Aspect

Hey ClubLexus, just thought I'd try my hand at a amateur DIY type guide. Posting this based on my situation this winter.

Recently bought a set of 17" Mazda CX5 wheels at a great price to replace the 17" OEM Lexus wheels which were a flaking and yellow'ing mess but it didn't come with center caps. I was fine with this at the time based on my belief that center caps were transferable. Big surprise... they weren't. So I was running around with no center caps for a while and it finally bothered me enough so I took a trip to the local Mazda dealer and bought 4 of those standard Gloss Black Centercaps with the Silver Mazda logos. Still had my original center caps so I thought I'd give the transfer project a try. Eye'd the fitment of the logo on the new caps and thankfully the emblem isn't too big for the transfer.

Materials Used:
Lexus Center Caps, Aftermarket or non-lexus center caps, heat gun, pliers, wire cutter tool/Scissors, plastic pry tool/flat head screwdriver, chrome polish, 3m tape

First I started by taking off the emblems off both the non-Lexus caps(I realized later I shouldn't have installed them yet) and the Lexus caps.
Thankfully the Mazda ones I had didn't have a molded emblem so I pushed it out with a flat head.



For the Lexus Center caps, there are 3 glue nubs on the back in the shape of an L with a long silver plastic piece. Take a heat gun to the back of the cap for ~30 seconds, then take your pliers and rip the glue off.


You can see from the picture the location of the nubs.

Afterwards, flip the cap over and with a trim tool/screw driver pry one corner and work your way around until it pops off. Use a pair of scissors or the cutting part of your pliers and trim off the plastic sticking off the emblem on the back


To smooth it out, grab some sand paper or a file and get rid of the remaining plastic pieces.


Lastly, put 3m tape on the backs and use small tweezers to rip off the plastic protection.


Then it's time to install... I just used my own judgement for center placement as well as the grooves left in the cap after I removed the old Mazda emblems.



Readjust as needed.

If anyone has any better ideas for this I'd be glad to hear them. I still have holes in the black plastic from the old Mazda emblem I removed. It withstands the 10 ft test but any close ups would def show the tape gap or holes.

I was thinking of using some multi-purpose plastic glue but given the indentation left by the old emblem it wouldn't have been a flush enough for contact. So tape was the easy way out.


10 ft test, not too bad?

Nelly

iTrader: (11)

Digging what you did with the center-caps. Any pictures of the car from a side-view with the new rims?

Aspect

Thanks, and yeah I plan to post some in the morning(1:30am here) as my LG G5 doesn't take the best low light pictures.