Well This particular car is know to have light paint. So what people have done to prevent all this from happening the got the Clear Bra installed. It helpa lot from what i have headr. Im planning on getting it installed also B/c i washed my car today and saw a scratch in the from bumper and it also killed me and i omnly had the car for about a month. so im definalty plainning on getting the clear bra.

 

its not lexus's fault...its the EPA. they're reducing the amount of hardening chemicals they're allowed to put in paint which cause environmental damage.....blah blah blah.

all new cars have and/or going to have this problem.

for the most part, paint is paint. doesnt matter if its a civic or a $40K lexus. why would you spend $40k on a car and not spend $500 for a clear bra? doesnt make sense to me. and dont tell me you cant afford it! :-p

My SGM with a clear bra looks 100% perfect after 5,500 miles. i wash it about twice a week with all the right stuff and using the right procedures and i dont have a single swirl mark.

 

haha, dont' take your IS thru an automatic car washer. Guys it takes less then 10min to wash your car head to toe. Esp if you are using one fo the no rinse products like Optimum.

 

How 'bout my $47K Lexus? Should my paint be 33% better than yours? Or a $18K car, should it chip twice as easily? Enlightment me.

 

A lot of it has to do with the amount of paint on the car (mils). The more mils of paint you have on the car the more prone it is to chipping. All of us 2IS owners with 3 stage paint jobs will have a lot more paint chips that others. There is really nothing you can do about it except like others have said, get a clear bra early/armor coating. I had a Scion tC before the lexus and had no paint chip problems at all. Its not Toyota/Lexus but rather the amount of paint on the vehicle.

Within the next couple years, the EPA is going to phase out all oil based paints and is going to water based paints, yes water based automotive paints! They are going through a testing phase right now and DuPont already has a line of water based paints out. From what i have heard, the water based paints are a little more sturdy/harder than the oil based ones.

 

There's nothing wrong with the IS's paint all paint on new cars nowadays are more or less the same. If you go on any car board you'll see the same complaints about the crappy paint on so and so model car. If you think it's too thin maybe you can bring it to the body shop and get like 2 coats of clear coat painted on or something.

 

If anything, Lexus paint is "thicker" than other vehicles. I have used an -electronic mil gauge on my car and it comes out between 7-8 mills stock. Dodge, VW, Nissan, etc.. have about 4-6 mils of paint. Like stated before, more mils of paint=more prone to chipping.

 

The paint on the 2IS is really soft so it is real easy to get chipped and scratched. It just goes down to how you drive and how you take care of the paint. The less you tail-gate, the less prone to paint chips, just my $.02.
As for care, search the auto detail and care section of CL, that is where I learned how to take care of this soft Lexus paint. I detail my car about 3-4 times a year, it's time consuming but it will help in making the paint look new.

-Mike

 

Or just suck it up and enjoy the car. Then, a couple of years down the road you can have the front bumper repainted. Even with a clear bra there are plenty of ways your car can get chipped (sides, hood, etc). It is almost inevitable. It's just an inanimate object; don't fall in love with it.

 

Doesnt look like it's natural occurance. Looks like someone over cleaned the car or maybe the whole car was resprayed with cheap paint...

 

swirls look normal to me on that color of car. the chips, well, i have 6K miles on my car and no 2 pencil tip chips. downside is i'm not chasing after the reaer ends of big rigs and bigfoots. maybe breakwater blue is stronger than other colors?

 

That's what im doing. Abuse it to the max yo, that's why you lease.

 

I think this is caused by not knowing how to take care of darker color paints, charcoal grey, black, burgundy, dark green, dark blue,these type of paints are unforgiving. I will admit , im not good with keeping with darker colors thats why i traded in my 04 black tsx and got this car. I liked the tsx it had 16k in two years but the outside looked like crap...

 

primer it. gangster time

 

proper wash/wax procedure car will prolong the shine....