sinjin69

I bought a 2006 LS430 UL with PCS last month. The car was from Austin, TX. This was great for the overall condition of the body and exhaust but not the exterior plastic. The headlights are in pretty good shape but as you can see the PCS radome had seen better days.



I decided to try the Quixx headlight repair system and see if I could improve the appearance of the cover.

Step 1: Wash the cover and mask off the grill surrounding the radome.

Step 2: Firmly polish the lens to a mirror finish using the plastic polish, provided polishing cloth and rubber block. I probably spent 5 minutes polishing the cover.



As you can see, it removed most of the yellowing but there was still quite a bit of hazing.

Step 3: Since I was still seeing some damage, the next step is wet sanding. First, I started with the provided 2000 grit sandpaper strip, bucket of water and a foam rubber sanding block. The instructions tell you to wet sand in a horizontal direction until the major imperfections are not visible any more. I sanded until I know longer felt unequal resistance in any part of the cover. Obviously the hazed areas provided more resistance initially. Once I finished I used a wet sponge to clean the residue off of the cover.



After this step the cover looked a lot more uniform, just very flat.

Step 4: The next step is to wet sand the affected headlight area using the 3000 grit sandpaper. I wet sanded the cover vertically until the smaller imperfections were not visible any more. Once I finished I again used a wet sponge to clean the residue off of the cover.



After this step the cover is starting to look pretty uniform across the entire surface.

Step 5: The next step is to wet sand the affected headlight area using the 5000 grit sandpaper. I wet sanded the cover horizontally until the entire surface is smooth and uniform. Once I finished I again used a wet sponge to clean the residue off of the cover.



At this stage the cover looks very smooth, but also very flat.

Step 6: Firmly polish the treated area vertically to a mirror finish using the Quixx polish, polishing cloth and rubber block. I polished the radome for about 5 minutes.



Looks pretty good but we aren’t quite done. There is still one more step.
Step 7: In order to keep the cover looking good we need to seal it using the Quixx UV sealer. The instructions on the box recommend doing this on a regular basis in order to keep things looking good.



I let the sealer dry to a haze for about 10 minutes and then polished the cover with a clean, dry cloth.



The finished product looks pretty good. The instructions state that you should reapply the sealer every 3 months. I will probably polish and seal the radome every time I wax the car. Now that I have repaired the UV damage it will be very easy to maintain. Overall, for a total investment of 30 minutes and $15 I was very happy with the results.

LS430FL

hey that looks great! great work!

Kira X

iTrader: (24)

That looks amazing! I need to buff my square out. It looks horrible compared to my mint condition headlights.

chrispy

iTrader: (21)

I did the same with mine. It was looking really bad. Hard to get the deep rock chips out though.

Ricky

nice! i did the same but definitely could of polished it more.

Kira X

iTrader: (24)

I just polished mine a few days ago and it looks much better. I ran out of sandpaper and polishing compound so it's not quite as good as I wanted.

sinjin69

The kit I used came with a few small strips of each sand paper grit. I need to find a source for 3000 and 5000 grit sandpaper. Maybe an auto paint supply store?

nc356

iTrader: (1)

Congrats. That's a satisfying job, no?

In my case:
a) called Lexus 800 number, asked for a polishing procedure. They said they would call back; called back 3 days later. Said:" technical department advises; DO NOT Polish your radome; buy a new one".
b) Laughed out loud
c) removed radome by cutting speed nuts off with a die grinder and small thin disc
d) polished as above
e) ran a metric threading die over the 4 plastic posts (sorry, I forget the size!)
f) reinstalled with 4 nuts, wavy washers, and flat washers, lightly torqued.

Extra effort to remove made it very easy to do the sanding and polishing on the workbench; also no worries about getting in to the surrounding grille bars.

Kansas

I've done a lot of research on PCS-like systems and their strengths and weaknesses. I have to side with Lexus on this one. Have you been following the recall of 250,000 Hondas and Acuras over their PCS-like system failures? I love the PCS on my wife's car and doubt that I will another vehicle without a PCS-like system -- but that is one system I won't mess with.

sinjin69

It was a satisfying job. I am not surprised that Lexus would advise against polishing due to potential liability. I would probably be shocked at what they charge as well. Not surprisingly, since I completed the job, I have not observed any degradation in the performance of the adaptive cruise.

Kansas

The potential problem involves the radar's angle of detection. Drive your car on a curvy 2-lane road with lots of oncoming traffic and verify that PCS does not activate the brakes when you meet an oncoming vehicle on a section of the road that curves to the right. When PCS goes wrong it can get "interesting".

Gene01

I have heard that the part cost $1200 !

nc356

iTrader: (1)

You heard right!
Pretty amazing; bet nobody but insurance co's ever buy that part.

Kansas,
Appreciate your respect for these devices, but the radome appears to be a passive device that doesn't do any wave shaping.
As I understand it, the curve following function is all electronic, selecting the area of radar returns to act on based on the steering position sensor.
At any rate, in the many miles since I polished my radome, I haven't sensed any change in how it is
functioning.
And I have asked the detail guys at my (Toyota) dealer (does more Lexus service than our local stealership): they polish radomes regularly!

What about the Honda/Acura issues: everything I found quickly via Google talked about stability control issues. Is there more to that story?

Kansas

The early notifications about the Honda/Acura braking issues appeared to fault their PCS-like system but the more recent articles seem to isolate the problem to their VSA (VSC-like) system.

PCS system is of course a "passive" safety system but I won't seem so when it slams on the brakes and cinches your body firmly back into the seat when it tightens the seat belts. I would encourage those who owns a PCS equipped vehicle to very carefully force it into action to understand what it can do. It is amazing.

My concern would be inadvertently modifying the angle of detection - whether from messing with the radar module in the grill or the "steering position sensor" you mentioned. The main PCS malfunctions I've read about have been about when PCS wrongly detects a crash situation on winding 2-lane roads ... sensing that your car is going to crash into an oncoming vehicle. When I have time I am going to see if I can induce this behavior.