Dirtiest car I have ever owned finally get's clean

[Linas.P]

For some who have followed long journey on crank-no-start auction IS250, this may not be new, but after almost 6 months I got the car running and driving again, just required half of electrical part replaced ...

But now starts the more "pleasant" part of the project... and that is to detail this hairy beast. Surely the results are pleasant, but the ways getting there are let's say interesting. For time being I started with interior, because I don't want to catch mild case of death driving it, nor MOT tester would appreciate the condition of interior, so it got it done first.

Started with quite shiny and very sticky interior, faded and sticky door panels and plenty of questionable stains. If it doesn't look too bad, then check out what started coming off the seats below.

It was probably the dirtiest interior I have ever seen... I don't even want to know what is the white stuff that was coming off drivers seats... least disgusting guess is that some idiot applied leather cream to sealed leather, but it could be much worse... The rear had some banana milkshake treatment and thus I decided to go with heavier than usual treatment on leather. Usually, leather cleaner would have been enough, but one has to touch the seat to understand how dirty it was, but... preferably not with bare hand! Lets say  "circumstances required" it, so some 10:1 Surfex HD (APC) was first step, then general purpose shampoo (Gtechniq G-Wash 100:1) to sort of rinse it off and only then I used my standard Dodo Juice Supernatural cleaner/sealant - amazing stuff and works amazing, but this interior was just too dirty to waste it.

And after nearly 3 (like 6 times longer than interior should take to finish) hours I was quite satisfied with the results:

To finish off - set of new carpets as car came without any... I wonder what they looked like. 

The door trims are still little bit sticky, but I knocked-off the layer of white residue and they look 10 times better. Next step will be 50% isopropyl to literally wipe the stickiness away (one has to be careful with that, but there is no cure for sticky rubber, the layers has to be removed), before applying some permanent trim restorer. But for time being they are "good enough".

Don't mind missing went, the replacement is coming and I still need to replace digitiser on sat-nav screen.

If or when I get the car past MOT it will be time for exterior detail... it will be challenging to say the least. 

 

[Shahpor]

Not sure if it is just me but some of the picture links are broken when I try and view the page:

[Linas.P]

Yeah, strange - I wonder if that is some issue with LOC servers. For me the pictures shows in page, but if I try opening they just give me error. 

Lets try again.

Dirty:

Getting there:

Clean:

 

 

 

 

 

 

[J Henderson]

Same issue as Shahpor for me. Around half the images in OP just broken links, but can see the reposted ones just fine.

Nice turnaround though. Always super satisfying to achieve this kind of result when the starting point is a "pig sty". 🙂

Re: the central vents. What method or technique do you recommend to remove them without causing any damage? I want to try and solve the creaking sound that comes from that area when the car is cold.

[Linas.P]

6 minutes ago, J Henderson said:

Re: the central vents. What method or technique do you recommend to remove them without causing any damage? I want to try and solve the creaking sound that comes from that area when the car is cold.

It is actually very easy, there are 4 clips inside and they can be undone with small screwdriver. The vents themselves come out easily, but you need to be careful with the dash edges because they are easy to crack. Workshop manual advises masking tape, but that doesn't always help. 

I vents were trashed when I got the car, not because I removed them... seem like somebody tried to paint them maybe but failed, so they were all just blotchy. 

[Linas.P]

This is the reason I have decided to go with new vents, because as you can see the old ones where ruined somehow, not sure what happened to them:

@J Henderson As well these are the pins which needs to be moved down maybe 2mm to remove the vets. Vents clips into head unit as well so just be mindful of that. 

[J Henderson]

Thanks 🙂

Interesting to see that the vents were also one of the things changed during facelift. I had never noticed that before. 

 

[Linas.P]

Yes, the controls are in the middle, but I am sure they still fit in same place as pre-facelift. Although there are 2 connectors inside which had to be moved. 

[Aadilh92]

How did you get on with the sticky areas in the car? Especially the dash and door trims.

[Las Palmas]

 

 

•  
• Established Member

• Name: Linas
• Lexus Model: None
• Year of Lexus: 2022
• Location: Other/NonUK

 

So, Linas; when are you going to change your Lexus Model from None to the nice car you are getting out of something that could hardly start?

 

I like what you are doing.