GhostIS350

I have spent a considerable amount of time shopping around for black rims that closely match the OEM specs of the IS 350 F Sport AWD and have not had much luck. I do like the look of the stock rims, and am considering going with a company that specializes in allow wheel repair & paint. Their wheel refinishing process includes stripping the wheel down to the bare aluminum and applying a powder coat finish in gloss black that is just as durable (if not more) than the OEM job. Do any of you have any experience with this process, and if so, would you recommend it over purchasing an new set of rims?

I have also contacted various companies that apply vehicle wraps and am planning on getting a chrome delete for the window trim. For those of you who have had this process done, how durable is the 3M vinyl wrap around the window trim and would you recommend it again? (I’ve used the search function on this forum and have not found specific answers to my questions). Thanks in advance!

E46CT

The trim is fine. It'll never EVER look as good as paint. Depends how picky you are.

As far as powder coating, it's fine. I wouldn't go tracking the car though. Some powder coating places bake too high of a temp changing the molecular structure of the grain structure of the wheel material making it prone to stress. I wouldn't lose sleep over it though unless the car is subjected to heavy track use in which case you'd be using the wrong wheel (and wrong car frankly).

You'll be fine on both.

Don Nguyen

Specifically on the window trim for most Lexus cars, vinyl wrapping the window trim will probably have better results than paint, mainly due to the fact that most body shops will probably not be able to mask off properly the edge where the chrome meets the rubber moulding on the trim pieces.

Pittsy

I have had both of these things done, but I didnt stop at the windowtrim, i had the whole car wrapped in 3M. The vinyl on the window trim is holding up very well. I try to hand was the car every other day and its been holding up amazing. My OEM wheels come back from the powdercoating shop tomrrow hopefully, if not saturday. Ill let you know how they turn out but so far the process has been very smooth and easy.

GhostIS350

Thanks for the replies, much appreciated. I'm moving forward with the rims (powder coat - gloss black) and chrome delete.

Pittsy

here are pics of my wheels after they were powdercoated satin black.

https://imgur.com/a/CDJ78Ez

GhostIS350

Very well done! looks great, I will be following your lead.

steff3is

Pittsy

I did a DRL LED board swap. Had to crack open the DRL's after removing the bumper, it was a lengthy process. Since the huge storm here in AZ, it borked my RGB controller, so the lights are actually stuck on blue right now(oops, already ordered a new WATERPROOF one).

Here is the thread that another member made that did the same swap as me. I also started a thread about it, but It didnt recieve the attention this one did. I added lots of input and asked lots of questions that would be helpful to anyone wanting to do the same thing.
RGB DRL's Thread