OneOfOne

just looked at a 2013 ls460 brochure and they mention 'scratch resistant clear coat paint'. I know for a fact that the ls paint is world class from the factory and I have seen infinitis with their self healing clear coat and I know it works. my question is from owners of 13's and later [ or from whatever year this was instituted ] does this clear coat actually work as advertised or it it just hype? being a previous 2 time lexus owner including a 430 ultra lexus isnt known for being that way. so does this work or not?

thanks in advance

Doublebase

Well I'll tell you right now that the 07's scratch like hell. Lexus is known for having "soft paint", at least that's what I've read on the internet. The company has made an effort to become green and the process they use to paint is effected by that. Now I have no idea how/what they do to paint vehicles and I don't remember what forum I read this in, but I have a 07 LS and this thing is the definition of "paint chip". And scratches aren't much better. The paint is soft.

Valley101

Have a 2012 LS with the scratch resistant paint. mine is scratch free. Maybe I have been lucky or it really helps..My paint is metallic.

roadfrog

As doublebase stated, Lexus paint is soft. I would go further and say it is NOT, "world class". You want world class...BMW paint is amazing. THAT is world class in my opinion. Any of the German marques have amazing paint.

Many..if not most... auto manufacturers need to meet new environmental standards and have moved to water based paints, but I have no idea how this translates to quality.

Doublebase

BMW has got to have the best paint from the factory I've ever seen and it holds up phenomenal. I've watched videos on how they do it, it's very involved and impressive.

R Z

I can attest to the "soft paint" on my 08. There's all kinds of little scratches. I'm hoping to get some of those eradicated when I take my car in next month for that rear side redo. Hope they can do some general clean up for me as well.

In fact, Lexus to order a recall of all 07-12 cars and repaint them all with this "new paint"! ;-)

caha14

I'm not going to disagree on their process or durability. However, I will say that the level of orange peel I've seen on BMWs is appalling (to me, at least!) when compared to Lexus.

Soft paint, I'll give you that. But quality of the finish itself, I honestly believe that it's not even close.

Doublebase

Really? Didn't know that. I had a corvette that had a terrible amount of orange peel on the hatch, I was always surprised by that.

roadfrog

If you looked at the paint on both of my BMW's you would find zero orange peel....nada. It's unbelievably smooth...same with my buddy's 3 series.

1BlinkGone

Yep. This also is displayed by many recent Mercedes finishes. I've seen many GL's, S-class and others with subpar work. It's the clear-coat that is the problem, and the only way to cure it is to have the clearcoat sanded by someone that is real good at this. The difference is phenomenal and worth the money spent, IMO.

caha14

Yes, it's the clear coat indeed, and I haven't seen a single mass-produced car with a clear coat that doesn't have orange peel - some to a greater extent than others. Interesting that you mention the GL, I recently looked at one closely and almost cried at how bad the finish was.

Funny, because not long ago I was reading a lot about this issue. There are pads you can buy to flatten orange peel, made of velvet or denim. The velvet ones are less aggressive and intended for factory finishes. The denim ones are for repaints, which have more clear coat than factory. The beauty of these is that they flatten and polish simultaneously. All else equal, you can probably get a flatter finish on a repaint than on a factory paint job, since you can afford to go farther on the thicker clear coat.