Bugger, Bugger, Bugger !

alpine · October 2, 2013

The title by the way is supposed to be 'Bugger, Bugger, Bugger II' not Ii, but you don't seem to be able to edit it...

Oh dear. Unused to the parking warnings on my brand new IS, which do not appear to operate with quite the same range and directional sensitivities as the ones on my GS, I managed to gently hit a metal bar at the side of a very narrow space in a Tesco car park I don't usually use. This IS also doesn't appear to show the warnings on the centre console display like the GS did, only on the little display by the instruments.

50 Miles on the clock and this happens. Most of the scratch polished out, but 2 small chunks of paint, about 3mm diameter have come off near the top of the bumper and show black.

I have one of the Real Lexus touchup kits that I bought for the GS and never needed. The silver is a close enough match for the moment, so I opened it up.

Very odd this kit for water based paints. It has basecoat and clear bottles, and the top of the basecoat bottle has a soft, fine, plastic mesh pad on top. The basecoat has a strange bluish tint.

The idea seems to be that you blob the paint on the problem area, let it dry for 10 mins and then wet the pad and go over the area. First time I tried this and waited 10mins, all the paint came straight off on to the pad again. 10minutes may be fine in California, but here it's not enough, even though the instructions say +5 to +35C.

Applied again. Waited half an hour. Wet the mesh again and gently stroked across the blemish. This time it appeared to work in the intended manner. Most of the paint came off on to the pad, but it left a thin film exactly filling the blemish.

Excellent... I was leaving it to dry to start the clear coat when it started raining... So I wiped it all off again and am waiting for the dry.

Has anyone else used these kits? Do you agree that I have the right idea about the way it's used?. The reason is that the instructions are symbols only and I find step 7 on them a little incomprehensible. I *think* it's just about cleaning the pad after use, but I'm not sure.

When you have the base coat sorted, you go through the same procedure with the clear coat, also water based...

Edited October 8, 2013 by IanS200
edited title for member

DJP · October 2, 2013

Really sorry to hear this alpine, you must have been so cross! I can't help with the paint question, but when engaging reverse gear the centre display shows the camera view as well as the beep beeps going off, and going forward the beep beeps go off and also show an image. I must admit I don't recall ever seeing anything in the small display by the instruments. It must be in settings somewhere.

I hope you manage to get the car back to pristine condition.

alpine · October 2, 2013

Really sorry to hear this alpine, you must have been so cross!

I can't help with the paint question, but when engaging reverse gear the centre display shows the camera view as well as the beep beeps going off, and going forward the beep beeps go off and also show an image. I must admit I don't recall ever seeing anything in the small display by the instruments. It must be in settings somewhere.I hope you manage to get the car back to pristine condition.

Thanks, very annoyed. When I'm going backwards, the reverse camera display is like the GS with a small car in the top rhs which clearly shows which sensor is going off. But going forward, there is just the split display of the economy graph on the left and the map on the right. The car will bleep, and a diagram is displayed on the instrument panel, but I'm not used to looking there.

There are also 2 settings for the proximity sensors. The dealer set them to the further one 'for safety', but actually it's worse since they go off too early and are on continuous beep most of the time when distances are in fact reasonable and Tesco parking place width. I've just changed mine to the closer setting so if they go off, they probably mean it.

And there may be some setting for the display which does show the little car when going forward but I haven't found it so far... On the GS, the whole display changed to 'parking assist' when any of the sensors was fired.

Ian J. Parsley · October 7, 2013

Sorry to say the parking sensors *are* displayed in the centre console, but you have to set them up.

As for the paint, sorry, can't help - would your local dealer not step in for something comparatively minor right at the start?

alpine · October 7, 2013

Sorry to say the parking sensors *are* displayed in the centre console, but you have to set them up.

Not on mine. And there is a setting in the parking assist section 'display' but it is set to 'off', and the joystick cannot be used to select it 'on'. It just skips over that item.

Tel · October 7, 2013

Used the Paint for years!

The pad needs to be damp rather than wet & ,under running water wash- off the paint that has transferred onto the pad.Secondly,

wipe gently from side to side rather than stroke across as the latter can easily remove the blob of paint you are actually trying to smooth.

Tel

alpine · October 8, 2013

Sorry to say the parking sensors *are* displayed in the centre console, but you have to set them up.

I went to my Lexus centre on another matter and my chap showed me how the display is switched on. But it's actually a bug in the current version of the menu system (well, the one that's on my car).

Whereas all the other settings operate so that clicking fields on the left change the boxes on the right, the parking assist set up screen doesn't currently work this way.

You're supposed to click on the 'display off' box itself. It then puts a silly little green flash on the left hand side of the box, which STILL SAYS DISPLAY OFF.

They clearly have further urgent work to do on the menus...

alpine · October 8, 2013

Used the Paint for years!

The pad needs to be damp rather than wet & ,under running water wash- off the paint that has transferred onto the pad.Secondly,

wipe gently from side to side rather than stroke across as the latter can easily remove the blob of paint you are actually trying to smooth.

Tel

Thanks for your comment. The Lexus centre actually touched this up for me this morning. But I might have another go.