Putting the shine on Lexus
by just-auto.com editorial team



Ever wonder why Lexus luxury cars look so shiny?

The secret's not so much in the paintwork, but in a process that brings together old fashioned craftsmanship and the latest robot technology.

At the Miyata car factory near Fukuoka, Japan, man and machine come together to produce a finish like a guardsman's boot - you can see your face in it.

Of the 19 hours it takes to build a Lexus, 11 of them are spent in the paint shop to produce a shine in which you can even see the reflection of the hands of your watch.

The cars are dipped, base-coated, sprayed, hand-polished and sprayed a couple more times to achieve the lustre required to pass out the factory gates.

Paint shop staff spend more than three months training to take their place on the line and then it takes many more years to achieve 'takumi' craftsman status.

Once out of the paint shop the cars are put under special lights where trained eyes look for imperfections - and around 10% don't make it. They have to go back through the process.

Toyota, which owns the Lexus brand, is renowned for the quality of its vehicles, and it is even tougher on the luxury make.

Once the car is assembled it has to go through quality checks involving a staggering 1,400 items - 200 more than Toyota models. There are some 2.5 kilometres of quality check lines at Miyata making sure that not only does everything work, but such things as the door closing speed and the sound of the seat and sunroof sliders are monitored.

Such attention to detail means that currently around 30% of the IS sports saloons and RX sport utility vehicles are rejected by the quality police and have to go back for treatment.

A factory spokesman said: "That number is too high and we are working at getting it down closer to 10%. But it is important that we maintain the highest quality."

JAPAN: Putting the shine on Lexus: Automotive News & Comment

 

Nice to know of such attention to detail. Good info!

 

I agree (and have posted on this numerous times) that Toyota/Scion/Lexus does the best paint job overall on metal body panels, though a few other brands like Honda, Audi, and some new Cadillacs come close. The Dodge/Chrysler Inferno Red (an exter-cost color) is also well-done.

Saturn, though, back in the 1990's, had a water-borne paint system that they used on the plastic body panels (some of you may remember it) that was just as shiny (if not more) than today's Toyota/Lexus jobs......but it was rather easily scratched. I had a Saturn SL-2 (specially ordered) with an extremely dark red-purple color called Blackberry that was just like a mirror.

 

God bless Lexus!!!!

The pearl paints, especially white based ones, on the new cars, the paint damn near flip flops. The deepness and luster is out of this world for a stock paint job.

They do a wonderful Flint Mica as well.

That is attention to detail.

My 92 ES 300 still has obvious flakes in the pearl paint. That car has 250k miles and is over 15 years old!

 

White Pearl, if done well, is hard to beat.....no doubt. It doesn't have the deep lusture and reflection that other colors have, but the white oyster-flake effect is beautiful. White, in general, though, is not the best color for deep luster.......you generally want dark colors for that.


Even American manufacturers can sometimes make White Pearl look good...as evidenced by my neighbor's new Buick Enclave.

If you want to see a Lexus color that will knock your socks off....check out the Matador Red.

 

Lexus paint jobs - especially the LS460, are great, and among the best of the best for sure... but I haven't noticed that they're necessarily more 'shiny'... just that they're more uniform, less orange peel, and typically pretty durable over the years...

 

LS460 are wetsanded which is unheard of in a production vehicle because of the pain staking labor. But it definately shows in the 460 because there is little to no orange peel (the side effect of not wetsanding a cars paint)

 

No lie about the paint. My 10 year old is still shining like a star with the OE paint.

 

My paint is 9 years old !! hah

 

Lexus does have some of the best paint in the industry, and I don't just mean from a gloss standpoint. They are on the hard side of average which means easier upkeep, they have less orange peel than most, the pearl and metallic are very precise and as mentioned in some cases they go so far as to wetsand on the line. My only real criticism would be that they should clear black trim pieces, but almost no manufacturers do that.

 

iono if they just upped the ante cause my 2002 has the worst paint job i have ever seen. i bought it new in 2002 and (maybe im just not a detailing kinda guy) but there are so many swirls, white dots imbedded into the paint, and areas that are not shiny at all. its also very easily scratchable. maybe its just really noticable because its black

but, my 2004 Flint mica RX still looks new.

 

I get tons of compliments on my car's reflection. Good job Lexus. I wish I would have bought a color with more depth.
A year old!

 

black cars have always been like this, thats why I will never own a dark colored car only light colors. Clay bar will help a lot as well

 

It does take a bit of effort to keep it looking good. But if you invest the time and effort it will pay off.

 

umm personally i would actually beg to differ a bit. i agree lexus is very good paint, and their cars are quite shiny. but i still think they have quite some orange peel, which by comparison i think is better on bmw/mb. i don't know why that's the case on lexus. except the ls460/600 line where they have dual stage wet sand process to eliminated orange peel on all the metal panels, all the other lexus models i notice orange peel on various parts.

that's one thing i hope they can further improve