Hi Community,
I have 2021 ES250 bought from dealership a year ago, requesting your help with below :

1. I have small paint that came off as shopping trolly hit my car (pls see picture), wondering which color (link) I should buy Caviar exterior to avoid expensive full side panel painting. If there is an option to buy touch up paint from Amazon, which is the closest color to caviar, is there any link that I can use to buy pls?

2. Also if you can (in same picture) suggest, there is a small dent, does anyone know the cost to remove that tiny dent (next to paint that came off) in NJ or any other cost effective way to remove it

3. I have curb side damage on my rear wheel (rim) as if you can in another attached picture. Again what’s the cost effective way to remove them.

I Will really appreciate if you can help me with these based on your experience with these kinds of issues on your Lexus vehicles.

happy thanksgiving

 

How OCD are you? If you use touch up paint it will be noticeable. The only true fix is to repaint the panel.

 

Wheel repair is generally $125 to $175 per wheel. Looks like you bashed the bejesus out of it.

 

As far as touching up the scratch is concerned, you would have a better chance of doing a quality repair if your car was the non-metallic black and not the metallic black Caviar. But, even if the repair is not perfect, you will have a better chance of doing a decent repair with the Caviar than you would have with one of the lighter color multi-stage pearl finishes, like the pearl whites.

To get a decent, if not perfect, repair, you will need to have some patience and a steady hand. You cannot just slop some touch-up paint on the scratch. Your goal will be to end up with having the scratch filled with new paint to the same depth as the surrounding finish. You need to be careful just to fill the scratch with new paint and not to have the new paint overlap the perimeter of the scratch. To do so, you do not want to use the brush that came with the touch-up paint. Instead, go to an art supply store, and buy a couple of brushes with very small brush heads. Then, use the small brush just to fill in the scratched area just up to the level of the surrounding paint. The touch-up paint will shrink a bit when it dries. So, you can start by filling the scratch just a tiny bit higher than the level of the surrounding paint. If you get paint just a bit over the perimeter of the scratch, about an hour after applying the touch-up paint when the paint is dry (time will very depending on the temperature), you can try to remove the excess paint with a mildly abrasive polish, like 3M Hand Glaze. Again, patience and a steady hand are essential.

As far as the dent is concerned, it should be able easily to be removed by one of the paintless dent repair guys. Every dealer has someone who comes into the dealership to do work on cars there every couple of weeks. But, if you find out who does that kind of work in your area and if you contact that person directly and make arrangements to meet up with him/her either at a dealership or at the technicians shop, the repair cost will be only a fraction of what it would be if you had the work done at the dealership after the dealership takes its cut. I've built up a relationship with a paintless dent repair guy in my area. If I work directly with him, his charge to remove a small dent like yours would be as little as $20. If I had the repair done through the dealership, the cost would likely be 4 or 5 times as high.

 

I have yet to see an owner repaired door ding with paint damage match that of a refinished, painted door by a professional body shop. Touch - up paint just doesn't cut it. IMO, usually it looks worse... OTOH, the wheel can be made to look like new by a skilled repair person. Been there, done that...