Black Lexus Paint Question?

[uncandid]

Hi everyone, I wanted some advice on whether my choice of products was ok to use. I have a black 2007 lexus gs350 with tons of heavy swirls, light scratches and rotary marks from the previous owner. I have a griots da and a 6 inch backing plate. I purchased the 6 inch mf cutting pad and 6 inch mf finishing pad with d300 to cut and m205 to finish with. I plan to go over it with nxt as my wax. I plan to wash, clay then use the system above. How does this sound? I know lexus paint is soft and was concerned about the cut being too heavy. Can you recommend what speeds and pressure I should use with the griots? I just want to get this right and have it come out with the best possible result. I appreciate it.

[Murr1525]

Re: Black Lexus Paint Question?

Well, you can do your first test spots with the milder pads/products to help judge.

[wifpd4]

Re: Black Lexus Paint Question?

uncandid,

Murr is guiding you the right direction. Milder is the way to start. I'm familiar with a couple of newer obsidian black Lexus. If the current condition of your car is really swirled up, you may need to use D300 and your MF correction pad. First, I'd start a little more mild combination. Perhaps the M205 and the finishing pad. In my limited Lexus experience, you may end up with the D300 and MF correction pad to remove the vast majority of the swirls. It will likely leave you with micro-marring or hazing. Then using information from your test spot(s), M205 on the correction pad. Finally M205 and the finishing pad.

Pressure and speed in the above scenario would be: D300 running at 4-5 on a Porter-Cable mild to heavy pressure. Follow with M205 about the same speed, slightly less pressure. End up with M205 on a finishing MF at speed 3-4 and even less pressure.*

As Murr clearly indicated, start mild and work up to the combination that removes most of the swirls. Then ease up with your last passes, products and pads to remove any hazing you may have created.

Clean, good to better quality microfibers are important too as they will mar the surface in your process.

Read this:

http://www.meguiarsonline.com/forums/showthread.php?44344-The-Challenge-of-Delicate-Paint&highlight=delicate

*somewhere there is a chart or graph showing similar speeds among the different vendor's buffers. Meguiars vs Porter vs Griots

[uncandid]

Re: Black Lexus Paint Question?

Thanks for all the guidance everyone. I'll try some test spots and see. Please feel free to chime in with anymore advice. THanks again!

[uncandid]

Do you think it would be ok to start with an mf cutting pad with m205 before I try d300? If that does work out would I use a lighter polish after or go straight to nxt?

[ClearlyCoated]

Re: Black Lexus Paint Question?

Your obsidian black paint is single stage, so you might want to consider a couple of old school products (Meguiars M83/M80) The speed glaze (M80) has polishing oils that are particularly friendly to single stage paint.

[uncandid]

Its actually a 2 stage paint. I remember the whole rumor about lexus using single stage for blacks but trust me, its not true. I reasearched it vigorously for about 6months and spoke withe lexus design directors as well as assembly line managers, its 2stage. Thanks for the suggestions though

[Michael Stoops]

Re: Black Lexus Paint Question?

The only way to know which product combo to use, or whether you will need to follow anything with a finer polish, is to do a test spot or two (or three).

If you're going to use the DAMF System then your starting point should be the design parameter of the system - D300 on DMC5 cutting disc when used on a traditional DA (Porter Cable, Meguiar's, Griot's, etc) or DMC6 if using a Flex 3401 or similar. Speed should be 4800 opm (setting 4 on the Meguiar's G110v2, double check specs for your machine if different), moderate to heavy pressure and slow arm movements.

There is a difference between "soft" and "delicate" paint systems - soft paints will correct very easily but can be prone to marring as well. Hard paints can be much more difficult to correct, but some aggressive processes can still haze them. It's this marring or hazing during the correction process that differentiates "delicate" from "soft". As an example: my niece has (well, had, it just got totaled) a metallic black Toyota Corolla that is super easy to correct with the DAMF System, and the finish looks absolutely stellar following D300/DMC5. I know of a non metallic black SL55 AMG that also corrects super easy with the DAMF System but the paint is very noticeably hazed following D300/DMC5. So both paints could be considered "soft" but the AMG paint (on this particular car, anyway) is also quite "delicate".

We've worked on several Lexus models of various years and the paint has always seemed pretty darn straightforward to us - we've seen nothing really out of the ordinary with any of them, just that some are a bit easier to correct than others, but the range hasn't been huge.

Do your test spots and take it from there, but if you can correct the paint using something less aggressive than D300/DMC5, then you should.

[uncandid]

Re: Black Lexus Paint Question?

Great advice Michael, I appreciate the explanation. I'm going to try some test spots and use the least aggressive combo I can