NothernDan

9 hours ago, rayaans said:

Very hard to tell the difference between products in isolation. They need to be compared side to side. 

Waxes are oily and tend to make the colour appear darker and deeper as such but you wouldn't notice unless you'd just put it on. 

Sealants tend to leave a glassy effect. Sort of like having a lot of clear coat on the car.

I agree 100% with that description Rayaan, a very simple way of describing what is happening.

For a good example of this you can see my car next to Big Rats old ISF at the Kemble meet in late 2017 somewhere in the history of these threads. My car has just been waxed, his had not. The pics show a clear colour difference despite them being the same colour and in person the pearlescent flake in my car was far more evident.

All the wax does is make things more reflective and plays the trick of “getting  past” the flatness of the clear lacquer coat, letting the paint show off it’s reflective characteristics, giving the impression of more depth to the colour, more reflection, more shine. Waxes make it much harder to see where the surface of the paint begins and brings reflection from what looks like several layers down.

“Exhibit A” from North London Meets SU2C event a few weekends back. Shine and reflection thanks to Meguiars UK....

On 12/1/2018 at 6:13 PM, ColinBarber said:

NemesisUK and rayanns are the winners. Beading is bad for your paintwork; the water, and contaminants, are in touch with the surface for a very long time as it takes an age for the bead to evaporate, damaging the top coat, and once if finally does dry you are left with water marks. Products that sheet the water and let it run off are superior. 

Not sure I’d agree with that, the water beads evaporate onto the wax coat so unless you live in the acid rain area of downtown a Manhattan the contaminants will never touch the paint. Yes you are left with water marks but the wax coat means they just wipe off with some Quik detailer or waterless wash and wax and you are good as new.

Ceramic coatings and Sealants etc that promote sheeting are great if you just want pure long lasting, low maintenance protection but neither give as good a depth of colour or shine as a good Carnaube based wax would provide.

Just come back from a 2 day training course with a UK distributor for a major car care brand and the messaging there was very clear;

Ceramic coatings and sealants give great sheeting and long term protection to get dirt and water off the car as fast as possible but neither enhance the depth of colour or level of shine above what the factory paint had.

Wax products and synthetic polymers give a greater depth to paint finishes, enhancing colour and shine to show car levels providing prior compounding and polishing has prepared your paint properly (neither of which you want to do if you had a ceramic coating in place). The downsides with Waxes are as you suggest, water beading and evaporation. Waxes also won’t last as long as sealants or ceramic coatings but the two are not designed to do the same job. Ceramics etc are long lasting protection, Waxes are enhancing paint colour and shine along with more limited lifespan protection.

NemesusUK and Raayans have the best sheeting, agreed, but if you are going for show car shine then a wax would give a better result, it would just require more maintenance.

One very interesting thing I learned is that, at present, most aftermarket waxes and retailers will attack a ceramic coating and erode it over time so if you’ve had you car ceramic coated you should not use any other products than a coating specific wash fluid and water to keep it clean. Anything else will be slowly eroding away your very expensive sheeting product.

If you like tinkering and rebuffing every weekend Waxes may be a better bet for you. If you want to treat and forget other than the occasional wash and dry then get you house remortgaged and get a ceramic coating on.

I’m a very active weekend tinkerer so it’s waxes for me.

Thanks all, looks like it is HB4 on mine.

Who knew such a simple thing could be so confusing!

Hi gents,

Anyone know this for sure? Google brings up a host of sites all saying different things, HB3, HB4, H11? Which one is it?

Many U.K. sites say US spec is different and many US sites say the ISF and IS250/350 are different too! 

@Toothy did the awesome bulb write up but his link to eBay to the fog lights is to an expired listing so you can’t see what it is/was 😩

Does anyone know for certain what size the front fog light is on our cars?

Thanks!!

Dan!

6 minutes ago, d3ron said:

Which thread?

It’s the one called VLand headlights, before we take the plunge.

i think Pete may be picking this up.

12 hours ago, juicestop said:

 

Ok so no AFS feature, nor I suspect auto levelling. I think the pros outweigh these cons so put me down for a set.

There’s another thread on this chief. I’m no longer in the running so will let someone else pick up the reins. You may want to read the other thread first though!

Hey all, saw a pic of these installed on Instagram yesterday...... but can’t find it now ☹️ Searched high and low.

From what little I could see I’m not convinced. They don’t look as well made as the rears and all the black plastic and chrome trim is a little too “first draft” for me. Reminiscent of my “Lexus Style” rear lights I had on my old Calibra. Not good.

I’m going to stick with upgrading the OEM units for now. Happy to pass on contact details of my guy but counting myself out of the front lights for now. The U.K. guy in Walsall will do a deal in the rears for those who wanted those, just contact him directly via eBay. He’s called Toni!

Good luck!!

On 11/24/2018 at 10:44 AM, Twellsie said:

was this it Dan?

 

 

Thats the one!!

Ta chief!!

4 hours ago, Twellsie said:

right apparently it was just on FB messenger from the Vland FB page, no specific name

Ok, who is on Facebook, I’m not 😮

5 hours ago, Twellsie said:

it was on the Lexus IS F owners page on FB, I have just messaged the guy who arranged it to find out who his contact is

Nicely done hombre! Keep us posted!

