dougie175

Hello and Welcome to the forum! Enjoy every second of the IS250 its such a good car If you have any intentions of completing any maintenance, modification or just general enthusiast type jobs on the Lexus now seems like the ideal time to start a thread on the Brand New build thread section to share you ideals and photos and hopefully get a few ideas and tips along the way.

Looking at your photos, the Audi material may look slightly thicker than the Toyota not sure, I can safely say the Toyota bag looks more than up to the job though. Should get the roof box and bars off this weekend and test the bag properly.

I agree it is a professional job really or a very competent tooled up DIYer. Easiest way to make sure they get re-lacquer and not just polished would be to scratch through the lacquer into the plastic, but this seems very extreme cant believe they you cant find a bodyshop you can trust to do the job correctly! Its simple enough, remove headlights 1 hour, sand down for 1-1.5 hours mask and paint, 0.5 hours polish if required then refit and reset beams 1.5 hours. With stripping and refitting its about a 4-5 hour job plus materials. We would charge about £200+ VAT at work to do a pair however if we are doing another job on the car and already have the headlight removed we charge £40-70 to refurb a headlight

Yeah I think it is similar material, is the Audi one separated into 2 compartments? I like the little pocket to keep your key and tightening tool very handy!

Roof rack bag arrived safely today, very impressed with the quality and design.

Hello and Welcome to the forum! Sounds like you have good intentions of completing maintenance, modification and just general enthusiast type jobs on the Lexus now seems like the ideal time to start a thread on the Brand New build thread section to share you ideals and photos and hopefully get a few ideas and tips along the way. I am confident you'll grow to love Lexus even more than Saab they are fantastic cars

Haven't washed the car for over a week but woke up to a bit of beading this morning so thought I would post a few pics:

You'll be there all day with 800 mate we would start with 240 minimum to remove all the lacquer on a DA at work, don't worry you wont damage the plastic its amazing how well it re-lacquers up. It will have reacted where you sanded the most as you have broken the surface of the original lacquer more so it can eat in more, what you need to remember is aerosol products are most lust cellulose thinners which is what we use to break down paint in the gun wash so will react and try and loosen and peel the original lacquer from the headlight! You wont get a great finish without removing all or the original lacquer from the front surface of the headlight, we must have done over 100 headlights and in the early days a few of the lads tried to do it without removing all the lacquer or just feathering out the bit they needed to remove and it always looked a dogs dinner and had to start again. You can hit them with as low as 180, 240, 320,400 600, 800, 1000, 2000 and finally 4000 abralon on a DA is what we would do before lacquering with a UV protected lacquer to ensure there is no chance of the lacquer turning yellow in years to come. Providing you sand to a nice 2000 - 4000 finish you wont see any sanding you have done originally with the 240's

I like them too

My money would be on too thicker application, I don't really use cellulose paint as I always have access to 2 pack and guns but cellulose goes white when you apply it too thick and will react like then when too thick. Also did you remove ALL the original lacquer and get the headlight down to bare plastic? If not looks like the cellulose lacquer has reacted with the original lacquer possibly. You need to remove ALL the original lacquer.

Fusso Soft99

I just make it part of my weekly routine 90% of the time it is Friday afternoon on my way home from work whatever is required I just fill her up, after a week of work and a bit of driving of an evening its usually 2/3 or a tank or so.

It'll be reet I'm sure

Purchased one they are a lot cheaper than most of the ones I have seen from the UK, and if you're happy with it I am sure I will be! So alongside the C5 and this brush should have everything I need to keep the wheels clean without too much work!

Always a good feeling when the cat goes through the MOT with no advisories

Any chance of a link to the oversize bog brush?

Yeah despite being a manager at a VW approved bodyshop I'm not a VW fan either. There's nothing wrong with VWs they just don't deserve this amazing build quality and great car image so many people and press give them. The Audi A4 or A6 avant would be an ideal next car for myself however! Honda will always have a place in my heart but alongside Toyota they don't particularly have a "cool" model range

Bit of a Matmite car but you would get a mk8 Civic for that money. Not sure if she needs 5 doors? If not the Type S is a very "cool" but reliable car. Watch the wings on mk5 golfs if you go that week we replace around 2 pairs a week under warranty at work, due to the foam damper rubbing away inside the wing however this does happen a lot more on the diesels rather than the petrols due to the vibrations. My wife had a 1.4 59 plate Ibiza for 4 years before we upgraded her to the new Leon and it never put a foot wrong it was superb.

Ha ha very true the C5 is relatively cheap in fairness if it lasts 12 months it's a very justified price. Watched quite a few YouTube videos and seems to yield fantastic results. Still thinking of getting some red 7 for the wife's car I'm no where near as obsessive on her Leon so a bit of none acidic wheel cleaner would make life a lot easier

Right Gtechniq C5 purchased now time to get my wheels off cleaned 100% and protected!

Happens at least once a week for us with parts suppliers at work, parts guys are always forgetting to actually make the orders

Agreed much better to keep it out of the reserve, see cars all the time at work running on fumes, I don't understand it personally its like not use save money using the bottom half of the tank over using the top half? Apart from the very slight weight cost I guess. I tend to top up weekly but would be thinking of stopping at next station if I was getting to around 1/4 tank personally

Chased up my one from Toyota this morning, he forgot to actually put the order in! Numpty! But he has done it now and it due to be with me Mon-Tuesday will report back once I have it Lee

I'm guessing none of the coatings could withstand a dose of PH neutral wheel cleaner like Red 7 though so it would be 1 or the other still? Would be nice to have something like C5 on the wheel but also find a mild but effective wheel cleaner that didn't remove the coating

Yeah a good amount of the paint transfer has come off on the front bumper looks much better