The garage door went down and hit the back bumper of my Lexus. The scratches aren't huge but one looks pretty deep. Do I need to use the primer they sell with the touch up paint? My car is Parchment Crystal (066).

02 Lexus LS430
I love my car!!!

 

In most cases dealer supplied touchup paint can be used without primer. If the scratch is old and has rust than its a different story.

 

Just want to let you know i bought the same color touch up from the dealership for my car to use for rock chips and it doesnt match 100% or any near that.

 

Sadly, the touch-up will show if the gouge is deep enough. Can live with it if small or a re-spray. This is why I had clear bra applied to the back bumper as well. This has saved it many times when loading stuff into the trunk and like. A well spent $200. May not help in severe instances though.

 

The reason why the touch up paint doesn't match is it isn't applied in the manner a real pearl paint it. After the primer (plastic primer for a bumper), you apply the base coat. Then you lightly sand and apply the midcoat, which is the pearl. You apply this thinly and stop when it matches the surrounding pearl. Then you apply the clear coat. When I had a body shop paint custom bumpers on my LX, the painter sprayed the base on both the bumper and three paint cards. He then sprayed one paint card with one coat of pearl, the next with two coats, the third with three coats. After they dried (only a few minutes since they use epoxy-based urethanes), they select the card that best matches the sample I provided (in this case, the original front bumper). They then spray the bumper with the correct number of midcoats, then clear coat it. Also, plastic and metal parts painted with the same paint and same number of coats can look different just from the material being different. If you want your bumper to look perfect, there's no alternative but to respray. If you want to try yourself, you can buy spray enamels from paintscratch.com (this is where I get my touchup paint). The match is pretty good. If the area is large, you should buy the spray cans rather than brush. I'd advise against the pens, as the tips dry and clog up.

 

Achieving perfect touch up is almost impossible to do. I've posted this befoe - you can take the car to the local toyota or lexus used car lot when their parttime local "touch-up" guy is working the new trade ins and have him airbrush the scratch. Deal with him direct and not through the dealer service dept. It won't be perfect but it will be a cheap repair (maybe $75-100) a it will be a lot less noticeable than your typical amateur repair. Nearly 100% of used cars have had a the local airbrush touch-up artist work on them as almost every car get scratched and scuffed over time.

Or like Jim Chow posted, if you want it as close as possible to new, take it to a pro shop and have them redo the bumper.

 

As an aside, these guys are also capable of touching up your leather seats if you have an area that is worn. They use an airbrush and can match existing color perfectly.

 

yep I used an interior touch up guy that works the used car lots to fix the seats on my old 06 Highlander which had 4-5 inch long crack/split up the vinyl face on both both sides of the seat bottom sides. This guy glued/patched splits in the vinyl sides and then airbrushed and blended in the fix. It was 99% invisible when repaired, looked as good as new - cost $90.

I sold the car a couple of months later so I don't know how well the repair held up but he said it would last at least a year.

 

I got a mishap on the left rear corner of the bumper on 2002 LS430. Paint code 066 Parchment Crystal. Body shop guy says there are two colors, not referring to the multi-step painting process, but a color above the chrome molding and another color below the molding.

I don't see it. Can someone answer this question definitively?

 

i am looking to get paint to touchup various areas of my ls430. One area is my outside passenger mirror. What is best to buy? How do I go about the touchup process? I can get the real small 1oz bottles or the 12oz spray. I also see there is clearcoat as well as paint. The job does not have to be perfect on this 9 year old car. Any assistance would be greatly appreciated.

 

Suggest you google search a couple of versions of "how to repair paint chip" also do the same on Utube. There is lots of info available.

Also check out an auto detailer forum like this one - lots of great info on car care -

http://www.autopia.org/forum/forum.php

 

Try Dr. Color Chip drcolorchip.com.... They have exact color duplication and a process that will do as good as a professional. The kit is around $60..