All,

I bought a 2001 Lexus GS300, black on black. Overall the car is great. The previous owner just have had a gallon of touch up paint. Ok, it is not that bad, but there is a lot. What can I do? Do I have to wet sand it, or will a PC do the trick?

Thanks for the help.

Jeff

 

wet sand, and polish it then wax.

 

use the pc to polish

 

i also think that 2nd gen gs had 2 diff types of paint i believe pre 00 is single stage and after has clear? iirc but im sure lexusscturbo will chime in soon

 

Edwin is right; late 00 (yes pre facelifts) got the 2 stage; but before that its single paint...
I have worked with 3 S202's so far... (Including my own)..
Your's is a 2001; so careful with that 2000+ grit on the car.. Just use an agressive polish to cut down and then work your way up.

 

Here is an idea, rub Langka on the paint spots. It should dissolve the touch up paint but safe on the original. No risk in trying.

 

Thanks all for the help.

Lexusscturbo, are you saying wet sanding is a bad idea? My thought was to wet sand just the tough up paint. But, I have never done it before. I think I like your suggestion of just using the PC and see how far I get.

Jeff

 

Polishing is not going to make much of a difference with touchup blobs. You can either live with them or risk trying to wet sand them down. If you wet sand them a good idea is to use a hole punch or cut a small round piece of the sand paper and super glue it to the back of an pencils eraser or back of a pen. When you sand focus just on the paint blob and see if you can make it flat and even with the rest of the finish.

If it does not seem to be making a difference you can try 3 things. Use more aggressive grit sand paper and make sure just to sand the touch up blob and not the finish, use a razor blade and very carefully try to slice the blob as flat as possible, or use some kind of softening liquid in Lanka or other products to soften the touch up paint and then try to remove it with a razor. Once you get the touch up fairly flat to the rest of the finish then carefully and lightly wet sand a small very area with 2000 grit around where the touchup was applied to try and even everything out and match the rest of the finish. When you run your finger over it you should not feel the blob or touch up spot anymore and it should feel the same as the rest of the surface. After that you can use a compound or an aggressive polish and a orange or yellow pad with a porter cable or if you are experienced a rotary and polish out the sanding marks. This may take several runs to get rid of them and then you will need to use a lighter finishing polish to get rid of the haze left over. It will not look perfect but it should look much better.

Again you can damage your finish going this route if you are not careful and it is pretty time consuming so you may just want to live with the touch up blobs or have the area repainted in the future.

Here is a right up on paint chip repair that maybe helpful.
http://autopia.org/forum/click-brag/...-56k-owie.html

 

Udel,

Thanks for the information. I would not even worry if they were just blobs of paint. But the previous owner did like 6" scratches with touch up paint. That is why I was considering wet sanding. Just a quick question, if my car has clear coat, does that make it easier to sand? I REALLY don't want to ruin the paint. Might just live with it.

Thanks!

Jeff

 

Well with my GS its a single stage; so I can't eat through clear; just the paint itself..So with enough heat and friction the paint gets soft; so the touchup and the OEM paint can blend

 

Clearcoat is not going to make it easier to sand but you really should be trying to avoid the clearcoat or areas without the touch up as much as possible when wetsanding touch up paint down. If you are careful then you should not take too much clearcoat off when trying to blend in the touch up spots and it should not do much damage to your finish. Concentrate on just the touch up with the higher grit sandpaper which is why it is best to use a small piece of sandpaper glued to the back of something small and flat like a pencil's erasure or back of a pen then once the blob is sanded down and you are trying to blend it in just lightly use 2000 grit around the touch up area on the finish. You may want to practice doing this on a some finish you don't care about before you try it on your car