit less, and the hood a few spots, but it's wide and flat and I would imagine would be hard to mess up (by someone with a lot of experience in this)......

I am not opposed to going the full detail route (which I think I'd be doing anyways after someone sanded off some clear-coat, but I can see the benefit of at least the trunk deck, roof, and hood being sanded because those have light scratches all over them. The doors are mostly ok and the front/back bumpers I wouldn't have them touch due to curves and being plastic.

I will certainly ask more questions, maybe even a demo of the process before it being done.....but if the end result will be smooth, non-marred finish, I think it could be worth looking into if I have the whole car detailed and clay barred......

cheez80

iTrader: (1)

i would look into a less destructive method of removing the scratches first -- instead of going straight for sandpaper, i'd probably look into getting a good paint correction first

rico9803

The link describes the process and what is to be expected. You have to decide if $65 is the price you want to pay. But at least you can ask the right questions, after reading the article.

CJITTY

I was recently quoted $800 for a full paint correction by one of the top 10 detailers in the country as voted by a leading car enthusiast publication. He gave me a break on the price because true paint correction takes HOURS of work and systematically removes a mm or 2 of clear coat to remove scratches. I am now content with adding wax to keep the micro scratches filled and obscure the scratches on my obsidian color...to avoid swirls ans scratches takes meticulous work and quite honestly I have learned to live with it..my car looks fine to me now. I look at new cars on the showroom floor that are fkd up because of the goons in the detail shop going ham with the buffer or sheeety techniques. Those cars never had a chance..you probably have to request the dealer not "prep for delivery" so you can take it to a real professional to get it looking great.

I have seen one or two cars in my day with zero swirls or scratches..they were both owned by retired custom car owners who have all day to meticulous wash their cars correctly. My next car will be white..never really noticed swirls on my pearl white Acura.. black looks awesome but it requires a lot to keep it looking great even for the casual observer

09LS460

Power to you on the black vehicle....it's a line in the sand for me on what I won't purchase when it comes to car colors.....

Mine's a silver, and while not overtly obvious, it's one of those 'new to me vehicle and painful to see' that the previous owner didn't care for it as much as they should have (likely a lease return).

I'll shop plenty of shops and options, but only posted here because I thought the technique sounded unusual (though his confidence in cleaning up the car to 99.9% was convincing).

I can live with the paint issues for a while, but at some point I'm going to want it to be completely repaired and looking proper.

rominl

iTrader: (4)

wet sanding with 3000 grit?! for 65 bucks? whoever told you that in nothing short of insane, run away from them and never go back

a lot of scratches can be taken away by high end detailing shops / people. they can do amazing work, but they are expensive. i will give you an idea, i detail cars. a really right / good detailing job with all the cutting and polishing, can take up to 10-12 hours easily. even assume 60 bucks / hr rate, you do the math on how much that would cost