1 hour ago, Twellsie said:

that group buy is finished now

Where was it mate? Can you ask whoever was running it who their contact was?

A finished group buy doesn’t give me much leverage with my guy ☹️

Before we all drop our hard earned cash on these, I am sure someone on here did a lengthy write up very recently about swapping out all their bulbs for LED or upgraded units including the required relay boxes to prevent hyperflashing and a nice yellow lit JDM style fog light bulb.

Who was that and where is the post? Can’t find it anywhere!

@Womble72 I was sure it was you but can’t find it in your history.

Help!! 🤪

9 hours ago, gb1600e said:

Dan, Is your man the guy selling on ebay from Walsall? That guy has his rears at near on same price (£202 for 2 pairs) or your man is matching him perhaps ?    Seemingly on ebay they are in stock as item listed in UK (Walsall) with 1 week delivery.  Interestingly he also has buy 3 at £187 each and buy 4 at  £176 each and all have "Make Offer"  So maybe  if 4 people are interested we are onto an even better deal.  All that said I'm still in for a smoked set of rears with you and your man.

The fronts are not listed with him but all his other stock listed shipped from China is 2 - 3 weeks so still in time for Christmas.

Hey, that’s not my guy but he fulfilled my rear lights order on behalf of my guy in China. They all work together and will ship local stock if they can. This thread started out as a rear lights group buy but only two takers, hence the pricing.

Happy to support but as you can see,  on low numbers you don’t get much off. 

When you best offer that guy in Walsall the max you get is an extra £5 off per set, tried it before I bought mine from China but the China contact got the guy in Walsall to fulfil the order anyway!! They all work together if they can to save shipping and taxes but from what I can gather there will be no U.K. stock on the fronts for some time yet. China get them first.

3 hours ago, Twellsie said:

Dan, without wanting to step on toes, another group buy I have seen are offering $420 (£328) including shipping worldwide, might be worth pushing back on them for this?

 

Why don’t we just use the other group buy?

4 hours ago, Peter P18 said:

Hey Dan,

Take it you mean we need 10 sets of headlights not rears? Or am I getting confused?! Lol.

I'm game for a set as and when you are ready to place the order mate. Will be a nice early Xmas present to myself!

Hey Pete, so, we need 10 sets of fronts to get the discount, the rears are stand alone at a slight discount.

So we need 5 more takers for the fronts (or is that 4?). Spread the word on any other forums and flood etc

Dan.

Gents. If AFS is the folllow you round corners headlight guidance then it’s a no ☹️

On a side note, new price arranged. The rear lights for the two that want them are £200 a set delivered, delivery is from the U.K. as far as I know.

We do need to get to 10 sets of rears to get a discount on them and it should be this side of Xmas or soon into the new year. With 10 sets the guy can do them for £327 plus shipping and taxes inbound from China so will be cheaper if we get them as a 10 and split the shipping and taxes. I can get an estimate of this once we get to 10 sets.

We are at circa  5 sets now so spread the word!!

Will try and come mate! Will bring the front splitter if you are still interested 😎

Hey all. Found this site that seems to have a load of relatively hard to find ISF and RCF  upgrade stuff on it.

Take a look, some pretty nice kit on there. @Peter P18 there’s some pretty decent looking mods on the more extreme end of the spectrum too!

https://www.nengun.com/

Enjoy!

P.S. to anybody who is reading this. Alittle off topic I know but I work for your bank and we’ve found a pigeon in your bank account. It’s quite embarrassing so please don’t tell anyone. If you can let me know your account number, sort code and security password we can let it out before it causes any problems with your Direct Debits and Standing Orders. Please post them below and I promise you’ll never hear from me again 🧐

Awesome!

Thanks Glynn, will be giving them a call.

Hey all,

My man is on a Holiday so just awaiting a price but at present we are looking like maybe four sets of fronts and two rears so discount won’t be huge.

Peter P18 has the smoked rears on his car  if you check the recent ‘Post your pics’ thread. I’m sure they are just as legal as many of the other LED light units out there. @Peter P18 any more info you can add?

Do they take airmiles?

VLand replacement headlight unit(s)

£370.

Sorted.

4 hours ago, 200h said:

they may pull the dent out there are systems available to do this

they weld keys to the car body .

below is an example of the system in use

 

Wow, one of the worst done dent pulling jobs I’ve ever seen. Glad he’s not my local approved repairer! Good luck with the repair, they will almost certainly fix that rather then write it off. 

2 hours ago, Peter P18 said:

Hi Dan,

Or just get your existing Brembo’s re-finished in a nice orange colour? BCS did a great job on mine. Been over a year with no issues whatsoever. You can buy the decals like the ones on the RCF/GSF as well I believe? Sure someone did this in the States a while back...

How are you liking your VLAND’s? Look good. 👍😎

Where are the hidden cameras Pete, must have favourited those guys about 5 minutes before I read your post! 😎😎 They seem to have a great reputation!

Loving the lights, first night drive out with them tonight, I think they look great, shaves 10 years off the car!!

On 7/17/2018 at 10:18 AM, finest1 said:

hi all,

my car is covered in very light scratches, hazing and swirl marks. does anyone know any good detailers in the north London area they would recommend?

There is a very good guy in Letchworth, is that too far for you?