No matter how much you baby your Lexus you can't prevent what others will do.

I was visiting a friend and their neighbor backed into my baby. He did come over and let me know, I have to give him credit.

Question? Has anybody had any body work done with the Starfire Pearl? The body shop will replace the door but they say the have to feather into the front fender and the rear door. I am not very happy about that. They said if it were anything but the Starfire Pearl they would not have to. Multi-layer process and due to the reflectors in the paint they need to feather. The estimate is $2500.

If anyone has had an experience with this I would appreciate your input and pictures of the work if you have them.

Thanks, Michael

 

i don't have particular experience with this color, but knowing its complexity and other complex color (like the white on the sc430), blending is indeed a good option to make the color flows better. if they are good they can get the color very close, but very very hard to match 100%

sorry to hear your mishap

 

My car is in the shop now for the very same reason. They are replacing the door panel, and feather the whole driver side. Hope you have a good body shop. Pearl color is very hard to match. Sad day indeed.

 

ouch. usually they will blend into the rest of the car to make the transition between the two paints less noticable. standard protocol.

 

Double ouch! My sister had her white Audi backed into not once but twice in a year The body shop did a pretty good job on the paint, couldn't really tell. Like RXSF said, blending is the way to go. Good luck.

 

Why can't the dealer order a painted door from the factory?

 

because they dont just make and paint random parts to hold in the warehouse. Every panel that is made has a VINN number and is accounted for to be attached to 1 car and not another. Plus it would just be rediculously expensive, but I would probably do it

 

I had my 2000 Carrera bumper replaced and the expert body shop just ordered the paint from the original paint manufacture that Porsche uses and just repainted by color code. No separate matching, just ordered the paint and sprayed the bumper. It was a perfect match because the original paint manufacture matches every batch they make to the original batch. It was unbelievable, but I examined the color to the adjacent parts in every light, sun, shade, garage lighting. It is perfect

 

well thats for a Porsche

I hear for exotics, the manufacturer sends the paint to the body shop most of the time, but this is just a lexus, haha.

 

what you have to realize is that even ordering everything from factory doesn't mean it will be perfect. matter of fact is even at factory, every time they mix the paint, they can be slightly off. that's just the reality. that's even the case for companies like lamborghini. you might have an easier color to match. but Starfire Pearl, among a few other colors, is one of the hardest to match because of the multi-layers and pearl

 

When shop says “replacing door” they probably mean they will replace the outside skin. This means they will peel off the outside sheet metal and replace it with new but keeping the inside panel. Appearance, it will look like new but it will never be like factory “tight” with insulations on the inside of the sheet metal. From what I can see, it may be best to actually have the body work to “pull” the dent using welding method. Before I took my Starfire RX to fix rear quarter and bumper few months ago, I called several large body-shops to confirm method they would use to fix the dent [I checked after it was fixed]. Usual method is to drill holes using punch or drill and pull using puller. Welding method, pins are welded on to the damaged surface and special dent puller is used to pull the dent preventing holes on the panel. “feathering” is when different surface is “sanded” to match the surface area. Blending is when adjacent surface is “sprayed” together with damaged area to give illusion of “seamless” match. Our vehicles are fairly new so it should be less noticeable but it is impossible to make it perfect. Make sure to take your vehicle to larger shop that has experience with Lexus vehicles. Three stage paints like Starfire are difficult to paint so more experienced they have, better it will turn out. Any reputable shops will also use quality paint like Dupont Cronar which far exceeds original paint quality. Go visit the shop and check out the completed vehicles where you are planning to fix. It’s a coin toss but it sure does suck to have new vehicle painted.

 

feel your pain MEP, i know how it feels (truly i do). as others have mentioned, get the best bodyshop that can match the paint the best. otherwise your other alternative is to repaint the entire car (if you are really picky about color matching).

 

That truly stinks. Is the person who backed into your car going to pay for the damage or is their insurance going to pay?

 

If you can afford it, get it fixed, wait a couple months and trade it in on a brand new RX350. Ask the person who backed into you to pay the difference in the trade in, or split the difference. That's what I would do.

 

And if I were the one who backed into you, I'd tell you what you could do with that idea. While I feel for the OP, the at faulty party's only responsibility is to put him in pre-accident condition, not better than pre-accident condition.

Of course, if it were me who sustained the damage, I'd agree completely with you.