Lexus RX350 - Christmas Cleanup - Dec 2011

How to adjust your forum settings for the best viewing experience:
By default the forums re-size what I consider to be reasonably sized images, which degrades the picture quality and makes it a tedious task to click on all the images to make them full size again.
In my posts, I do re-size my pictures according to a survey that was done by myself and CEEDOG, in which we determined that the most popular size from people that responded was 1024px wide.

These settings are the best compromise I can make between having great photos and still being usable by the majority of users. If they are too large for you, you can browse in my gallery posted below.

If you have not already made these settings to your options (under 'user CP -> edit options') make sure under the thread display options that you set your image resizing options to best suit your configuration.

This is what I use:

You may want to enter actual values in the width equal to your horizontal monitor resolution minus 400px if large pictures become a problem.

Click to expand...

In addition I am providing all of the pictures in a dedicated gallery, with multiple sizes available. The pictures can be viewed them here: Lexus RX430 December 2011

------

In order to comply with my best understanding of the AGO forum rules, products used in this detail that are not sold by PBMA or it’s associates have been [Redacted] from this review.

This is a re-visit of a vehicle that I cleaned up and protected when it was new just slightly more than a year ago. After a year of daily driving it was ready for some work to bring it back up to pristine standards.

Usually I do not detail this late in the year (unless they are my own vehicles) but the offer of a heated garage with hot water supply was too tempting, and I somehow managed to pack up enough of my gear to go mobile
for this job

Products Used:

Wash:
Optimum Car Wash Concentrate
2 5/Gal buckets with Grit Guards
Wheel Woolies
Daytona Speed Master Brushes
Mothers long handle wheel brush


Decontamination:
DP Poli Clay
OPC 3:1
UWW+ (clay lube)
Scrub brush

Polish:
Flex PE14 rotary
Flex 3401 VRG DA
LC Tangerine Hydro Tech Pads
[Redacted] Towels
Car Pro Eraser
Menzerna Power Finish
Green Wolfgang Finger Mitt (tight areas, door handles, and some pillars).
Menzerna SIP (Door handles and pillars).

Interior:
OPC 3:1
UIGP
1’’ Bores hair brush

Protection:
Car Pro Foam Block
Car Pro suede MF
Optimum Opti-Coat
[Redacted]
Cotton applicators
DP Gloss Tire Gel
Foam Applicators


This is what the car looked like September 2010:



The condition of the vehicle before detailing:



Mmm Tar






Nice and dirty wheels







The usual fingernail scratches under the door handles

During the wash :wash: I found that using hot water is FANTASTIC :gidiup: I need to install a hot water tap in my garage :working: It made things pretty humid and pretty soon I was washing in a cloud so I had to open a door and help release some of the moisture.




During the claying process I was surprised by the amount of bonded contamination. This is the first car in a while that I have clayed without using Iron-X on first (no chance I was going to use Iron-X Spray in an enclosed space) and I think it just is a indicator of how much junk Iron-X removes. On my last panel I also dropped the clay :awman: . From three point land, he makes the shot into the trash!

Now that the car had been washed, clayed, and dried it was time to pull it out in the sun and get a read on the paint. I found that this color of vehicle is extremely difficult to see / photograph defects on, so I did as best I could to get pictures. In words the paint was what I would consider to be very good, light scratching but fairly infrequent. The paint mostly just lacked a nice glossy finish. The worst damage was due to use of an Ice Scraper which was beyond buffing out :cyring:

Ice Scraper Damage:

Correction :buffing: -

Given the good condition of the paint I tried PO85RD on CCS White, then on Tangerine, however that combination was just not quite enough to get out some of the RIDS. After some experimentation I ended up using Power Finish on the Hydro tech Tangerine pads, and it worked down flawlessly.

Comparison (unpolished tape line on the right):


Me hard at work:


Time for a water break


I am glad Meghan got my shirt mishap figured out



An overheated Flex --

As I was working on polishing out the car I noticed that my PE14 was starting to get quite warm in my hands so I checked to make sure that the vents were still pushing air while the tool was running and that nothing appeared to be broken or sound wrong, so I kept going. A short time later, at a point where the tool was almost uncomfortably hot to hold any longer my PE14 went into a ‘limp’ mode where it would only run at the minimum speed regardless of the speed setting. I had my IR thermometer and took a few measurements.





At the hottest point the PE14 was close to 200 degrees F :madl: to put this into context I took a quick read of my 500W halogen lamps:


That’s right, my polisher was running just about as hot as my halogens :shock:

Though I really wanted to continue with the rotary, I had to let it sit and cool down, so I was very thankful that I had also brought along my Flex 3401 to help out with some of the more difficult areas, and got it fired up. I immediately missed the smoothness and feel of the rotary, but I had to keep powering on. I was reminded of a few things using the DA, such as that Menzerna polishes dust a lot more on the DA than the rotary. After letting the PE14 sit for about an hour and a half while I knocked out the plastic bumpers and tight spots with the 3401, I was back in business, and although the PE14 got fairly warm again I was able to finish up the polishing without it taking a break on me. I will followup with what I find out about the polisher for those that are curious.

With the polishing done, it was time to attack the trim, and I was excited to see how a product new to me would perform, [Redacted]. Chrome plastic was cleaned up later with finger pocket and SIP.

*Image Redacted.

Trim surface was prepped with OPC 3:1 then given a final wipe down with Eraser. In this picture the trim on the left of the gap has been treated, the section on the right has not.


I couldn’t get over how amazing [Redacted] looked on the trim, and I ended up taking a lot of shots of it! Application was very easy using the supplied cotton applicators and giving a quick final buff with a MF




LSP -
After a thorough cleaning with Eraser, the paint was protected with Opti-Coat. Again application was a snap and when working on this light color that was hard to see, I used the ‘Rasky’ method of gilding a MF towel over the applied areas to make sure there were no high spots, and it came out beautifully! Opti-Coat is really my go to LSP these days. [Redacted]. Windshield and all plastics were also treated with OC.

Now for some sun shots!! :woo:






I love how that trim looks!

My attempt at being mobile (this is only about half of it)


Finishing touches for the holidays:



Before and after section:

Tundra_10 said:

Seeing "Polk" on the plate makes me miss Des Moines! =*(. Anyway, awesome work! That trim stuff did a great job and I bet would do my bed rail caps wonders!

Liked the "finishing touch" of the bow!

Click to expand...

Looks like you are quite a ways from Des Moines But you are closer to Autogeek

Marc08EX said:

Great job on the detail Bill!!! You made a light color like that pop! The reflections are amazing!

Click to expand...

Thanks Marc

SkateForGirl said:

Nice job. Love the Bow on the steering wheel.

Click to expand...

:dblthumb2:

C. Charles Hahn said:

You planning to send the PE14 back under warranty for repair or replacement?

Click to expand...

I need to call Flex and pick their brain. I was lucky enough to order one of the first 50 (I have #45) so I don't want to replace it and loose my low serial number, so repair would be the option (or correcting operator error if that is the cause).