The Lexus IS series w/ tweeters

i had tinted a IS yesterday and was explained that there was trouble with clearance when removing panels off this car, something about the inside door handle. i read that it easly broke when removing the door panels and had thoght about not removing them. the first two i did i never did any thing but rinse the film on both sides rinsing and trash of the film and rolled it in a funnel/cone shade. i unrolled the funnel as i rolled the window up this worked great even with the tweeter in place.....

i still wanted to have a little more room to work behind the tweeter and this is how i managed it. i cut a wedge out of mdf and rounded all my edges of the mdf. and wegded it into place, i had alot more clearance and it gave me plenty of room to do the funnel rol like i did before..

this is great idea. but.....although what u read about the panel removal may be true....these door panels are soooo easy to remove. once u drop one, the rest are so easy its stupid. its just worth removing the panels. i would compare removing these panels the the same as an a camry or carolla.

i will take that advice snappy you got my respect, i'll remove the next one i do and repost the results..

sometimes it just takes 5 minutes some time it takes 10...lol

i geuss on a slow day i will remove the panels, but if im slammed ill use the tool...

let me know how it works out for u,

Yea, remove the door panel....do it 2-3 times..quick and eazy..you'll love the results..........

realy with that extra inch, it never chreased on me once or did i have any trash...if im slow i will

Very simple to remove door panel.It takes about 2 minutes to take off and 2 minutes to re-install.

I did 5 IS' today...... ............

Takes the same time to remove the door panel as it does to remove the rear head rest and brake light.......30 seconds...............

same to be said about every single car i tint. but for some reason people dont remove all of them, or at least take out the rubbers. you can easily just pull the rubbers on an IS if you want, also a camry

i dont remove every door panel on every car. most vehicles i have done so many times that i can get the same results in half the time without removing the panel.

my philosophy is "whatever it takes to get the job done right the first time" yes with time vehicles get easier the more you do them. but like you said, the IS panels are so easy after taking a few off its stupid easy. you can say the exact same thing about every other car there is.

im not saying i pull everything, there are some cars that pulling the panel is useless. like the A5 where the rubber is connected to the sides and rivetted at the bottom. after taking off the oanel you cant remove the rubber anyway. so we remove the top screws and pop just the tops back to give more room when tucking. the same with the last model lexus LS's.

we have other workers here that are training to tint. and we want them to apply the same techniques that have given us good results in the past. taking shortcuts will only encourage them to try to find them as well.

we have it set in our guys minds that "just take it apart, it makes the installation easier in which you can get optimal results. when the job is harder, its not likely you'll get as good a results compared to if it were easy."

take for example, your tinting a car and you tuck style it. after youre close to done you notice a small hair. if you try to peel back the tint youre likely to get a lot of debris sucked into it. now if the panel were pulled, there is less chance of debris because nothing is touching the lower area of the tint.

i say "toyota and lexus have one of the pooriest designs for the rubbers!" everyone that has ever came threw my shop a 2ooo or a 2oo9 the rubber melts and leave a black residue. you would think that toyota would do some thing about it, nothing worse in my books.

P.O.S toyota/lexus

I tried to pull the IS rubbers.....could not figure it out.....

what rubber melts? never had that problem.

For me, and I am not trying to get all high and mighty, I have never had to remove door panels or bend back the tweeter on an IS. (With the exception of Huper Optik, which is too thick and requires the panel removal. In which case I charge the customer for the labor.) All I do is wipe the tweeter and everything around it, leave everything behind the tweeter including the top edge wet and roll up the window. Then finish everything and because Lexus glass generally stick quite well right off the bat roll the window back down enough to finish the top edge above the tweeter. The tint job comes out looking great, no creases or dirt. Took me a little practice to master this but now there is no wasted time.

we can go back and forth about this all day. u have your way and we all have our way. not saying ur way is stupid cuz believe me...if i had someone around here that i could trust to drop every panel of every car that i tinted, i would have it the same way. but its just me tinting mostly so i have developed the skill over time get a good job on most vehicles without panel removal. i do pull rubbers on all the vehicles that are easy to just pull out or the ones thats easy to just pull the top the panel. there are very few vehicles that i actually go all the way and pull the entire panel.

maybe its this florida heat? but i get it on every toyota/lexus, a black residue that is from the upper gasket..the residue is black and runs along the top edge only...its so strange, but this is what has brought me up to hate these cars!

if i remeber right the older dodge stratus would ruin tools, because of this residue
( well i would have to take 10 minutes after each one to clean the residue off my tools)

hey guys im not saying its right or wrong...i was just showing you how much space makes a differance....like a fat guy in a mr2, if you dont have space its smart to have a plan of attack...

remove or not to remove was not the question....

oh its definitley a good tip. i use extra squeegees, bone tools, and empty olfa boxes to either press down door chimes or hold back door panels of those older sebrings and 300m's, that we would just pop back instead of pulling.