I'm not totally sold on any color really. I'm leaning towards Matador Red, but I wish they had some better shades of blue. If custom paint wasn't so expensive, I'd get something similar to this:

 

humm im assuming u meant black lexus, and im pretty sure it doesnt. i've asked alot of people, my body shop, my detailer, and even my dealer n they all say lexus doesnt have a clear coat on black

 

You're right. I'm not sure if it applies to all Lexus models, but our black IS 250/350 have a single stage of paint. I have no idea what the technical term they call it, but it does not have a clearcoat.

 

single stage i think

 

I knew that.

 

are you sure your IS250 has single stage paint? from what I've read on this forum, previous black Lexus' up to the ~2001 SC430 used single stage black, but from then on they used black and clearcoat. can anyone clarify this??

 

I think if you did a search on any forum with 'paint chips' you'll see that it's not only lexus that is having issues.

I had a g35 before the IS and it was a lot worse. The front looked like a combined salt and pepper shaker. The paint on the IS isn't great but it's a lot better than what was on the G.

 

When I picked up my car from the body shop for dent repair, I specifically asked about this. They said that EPA (or whoever makes these decisions) have been 'experimenting' with paint for almost 2 decades trying to get it right. They mentioned the flaking issues that many Dodges had in the early to mid 90's as an example of this experimentation.

So, either we just have to deal with the cheap paint on newer cars, or they will come up with something better and we will continue to suffer through their beta testing in the meantime.

 

yeah i shoulda learned my lesson from my last car, but i just could not resist a clean, waxed, dark color car. now i'm wishing i got white instead

 

My dealer does it in house for $800, about the same as the price from other shops around my area. If they did not do it in-house, I would have considered a local guy, but that was before I got them to use $400 in Luxury Package markup to pay for 1/2. I added both after the initial purchase agreement, but they were happy to work with me to add options.

 

In an effort to be more "green" all manufactures have gone to an acrylic based paint mandated by the EPA. Used to be urethane based which was way more durable.

I opted not to get the clear bra because of the yellowing and highly visible seam lines. It's only slightly more expensive to just have the front end re-sprayed every few years...