FINALLY, Pictures of the new paint job!
 

It sure has been a long, and anxious wait. The results are-- well, you can judge for yourself. I'm still kind of in shock that the color of my car is completely different. I walk outside and still look for silver... I'm still just absorbing it all.

The work was done at ProKraft Autoworks in San Jose, CA. The owner of the shop, Tim, is a great guy and actually did my father's Prius as well. It definitely took them a long time to do this car-- but for the price I was paying them, and the amount of body work they had to do, I can't complain. My hood alone had 16 dings in it!

The color I chose was based off of Smoky Granite Mica from the new Lexus lineup. The resulting color is quite close: in direct sunlight, it looks exactly like SGM. In the shade, it looks closer to black, and sometimes has shades of a very deep blue, and sometimes even violet. Its interesting, to say the least.

Like I said earlier, they had to do a ton of body work. They got almost all the dings out of my doors, bumpers, hood, and fixed the major roof damage I had. I just washed the car and am pretty happy with the work, but the car will need a good color sanding in a few months to make it perfect and give it that deep shine.

Man, Lexus parts are expensive! THe shop had to replace those chrome strips/mouldings that run around the car on the rocker panels.. Guess how much those mouldings plus clips cost: $700 :egads:

Anyways, on to the pics!


http://www.suneet.com/car/newpaint/11.jpg

http://www.suneet.com/car/newpaint/2.jpg

http://www.suneet.com/car/newpaint/1.jpg

http://www.suneet.com/car/newpaint/3.jpg

http://www.suneet.com/car/newpaint/12.jpg

http://www.suneet.com/car/newpaint/14.jpg

http://www.suneet.com/car/newpaint/9.jpg

http://www.suneet.com/car/newpaint/16.jpg

http://www.suneet.com/car/newpaint/17.jpg

Before anyone asks, yes, this job was done the right way! Here are some pics of the door jams, etc.

http://www.suneet.com/car/newpaint/5.jpg

http://www.suneet.com/car/newpaint/6.jpg

http://www.suneet.com/car/newpaint/7.jpg

http://www.suneet.com/car/newpaint/10.jpg

http://www.suneet.com/car/newpaint/8.jpg

Looking very nice Suneet. I know how anxious you (and I) have been to see the car complete. After looking at it, it was definitely worth the wait. :thumbup:

Sunneet - it is looking really good - the color came out nice thoughout bro.

:woot:
looks badass bro, now we gots to get u set up with wheels/susp. before u head off to the rain :p

Beautiful Suneet, that color definitely looks good for our body style.

mmm looks so good, nice selection of paint Suneet. and in pic #7 it looks like theres a bird poopie stain on the hood.

I couldn't dry the car fast enough :sad: Its hot out here, and the water is very hard... and I can't wax the car for a month!

A month? You live somewhere hot? He told you about grass clippings and sprinklers as well, I imagine...

That color is badass man. Looks awesome.

Amazing...tint would add a nice look to it too. Rims and suspension soon?

Looks like they did a great job on the paint! :thumbup:

Congrats Suneet--I know you were really antsy waiting for it to get done. From the looks of it the wait was well worth it.

Looks good and I like the color.

Now when paint cures drive it to the Lexkost Garage for a Grand Detail !

Very nice!

Looks good! :thumbup:

very nice color.
agreed on the wheels and drop to make this car the SEX

do you mind giving us an idea how much it cost for the body and paint job? and how long it took? thanks! really impressive!

Love the choice of color. One thing I think is pretty rare to hear on this forum is new paint jobs. Yours turned out very well and I'm curious how much it cost you. I assume you didn't go to Magic Paint.

I know most say drop it and get some new rims. I happen to really like those rims. I have those same rims on my 1991 LS400. Very classy.

great color!

Hawt Damn. What does something like that cost?

.t. .i. .n. .t.

i think something happened to his freshly painted car. i remember he posted something like that but i dunno what the details are.

looks good, but do you notice any color shifting on the hood. i ask because the last pic you showed with the hood up and picture taken from right side, it looks as if the silver shows through.
nonetheless, looks outstanding. such a nice color.
Charley

Yeah I ended up scratching the left rear quarter panel pretty badly. I got it fixed about a month ago though :) Cost me another grand or so!

The original paint job cost me around $4K including parts (those chrome mouldings are expensive)... and that was a hookup price. The entire process took about 2 months. There was extensive body work that needed to be done.

I haven't noticed any color fading yet, but I'm not entirely sure. I now live in Seattle, WA instead of sunny California.. and we haven't seen the sun much. It rains so much out here that the car is rarely clean on the outside anyways.

In spring time I plan on getting the car polished and buffed to really bring out the color, I'll post updated pics then :)

Thanks a lot for the kind comments!

That's not the silver showing through, that's the mica in the paint shining with the sun's reflection.

At night time, it looks like a uniform grey/graphite/"light black". Most people think it's a black car at night. But when the sun hits it, the mica in the paint really shines and sparkles.

Told you. :p

Seattle :thumbdn:

They can't tear me away from So Cal now. Do you work in software Suneet?

Yep, I work at Microsoft. Only reason I moved up here :p

NICE!

You're gonna put my car to shame, I painted my LS over the summer and preping the car was a royal PITA, and I butchered the door-quarter panel blend. Are you going to bring it to EOS if it happens?

Nice car. Don't change a thing no matter what anybody says.

Nice color. Well worth the wait!:thumbup:

...


I miss my car :(

what happened?

where have you been man!?!
you're a hard guy to get ahold of these days, change your cell no. too??

i think he picked up a 430 or 460...lucky lol.

this thread took a sharp turn

In a nutshell,,
https://www.clublexus.com/forums/ls4...-total-it.html

god damn, 4g and thats with hook up. but very nice, they did a good job.

Yeah, the car got totaled thanks to some tool who hit it while it was parked.

Acutally, since then I haven't bought a car. I've been car less for about 8 months now.. I've been drooling over some LS430s but haven't made the plunge yet.

Sorry man, I've just been busy with work, haven't been surfing CL as much as I used to since I don't even own a vehicle anymore, much less a Lexus :p

My cell number is still the same, feel free to call me whenever.