New owner, need help!

[Venturi]

Hello
Just bought a fully loaded with performance package RCF
Ultra white, Grey interior, carbon roof, cf fin, mark levinson, radar cruise, etc

I LOVE THIS CAR.

(my prior car was a 2014 GTR)

I was looking for a forum, so far this seems the only dedicated one


Need to know if I am the only one thst went through this

I have tried to buy SEVEN different RCFs I he past 18 days, all bitter disappointments on paint .

No, the paint seemed to be orange peel free and laid well without trash in it

HOWEVER


1 Drove 4 hours each way for the first one, silver with red interior. Dealer claimed car was immaculate repeatedly so finally I decided to drive the distance to go get it. Upon arrival, I found the car to be covered in stone chips - the dealer said no one drove it but it had 51 miles on it and had scuffs on the door sil, 11 chips in the front including hood and front bumper, so I did not do the deal.

2 Drove 4 hours each way again to same dealer who claimed pristine only 14 miles on the one that just came in, blue with black interior. This car had little cuts and chips on both sides of the upper hood, these are not stone chips, they look like nicks or cuts on left and right side of upper most hood area. Also the same nicks and cuts above the headlights on the same hood. Strangely, the middle was perfect, so was the front and the fenders were perfect. But I could not accept it like that.

3 drove 4.5 hours each way to a different dealer, same promises, nice folks, claimed car was perfect. They meant well. This was silver with red interior. Same EXACT hood issue, no stone chips on front, 12 miles on it. Hood had same micro cuts and nicks in the SAME EXACT area. WTF? The dealer tried so hard, I just didn't feel like being cruel, so I bit my lip and just told him I changed my mind.

4. Drove 2 each way to a different dealer. Orange on black, 52 miles on it same issue, same areas. And it had stone chips and the door sil lower lip was cut by someone's boot/shoe

5. Drove 45 minutes each way to local dealer, a white on red, same issue and real stone chips, 55 miles on it. Dealer had been driving it to golf tournaments but it did have the same hood issue beyond the stone chips.

6. Drove 3.5 hours to the last dealership in the area. Went through many assurances that the car was perfect so the next day I drove to pick it up. Silver black interior. Unfortunately it had a door chip and a few of the hood scarring I told you about. I was quite upset at this point, was in the "F -it" mode
This last dealer, really had tried to keep the car immaculate, fresh of truck, didn't even do the technical test drive, car had 7 miles on it. And then it dawned on me that the side chips could be done in transport

and 7 - He had a fully loaded white one with the grey interior, so while he tried to locate a different car, I inspected the white one. Under the dealer front show room lighting I did not see the hood issues so I ended up buying it. And had it flat bedded back to my house the same day. Dealer was amazing and professional

Well

When I got home, under my garage lights, I found the same hood issues, guess the white paint did a better job of masking my showroom inspection or it was my excitement.

The ultra white with grey was amazing looking with the cf roof.

Well, I know it it's SUPPOSED to have self healing clear coat, so I did all I could logically:
I tried the hair drier to heat up the surface to promote self healing, nothing. Parked it in the sun, nothing. Tried the warm water and microfiber to rub the chip area, nothing, self healing paint is marketing crap. No changes, not even microscopically. The self healing paint is supposed to work within a few hours/days of moderate warm temperatures. Between parking it in the sun on 93F days and the warm water or a hair drier ( never letting hood temp above 104F) the paint did absolutely NOTHING to close the fissures/cuts/nicks.

The cuts are in the clear coat, not in the base coat, the don't penetrate to the base coat.

So, after 2 days and absolutely no change to the paint situation I decided to do some rudimentary ice cold wet sanding on 39 individual spots in the hood, very carefully using specialized 3000, 4000, and 5000 sand paper. Then 3 stages of diminishing compound, I was able to remove it enough so that I can't find most of them. Then fine micro polish followed by three sealants. Topped it off with 80% carnauba

However, it was 60 hours of work and stress and just seem mid boggling that Lexus cars are that crappy a quality or their process allowed for something to occur to all the cars I saw
All the body panels and cf roof are perfect. So WTF happened to the hood of these cars?
I get the stone chips part, that's the dealers fault and test drivers, but what's up with the hood nicks???

