In compliance with Lexus mechanical and appearance standards

**Scottwax** · 06-16-2009, 10:53 PM

Is this really Lexus certified appearance standard?

Someone actually signed off on this car and his signature is on the passenger side of the front window in the lower corner.

The owner contacted me in late May about his new to him IS350. Because of the on and off rain here. my trip to Kentucky and his work schedule, I wasn`t able to get to the car until today. He had said the paint had a "hazy" appearance in random areas. In his garage it looked fine, other than some spotting from parking near sprinklers over the weekend. I explained to him that water damage from regular exposure to sprinklers can eventually etch the paint so deeply it cannot be polished out. I told him that he should never park within 20-30 feet of grassy areas in parking lots, which is usually enough distance to be out of sprinkler range.

He backed out the car and I was stunned at the rotary swirls. I knew it was going to be a LONG day. I started with Meguiars #205 with a yellow Meguiars polishing pad via rotary @ 1000-1500 rpms and while it was removing the holograms it wasn`t doing much for the deeper marring and spider swirls. Even though my customer wasn`t prepared to shell out what perfection would cost, he did agree that it would be worth removing as much of the spider swirling as possible (without it turning into a 2 day detail). He said he`d rather get most of the stuff out now and then have me out every 3 months to go over the car again which will not only keep it protected but further refine the finish.

I bumped it up to Meguiars #105, again using a Meguiars yellow polishing pad, mostly at 1000-1200 rpms. Even though I was getting some light holograms from #105, the paint was noticably darker and looked a lot better. Switching to #205/yellow at 1000-1500 rpms and going over the whole car really cleaned up with finish and left only minimal tracers.

Unfortunately, the sun had moved significantly from where it was when I started (something like 5 hours prior) and only the hood still had enough sun on it for this shot after #105/205:

I then went over the whole car with 3M Ultrafine Machine Polish using a blue Ultrafina pad at 1000-1800-100 rpms.

The car is not 100% perfect but for only about 6.5 hours of polishing a finish that hammered at the start, it definitely exceeded my expectations and made my customer quite pleased. I washed the car (for the 3rd time!) with ONR to remove the light dusting from UF and to reclean the door jambs (dust) and put on a coat of Clearkote`s Carnauba Moose.

As you can see by the long shadows, it was early evening by the time I finished the car.

**dave40co** · 06-16-2009, 11:13 PM

DANG! Looks damn hot. Great job as usual Scott. So much for the appearance standards at Lexus!

**Marc Hufnagel** · 06-16-2009, 11:57 PM

well to be fair, that was one person presumably at a dealership that failed in part of his job - not necessarily Lexus as a whole having poor standards.

**jordanrossbell** · 06-17-2009, 12:26 AM

It still left a Lexus dealership like that...thats their bad...great work scott.

**Barry Theal** · 06-17-2009, 05:25 AM

that there is the difference between a hack and a pro! simply said. great save scott!

**Thats Fresh** · 06-17-2009, 07:40 AM

email them the pictures, haha.

way to show em how its PROPERLY done.

**imported_Larry A** · 06-17-2009, 08:19 AM

Its ashame that some dealer detailers have no idea what there doing. Its simply the lack of training. A certified car should be perfect just like a 90 to 100 point show car. I guess thats to much to ask.

**SpoiledMan** · 06-17-2009, 08:23 AM

You all are expecting too much when the new cars sometimes aren`t too far from that.

**Labster** · 06-17-2009, 08:53 AM

You didn`t know that buffer trails, holograms and swirls were the new Lexus hotness? Sheesh....hahahaha. Great save Scott!

**Marc Hufnagel** · 06-17-2009, 09:23 AM

Originally Posted by jordanrossbell

It still left a Lexus dealership like that...thats their bad...great work scott.

Again, what I`m getting at here is that is one person that failed (be it the GM or the detailer that signs those stickers), not Lexus as a corp or that the next Lex dealer down the road would have turned this out as `ok`.

mmmkay?

**RaskyR1** · 06-17-2009, 09:33 AM

Awesome work Scott!

You should email those pics to the new car manager at the Lexus dealer it came from, or at least send them this thread.

While not every car leaves the lot looking like this, I think we can all agree it happens WAY too often.

Rasky

**imported_Jakerooni** · 06-17-2009, 09:40 AM

Well remember that car probably came out the clean up shop at the dealer full of fillers and such and just looked top notch for the moment. Once it all evaporated out you had the results...So the guy probably signed off on what looked to be a great shaped car... 99.9999% of them just don`t know any better. Great save scott looks a 1000 x`s better now. And with a refresher every 3 months it should stay top notch for quite some time to come.

**V_Eight** · 06-17-2009, 09:44 AM

Makes you wonder how poorly maintained the car itself is!

**ShineTech** · 06-17-2009, 09:57 AM

Great job Scott! I`m wondering if the paint had any light fillers that quickly dissapeared after it left the dealership? Still, that`s no excuse, again great job bringing that cars paint back to life.

**Scottwax** · 06-18-2009, 01:50 PM

Originally Posted by Damn Dirty Ape

well to be fair, that was one person presumably at a dealership that failed in part of his job - not necessarily Lexus as a whole having poor standards.

Maybe but he signed that car off as meeting Lexus appearance standards and did so as an agent of Lexus.

Thats Fresh-the owner requested I e-mail him the pictures for that very reason.

Jakerooni-there is not a product on the market that could hide that mess.