'07 Smart Car paint....hard???

dnoraker

dnoraker

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I'm buffing out an '07 Smart Car (black) that I think was manufactured in Germany. It's not the current model that's sold in the US and maybe manufactured in Canada. I have a vague memory of him saying it was made in the Mercedes factory.

If so, would that mean this has the ceramiclear paint? It seems really hard. M205 with the rotary wouldn't touch the swirls, M105/polishing pad helped, but even two laps left most of the deeper stuff. I jumped to a Megs yellow wool light cutting pad and with two laps of that it finally gets most of the swirls out, just leaving the occasional RIDS. BUT....when I follow that with M105/Megs yellow polishing pad again, it's often not getting out the marring left with the wool pad and it takes an extra pass to remove it. I then will follow with M205/polishing pad/rotary, then finish out with Menzerna 85RD and a LC blue CCS pad on the G100 DA.

Let me know if there are inefficiencies in my process because 2 laps with the wool, 2 laps with M105/polishing pad, then the two polishing steps is a lot of work! Granted, it's a Smart Car, but I don't have a lot of time.
 
Its a god thing the car is only 3 feet long :) LOL
 
dnoraker said:
I jumped to a Megs yellow wool light cutting pad and with two laps of that it finally gets most of the swirls out, just leaving the occasional RIDS.

BUT....when I follow that with M105/Megs yellow polishing pad again, it's often not getting out the marring left with the wool pad and it takes an extra pass to remove it.

I then will follow with M205/polishing pad/rotary, then finish out with Menzerna 85RD and a LC blue CCS pad on the G100 DA.
Click to expand...

Sounds like a complete system approach...


dnoraker said:
Let me know if there are inefficiencies in my process because 2 laps with the wool, 2 laps with M105/polishing pad, then the two polishing steps is a lot of work! Granted, it's a Smart Car, but I don't have a lot of time.
Click to expand...

I don't know if you could add any more steps to get better results for whatever the job is worth...

Thanks for sharing your experience though as this might help someone else down the road...


:)
 
Most Smart car body panels are molded in the color that you see, black being one of them. There is no paint involved. All you are doing is polishing plastic.
 
RLove said:
Most Smart car body panels are molded in the color that you see, black being one of them. There is no paint involved. All you are doing is polishing plastic.
Click to expand...

Oh, this is paint alright. I think that the current model cars might all be plastic, but I don't know anything about them. I can see the slight orange peel in the paint on this one and I've found etchings. I don't think it would be this hard to polish if it was plastic. Also, someone keyed the passenger side and he had that side repainted.

I'm done with the compounding steps and will be polishing this evening before the customer picks it up. I will post some pics when its done. So far, I have done 2-3 laps with the wool pad/M105, one lap with the polishing pad/M105 and some tight spots by hand with a foam applicator and M105.
 
I forgot to mention that I think why I wasn't getting all of the marring from the wool pad out was I tilted the pad a little or used too much pressure. Being my first job with a wool pad this year, I forgot how unforgiving that can be. As my technique got back to where it was at the end of last season, it appeared that I didn't even need to clear it up with the polishing pad and M105. I'll go straight to polishing with M205.

My process is getting me 99.9% swirl-free on most of the car. On my next Autogeek order, I think I'm going to shoot for some smaller pads and backing plate for the rotary. I'm using the Meguiars plate that goes with the 7" pads, which are the pads I use exclusively with the rotary. I also own some 3" "Buff N Shine" pads, but neglected to order the drill attachment.
 
RLove said:
Most Smart car body panels are molded in the color that you see, black being one of them. There is no paint involved. All you are doing is polishing plastic.
Click to expand...

That's what I remembered about them but wasn't sure. I've had a number of these cars attend classes over the years and one of my friends opened one of the if not the first discussion forum for Smart Cars as he was one of the first guys to get one over the United States in SoCal, this would be about 4-5 years ago...

I think he buffed them just like paint but I'm not sure... this is where it's always important to do a Test Spot


:)
 
I know the owner said this isn't the same as the American cars. I think he said he got it in Europe. The right side that was repainted responds to my procedure in an identical way to the left side. And, I know it was repainted, versus having panels replaced, because I can see where they blended it in the door jambs.

Did the ones you saw, Mike, have body color painted metal interior panels in some places? This one has those inside of the door jambs where you would normally see carpet. There are others, but I don't recall exactly as I'm writing from my work office. The engine cover is also body color painted metal.

I will take lots of pictures so we can see if we're talking about the same car.
 
Oh, you didn't say it was a Euro car. I'm not too familiar with all of the variations that might have been done there. I was speaking from experience with the black '09 Smart that I briefly owned. Solid black plastic all the way through. Good Luck.
 
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