lex430

Very nice, did you get the whole car painted? or just parts? how much would a paint job for the whole car run?

D-MAN63

I didn't say that, it was the liquor!

Erfan

sweet ride bro, love ilt

ceoart

The color looks great. But wondering how it holds up to the dust and dirt. I live in South Florida where we have a lot of coral rock which makes my black car dirty in a day.

LS4fun

Actually, the whole car did not need to be painted. I chose to have the entire nose painted (I hate those darn rock chips from highway driving) and blended in with the front doors. This includes the front bumper and the new Greddy Lip, the RMM grill which has a mesh backing that I love so much, the hood, and the two fenders.

I also had the rear bumper painted since there are people in this world that can never seem to learn how to parallel park and love to leave a copy of their front license plate in my bumper....

Of course this has happened again ALREADY and my new painted bumper was PERFECT for a few hours. So it looks like I need to start thinking about the next visit to paint shop already (not going to happen right away however as I'll need to see a few more scratches or get some additional mods that require painting before that happens).

The paint shop did an EXCELLENT job matching the paint to the rest of the car. My cost for the whole job which includes the L-sportsline rear window spoiler was $1000. I thought that that was very reasonable since they turned it around for me in 3 days as well.

As for quality of work, I could not be more satisfied.

LEX430, if you wanted to get the whole car painted, price could vary quite a bit. You could get a MAACO job (would be cheapest) but would not be the best option for quality. Quantity is what counts for MAACO and not quality.
You also have those paint shops which take nothing apart and use tape/paper to cover moldings, lights, etc... I would not recommend this either because even the best tape/paper install would be imperfect and paint would show up on non-painted surfaces which would look pretty *****y.
The body shop I went to, took away all the non-painted parts (lights, moldings, grill, etc) from the nose, including the front bumper and left the hood and the fenders only on the car. These pieces were painted on the car. Everything else was painted on their own in their paint booth to match the car. This is quality work and takes time to do.
You a probably looking in the 3 - 4 thousand range to paint a whole car in the same color you have now. I you wanted to change the color of your car, then that's a totally different story as now the whole car has to be stripped so that door jambs, motor chamber, etc also have to be painted. That's a lot of work.

Before you commit to any work take a look inside the paint shop and see what kind of cars are being worked on ...if all you see are 1970 and 1980 cars in the shop, you may reconsider. But if you see a lot of late model and especially luxury cars like LEXUS in the shop, there is a good chance shop is well trusted and your automobile would be well taken care of.

Erfan

My ES300 has a couple of rock chips on the hood and the side passenger door, they are very small, but you can see the metal underneath. Should I have them touched up? I am thinking of taking it to the Toyota dealership that i usually goto and have them do it, I have the Taupe color and i want to know if they will be able to match it.

Thanks

Erfan

Erfan

How much did the paint job cost? and where did you have it done and how long was it in the shop?

LS4fun

Bit,
Offset on 8.5's is 38 mm and on 9.5 is 40 mm.

Front tires are 245/35ZR19 and back are 275/30ZR19.

Yes I had a centering ring and a lock installed for each rim.

I have not had any balancing problems yet....took the car to about 95 mph with rims on and no problem....ride is very stiff and potholes are now my worst enemy but balancing is OK.


Yes, chromed.

As for the choice, I really liked the way the rim looked, made a quick minute decision and ordered them online from a store in Florida at a very reasonable price. The range I got from the same rims varied from the price I paid to a high of price I paid +1500. Talk about different profit schemes. It does pay to shop around and be patient. Once I ordered online, I got the rims about 4 days later by UPS (actually 3 rims on one day, 1 on the next...dont ask! ...I dont know). Overall I'm pretty satisfied with them.


Now I wish it was summer!

LS4fun

That's life!

I live in NJ and state is not the most clean one in the country either. Dust seems to love to seek out the cleanest cars it seems like.

How often do I clean my car? Well lets just say that I visit my local car wash quite a bit and get car hand waxed on a regular basis.

I have a VIP card for the car wash....sick I know....

Manuel

futuregs

WOW MAN YOU FINALLY GOT MY RIMS! =] I think the rims are sick and I can't wait to put them on my GS in may. Looks tight as hell dude, keep it up, drop it and it will look P*I*M*P
Nice decision on rims =] hope me showing them ont he board helped you pick them =]
Also hows your ride with those babys??

Richie

Dieselman, I thought it was something like that !!!

LS4fun

You better believe it buddy! Once I saw those rims, I fell in love with them immediately. Once I also found out that the price was reasonable, I had my order in.

I'll try to take some more shots of rims today and post.

As for the ride, the handling is amazing but of course ride has stiffen up quite a bit. I guess I have to slow down a bit to watch out for those evil potholes.....slowing down I guess is not a bad thing either I guess....hopefully will help keep my budget low when it comes to my driving offense attorney and my "contributions" to the city and state minimal.

LS4fun

As promised, here is a closeup shot of one of rear rim. This is a 19 x 9.5 rim.

LS4fun

Here's a shot from the back.....You can see the L-sporstline windown spoiler as well as the chrome trunk bar....I really like that bar it makes for a quite different look.

Sorry guys..no more pics for now....its 35 deg F outside....my hands are frozen.

enginyr

Wow what a nice paint job...Was that your original color? HOW MUCH???