edoggie

Greetings Lexus Family,

Background:

I'm a new Lexus owner (coming from Acura). I purchased a 2018 GS 350 AWD. I've abandoned Honda/Acura after 20 years. I personally experienced a pattern of Honda/Acura denying warranty claims for well known issues on their vehicles -- especially transmission related. I just couldn't withstand that practice anymore. I said my next car would be a Lexus and now here I am. I love the car!

Inquiry:

Now I've researched the forums and found some limited information to my forthcoming inquiry. However, I would like a more recent answer, based on existing owner experiences:

What has been your experiences with *polishing* self-repairing paint on the Lexus vehicles? My car has this paint. Can it be polished successfully? Does polishing irreversibly, and visibly ruin/mar the paint finish? Is it difficult to match the existing finish after polishing? Please share your experiences.

On a side note, I must say, I do believe self-repairing paint works because I have no visible swirls/cobwebs/spider-webbing on my paint. This is after the dealer washed the vehicle with God knows what. This is examining the car in sunlight, small led lights (in my garage), and night time incandescent light.

However, I do I have a scratch on the rear bumper I'd like to polish out (not sure how it got there).

Thanks in advance.

lamikela1

My '16 has the same paint and I was concerned as well. I did have some bird droppings on my trunk after I had the car for about a year and when I tried to remove it I guess there was some sand or grit in it. Once I was done cleaning it up there were vertical and horizontal scratches in the paint but the finish did nothing to hide those over time. I think it's good for swirls and such because I never see them on the finish (Matador red). But deeper scratches will not heal. I use Zaino products exclusively and applied their polish which did lessen the scratches but I will probably need to do more applications to fix it completely. A word of caution; if you ever have anything deposited on your paint and cannot remove it with minimal rubbing, STOP and apply plenty of water or car washing soap to prevent any deeper scratches. Luckily I figured this out early and so far the finish is just fine.

If you want to apply a cleaner wax that should be ok but never use anything more abrasive than that on the paint unless you have a deeper scratch. I generally use Zaino All in One for mine.

edoggie

Wow! What a coincidence. I use menzerna for polishing, and use all zaino products for protectants. Thanks for you reply.

UDel

Self hearing paint is more of a marketing gimmick. It does not really work in the real world. I am sure in same isolated test it is able to do something but my experience is it swirls and scratches just like other paint. Unfortunately Lexus vehicle have really soft clears so they scratch/swirl from just about anything touching them.

TRD_Power

I've polished my brother's '15 RX, as well as my parents' '18 GX, all with Poorboy's SSR1 (the lightest of the 3), and haven't seen any issues with the paint's ability to heal itself... Then again, I don't really buy into the self-healing paint thing all that much. In my experience, Poorboys and Zaino are great overall products, and I've even grown to love Hydro2 for a quick/easy sealant.

Oh, and welcome to the club I'm sure you'll love your GS more and more over time.

lamikela1

I actually spoke to the owner at Zaino and he pointed me in the right direction. I now use the Z-2 with ZFX for maintenance and AOI when it needs a good cleaning, about once a year.

theory816

There's no real reason to polish your car. Its brand new. If you polish, you will take off the self healing coating, WHICH DOES WORK. Most people don't know how to take care of their car so they end up saying that the coating doesn't work.

SW17LS

I've been detailing cars professionally and as a hobbyist for almost 25 years. The coating does "work" in that it will heal extremely minor paint imperfections. However it will not heal even minor to moderate wash induced swirling. Having both a self healing paint protection film and self healing paint on multiple Lexus vehicles now, the difference in the "self healing" ability is huge. The PPF is actually self healing and remains totally swirl free next to "self healing" paint with wash induced swirling.

Plenty of reasons to polish a new car. Dealerships swirl the hell out of new cars all the time, and if you want to remove that swirling, the paint will have to be polished. If you have no swirling then of course theres no need to polish.

I wouldn't even hesitate to loose the "self healing" attribute of the paint in exchange for having paint polished to remove swirls.

UDel

I know how to take care of cars, I have been detailing my cars for 20 years which have been mostly black, been polishing/detailing my own/friends/neighbors and doing it as a side business for about 10 years including painting body panels. Self healing paint does not work in the real world in most cases, I have polished several cars with so called self healing paint, if my 2014 GS has it, it certainly doesn't work, it scratches from even microfiber rags/towels and those scratches don't go away. It is basically a marketing gimmick, go on any professional detail site and ask what professionals/more experienced detailers think about self healing paint and if it really works in the real world.

In most cases you don't have to polish a new car but there are exceptions like if it sat on the lot for a long time and collected a lot of crap, water spots, iron, etc on the paint that won't go away with washing and washing cars that dirty just leads to a bunch of scratches and swirls, then you will need to clay it and after that it will need to be polished.

2 of my dads new cars needed to be polished, one had a bunch of water spots and swirls from a poor wash job before they sold it, at first my dad took it back and asked them to get them out, all they did was quickly run a rotary buffer over it to get the spots and swirls out but then left buffer trails and haze all over the car, I told him I will just give it a finishing polish instead of taking it back again. Another new car my dad bought sat on the lot of months and had all kinds of crap on the finish, burned on pollen everywhere that would not come out with washing, it had to be clayed and had a ton of swirls and scratches after it was clayed so it needed a good polishing afterward too, the dealership likely would have just made it worse.