SEVEN RCFs out of the only 7 RCFs in my area (less than 5 hour radius) with hood paint issues!

DOES ANYONE ELSE HAVE THESE ISSUES??? Do you know how to find them?

And WHAT is the self healing paint supposed to do anyhow????


If Lexus IS reading this, I have the vin codes to all the 7 RCFs and the dealership names. Lexus, you have issues in QA, transport, and dealerships.

...and WTF is the self healing clear coat supposed to do????

 

[Lavoisier]

Can you post some photos of all of these RC Fs with the paint defects?

 

[Venturi]

Unfortunately, despite some creative attempts with my iPhone camera, I could not capture a picture that would make sense showing the paint nick-ing

However I do have some pics of the actual rcf's that have the issue. I'll try to post those, but it seems this forum does not actually host images only links to images. Is there a membership fee that allows users to have the forum host media/photos?



Thank you


Does the car actually have self healing clear coat? Is it colour specific?
I'm convinced the white car does NOT have self healing paint.

Before any steps were taken with wet sanding I :
Cleaned, clay barred, apply light polish, then moved to 1-2-3 level compounds , them when all that seemed not to improve the situation, then moved to the cold wet sanding - even then only in small 1-3cm section and feather lite wet sanding, applied compound, inspected and repeated if necessary.

My goal was to remove the very least amount of clear coat possible, I borrowed a depth meter and it measured a mere .003 variation on my efforts. I'm not a pro, but a pro would probably ended up with the same result.

I had the choice of apply filler acrylic / clear coat to the cuts, but the aberrations were too narrow for the clear coat and the associated viscosity to penetrate and settle in the cut. These ranged from UV curing compounds to air dry compounds


I hope that explains my course of action better

Side note
The blue paint with many a surface cut/nick was not self healing because the mica was the worst I saw.
The silver was not self healing then either because it had many of the same paint cuts and was inspected right of the truck.
The orange was also not self healing in that case as it had been sitting in the sun for two weeks.
The white was not self healing then either

The colours I can't comment on are noble grey, infrared, and obsidian - so are any if those self healing?


Side note #2
I had a silver GTR that had self healing paint. Works with minimal results. Heat up area, hair drier or sun, warm wet rag and gently work area to "smudge" the nick. Within about a day later it seems to melt together.

The RC F paint yielded NO such behavior

 

[C552RCF]

I was told the self restoring clear coat is supposed to be on all the RC F. Go to http://postimage.org/ and upload a photo and link to it from here.

 

[double-0]

It's a car, not a showpiece. Unless this vehicle of yours will only bounce from car show to car show, expect imperfections. Even if the car arrives flawless, damage to paint is inevitable. Total waste of time makin a big deal out of it...especially on a white car that hides those imperfections so well. My ultrasonic blue doesn't have those flaws and came with a clear bra on the front end but i got a couple of nicks on the door handle. I don't care. It's not important. The car is still sexy as hell regardless.

 

[B767400]

Hi there,

Picked up my Liquid Platinum RC F about six weeks ago. When I signed the contract, papers said the vehicle had 11 mi on it. Vehicle had to be transported from NC to GA and when it arrived for delivery, it had 54 mi on it. I was a bit concerned but accepted it with assurances by Lexus dealer that it is perfect. When I got it home, noticed a rock chip on the hood. It was deep, down to the primer. Dealer said they would have it touched up by a collision shop they use. After touch up, blemish is larger and more noticeable. Now faced with repainting the hood. I plan to clear bra the whole front end of vehicle but can't do a thing until this rock chip is fixed.

Does anyone know if the rock chips have been occurring in transit or during dealer test drives? Shocked to learn others are having similar problems with their new limited production RC F's.

 

[hb_crazee]

My liquid platinum was free of all rock chips when i purchased it. There were 27 miles on it. However, On my way home, I got stuck behind a huge diesel that had pebbles flying off on it and when i got home, yup, tock chips on the bumper. Ive cleaned it up some and put on am xpel clear bra. It looks good still.