New Bumper Cover... Part 1

So, as the title says, one thing I had done at the Lexus dealer was to have the beat up original bumper cover, with all of its scratches and chips thanks to the previous owner, replaced with a brand new bumper cover from the factory. Being a Lexus factory part, the paint is absolutely perfect.

Beautiful!

But to stay absolutely perfect is not possible, not matter how much wax or sealant is applied, especially when the car is on the expressway often as it is in my case. But, I had, even before buying the car (but after seeing it), thought about getting certain parts of the car repainted so I had ordered several pieces of 3M clear protection film pre-cut for the ISF, from the US.

Here are the film cutouts for the bumper and mirrors.

On my GT-R, I had successfully cut my own templates, from which I cut headlight protection thickness 3M clear film, and then applied to the headlights. So, I figured that with lots of time and patience, application of the bumper piece on the ISF would be the same, especially because it was already pre-cut.

So, I took off the (required in Japan) license plate and its holder:

This must be the cheapest piece on the car. Will have to upgrade soon.

Those are some LARGE holes...

And then I washed the bumper and used a Zaino claybar to remove any dust, just in case:

After it was all clean, I sprayed the front bumper with the distilled water and baby shampoo mix:

The bumper film has yet to be peeled away and is sitting upside down on the hood

And then, as deftly as possible I removed the 3M film from its backing and tried to apply it to the bumper:

Was ok so far...

Finally got it on, somehow....

And then came the process of using the supplied squeegees to remove the activator fluid of distilled water and alcohol.

When I finished, however, I learned that 1) in getting the film to fit in some areas, I had overstretched the material so it would not fit in others, 2) despite my washing down the garage some dust had gotten trapped and caused some rough spots (redoing the application in places to remove this dust was driving me insane) and 3) some fluid just could not be removed.

What it looked like when I gave up...

Finally, after spending the entire afternoon doing this, as it began to get dark I decided to give up. The photo above was taken right before I walked away disgusted with myself.

The problem remained, however, what to do - could this be salvaged (I guess I could drive it around looking horrible until it was fixed) or was there another solution?

For the GT-R, I had also wanted to install some paint protection - I had bought a can of the 3M Paint Defender as well as a container of the Road Warrior Plus because I was concerned that I would not have the talent to cut bulk sheets of the 3M film to fit the GT-R.  But of course, for some reason I searched my garage and could find neither of these.

Finally I gave up, made some calls, and then found myself on Wednesday morning at a famous Porsche tuner in Yokohama, just 10 minutes away from where I live.

Stay tuned in Part 2 to see what I had done...