What Have You Done To Your 3rd Gen Today?

Forget about it.

 

I felt your pain. Happened on my new evos. Lesson learned

 

Sucks man. I know there’s going to be more dings and scratches down the road, but just sucks having it on Day 1 of install. I’m gonna do some research on that Novus stuff @OldSchlPunk mentioned. 50/50 on leaving alone/attempting to polish out.

 

YES! Love this chart from Team Oil Drop!

 

I would be kinda iffy about polishing it, might polish the protective clear off and then make it worse long term

 

Washed away the winter salt.. quick coat of Colenite 845 .. replaced wiper blades

Got a little rust on some of my lugnuts, I'll have to crawl underneath to see what else got rusty with the winter salt. My truck hasn't had a proper bath in several months.

 

Nice chart, but us 6M guys get left out again

 

Thought this as well..
What about using one of these clear coat pen applicator things?

$15 Toyota Genuine 00258-0000C-21 Clear Coat Touch-Up Paint Pen (.5 fl oz, 14 ml)

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B009VJXG5W

 

Seems extremely risky to me, to use a solvent based touch up paint, on plastic. Not exactly sure, but I would bet that will make it worse.

If the scratch can only be seen, but not felt, then the novus 3 step might work (though I do not know about a factory protective coating, if that is a real thing, the novus will remove some of that).

If you can feel it, especially if you can feel it with a fingernail, then it is too deep for rubbing out, you would need to sand it out and then polish it. In this case, the simplest thing would be to get a kit for yellowed lenses, and it will have the proper sandpaper, and instructions. Though I would recommend leaving it alone. I have sanded many headlights from yellowing, and the only lasting success is when I start with slightly coarser paper than what is provided in the kits, and use a power buffer for all the buffing (separate pads for each size grit). By hand for an hour, does not produce the near perfect result, that a power buffer and the novus products, will do in about half the time. Also, the ones I did by hand were only clear for about a year, the power buffer method has been 2 years, and still looks new.

Oh, and you probably should remove the headlight and brace it is a wooden structure on a bench; or the process of getting to the edges of the plastic, will remove some of the surrounding paint as well.

 

What about us time wise and not mileage guys?? I just changed my oil @ 6 months with only 1,300 miles on it...

And do I rotate the tires every oil change (1,300 miles) or every 5,000 miles??

 

I was looking for the small squeeze bottles link... lol
But thanks....

 

If it were me I would just leave it as painful as it is lol

 

$19 Boeshield T-9 Bicycle Chain Waterproof Lubricant and Rust Protection, 4 oz Liquid, Original Version (122183) (1, Twо Pаck)

https://www.amazon.com/Boeshield-Wa...ield&qid=1742775487&sprefix=t9,aps,516&sr=8-6

 

I’m on that schedule too! No rotate every five either way.

 

I use 3M film for my headlights to help prevent pitting from the road and to prevent the clearcoat from hazing. I do it on all my cars and it works great. It will probably hide most of that scratch. A 2fer.

 

Bike shops, tool shops, and some outdoor supply stores usually carry t-9 if you don't want to give Amazon your money.

 

Got great deal on a Jeep Gladiator Smartcap (free 99) so I figured I’d see if it fit….and boom, it does, kind of.next up is putting on new suspension.

 

So as I understand it, there are two reasons to change your oil, according to time, and not just miles.

- Oil exposed to the combustion gases, becomes acidic, and you prefer to not etch your journals, that ride on solid bearings, so change the oil, to get rid of the acidic content. Now when I think about this one, it seems to me that the acidity goes up only with the number of miles, so at 1,500 miles, is it acidic enough to have concern. If someone changes their oil every 5,000 miles and that is about 6 months for them, then they are doing far more 'etching' for the 2nd half of the time before they change their oil, than you will be doing if you wait and change your oil at 3,000 miles and 1 year. And make note, that many do not change their oil till 10,000 miles. Heck, I have family that never changed their oil. Never. Only add when it is low, and those cars died from rust, not from engine trouble. I change my oil every 5,000 miles, and the vehicles that I store for the winter, get an oil change only if the current oil has 3,000 miles or more. That is approximately where I draw the line, partly because before synthetic oils, I used to change my oil every 3,333.3 miles (was easy to know when an oil change was needed, without writing it down)

- Oil will pick up water. Burning a gallon of gasoline, produces about a gallon of water, from the combustion process. You can see it out the tailpipe on a cool morning. Some portion of this water vapor gets past the rings, and into the crankcase, contaminating the oil. If you ever heard the saying that the worst thing you can do to a motor is to only drive it a few miles, each time you drive; this is why. Anything less than about a 10 mile commute, is terribly unkind to your car. Problem is, your car is not run long enough, for the oil temperature to get hot enough to boil off that water, and send it out the PCV. In fact, it is not just your oil temperature, it is compounded by the engine internals being cool enough, that the water vapor entering the crankcase, condenses on the cool metals of the engine internals, creating water droplets into your oil. So a little more water is collected in your oil each day, and never boiled off. This rusts your pan, degrades your oil's lubricating properties, and adds corrosion to all the engine internals. So if your low miles per a 6 month period is due to very short trips, change your oil more often! But if your trips are plenty long enough, just not often; then water in the oil is not a factor. I also believe that changing your oil is less effective at removing water, than taking a nice long drive. Though oil floats on water, so any water present, should reside most heavily at the drain plug.

So I have a vehicle that is not driven during winter. I change the oil before storing it, and 6 months later I want to start driving again. What reasons would I have to change the oil, before driving it for the summer? The only one I could come up with is concern for it collecting water, while stored. drastic temperature swings make the engine breath in and out, even without running; and inhaling moist air can then condensate on the cool metal internals, and drip into the oil pan. If this is in abundance enough to do damage, then this is a good reason. If the vehicle is stored in a heated garage, then this is moot. Is there any other reason?

I feel that rotating tires is strictly about generating even wear, so strictly influenced by miles. No harm in rotating more often, but I think it far better to rotate on equal miles intervals, and not by time. Time is not a factor, so I think it best that each tire spend approximately an equal number of miles on the front, and the rear.

 

All that sag is caused by that cap?

 

You could just be "subtle" about the injury ...