Since IS 500 CD bezel is shiny black, apparently its super easy to put marks on it just by touching it with an edge of a CD. By the looks of the scratch, you would think I ground that in with a screwdriver or something. To make matters a bit more interesting, it seems that just about anything can make a mark on this surface... micro fiber cloth... finger. Nothing is visible from farther that 6 inches, but that doesn't help if you're an idiot like me.

Just wondering, can one obtain a CD player front plastic bezel separately as I am definitely not replacing the the entire CD player over a some surface marks.

 

wait... you still use Cd's?

 

Not really... I usually do Pandora or Amazon Music or XM.

I do have a bunch of CD I like tho. Was trying to put one in, I guess I missed. Out of practice I suppose. Barely touched the area above the slot with the edge.

No big deal, scratch is annoying but not a primary concern which was caused by my "repair" efforts that introduced a bit of cloudiness. I think I pretty much took all that out with a some silicone polish.

 

I've wondered if it was possible to swap the climate and radio panels from an RC to an IS since the RC has a brushed finish instead of gloss black. I haven't heard of anyone actually doing it though.

 

now that would be cool.. you can always get the carbon fiber or brushed aluminum overlays. I know they have CF, and I think ive seen the brushed aluminum ones as well...

 

Big fan of the finish on the RC... Way better than the piano black. Luckily Lexus didn't put any more of it anywhere else.

 

Agreed. Brushed or even matte finish looks way better than gloss black. Plus, it's a total scratch magnet, pretty sure I put some hairline scratches on it with Windex and bounty. Now, I know... someone is going to say I should use microfiber or something, but I never needed to be this careful with wiping down the dashboard and it's not where I want to be.

One good quality though, it seems to be pretty easy to polish using a silicone rubbing compound. Maybe my eyes are getting worse (thank G-d!), but there is no way to distinguish polished spot from not polished spot. Just don't use a metal polishing compound like Flitz, that will cloud things up.

 

I've seen the CF kits, they are pretty cheap. Must be paper thin for the buttons to stick through as they should. Quality is a bit suspect. Haven't seen any brushed aluminum ones. Those might be interesting. Can't seem to find any though.

 

I'd like to add that it is not just the CD player housed behind that trim, it also appears to be the Audio processor & XMRadio [Lexus lists multiple part numbers for this, one with 10 speakers others with 17 speakers that then have a line out to the amp in the trunk]. Swapping out just the front plastic "may" not work out either. The ML system has that single LED light in the middle, which I cannot tell if it's part of the plastic trim or a separate piece attached to the processor. In that case the swap from the RC ML unit would be more ideal, but who knows if the shape and\or connectors would be the same.

EDIT: agh, I see what you did there in the picture, you meant just the CD portion of the plastic trim. That does indeed appear to be a separate trim piece from the bottom portion; now to find one from a junk yard that doesn't charge an arm and a leg.

Remember, the RC only has two seatbelts in the back, therefor the climate unit only has 2 seatbelt warning lights. Whereas on the IS's it'll have 3 warning lights. You may be able to swap out just the plastic piece, just be aware that you'll be covering the airbag light warning partially. As for the complete unit swap, I'm not sure if you'll get an Airbag\SRS warning light on the cluster if you did this swap.

Best solution here is for some custom cut vinyl solution (similar to this here )

 

Spoke with a friendly parts guy at a local dealer this morning. These bezels are NOT available as a separate part it seems and as others had pointed out, are a bit different from IS to RC. So there goes that idea...

 

would be awesome if an aftermarket company made/retrofit a cubby panel for that entire bottom cd player section so I could wirelessly charge my phone there like on my wifes UX

 

When you say silicone polish, are you talking like a silicone wax? I have some scuffs on the seat trim, it's that textured plastic but even that gets permanent scuffs and everything I've tried has just lessoned but not remove. I'm having a thought of trying what you tried for that, any link to a product?

Thanks.

 

I've used this on pretty much everything inside/outside of cars. . Its a mild abrasive, but pretty gentle compared to some other stuff I've used in the past. Pretty hard to cause damage with this without a power tool, but not impossible, so be careful.

This one is even more gentle .

The scuffs on the seat trim are from shoes I take it? Have you tried a wet magic eraser? My detail guy turned me on to this trick. It will take just about anything out of plastic trim including scratches. Don't use a dry one though. Just put something on it like armorall or whatever you use to clean interior and rub it gently. See what it does and lean in as needed. It should take scuffs right out.

Needless to say, all of this stuff is abrasive including magic eraser. Hence, always a risk no matter how mild. As they say, you mileage may vary so use at own risk. Maybe try on plastic trim you don't care about much first .

 

I'm assuming it's from shoes, got it back from the dealer and noticed a nasty one on the corner driver seat. I've tried just about everything, except with a detailer with magic erasor (I used water with my magic erasor it didn't seem to do the trick but to be honest I was afraid to put any force on it because it may dull the plastic). I did try a gentle car polish as well, it helped but I didn't want to put too much force as well but I may have too if I want to truely remove it.... as I mentioned, just a little fearful I'll dull the plastic since it's textured yet shiny.

 

I'm probably the last person who should be dispensing car detailing advice as I've done more than my share of stupid #$%@ in the past. Having said that...

The key with magic eraser is that its pretty mild, you need to really lean into it to do some damage. ... and this is on clearcoat. I would think trim plastic would be even harder to damage. I recently used it to take out long creases/streaks that someone put into soft touch dashboard panel above the passenger airbag on my wife's car. Probably car wash. Took a while and I really had to step on it. No surprise there as the guy in the vid compares it to 5000-7000 grit sand paper. That's pretty fine. In fact, I don't remember ever using sand paper that weak.

If you do manage to shine up that area a bit you can always use a stronger abrasive to dull it up after, like a wet fine high number sandpaper. My go to nuclear option is Flitz, but thats really a metal polish, pretty strong, it will leave micro scratches you will need to polish out with a silicone polish.

If all else fails, you can always have a good detailer take a look when you do your annual detail.