2012 Mercedes Benz GL350

Sizzle Chest

Sizzle Chest

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I had a new customer contact me last week about her black GL350. Her young son decided that he wants to be an artist and had taken a rock and scratched pretty much everything he could reach on the paint surface. I wanted to look at the vehicle to see what could be done. She brought it in for a quote. It looked pretty bad.

I did a few test spots to see if I could do anything at all. She did not want this to turn into an insurance job and have the vehicle repainted. I made no guarantees.

The vehicle came in today for a complete paint correction and sealant application.

I found that this paint was extremely soft and marred very easily.

UWW'd the vehicle after arrival and after it cooled down. Meg's D108 on engine compartment. Adam's deep wheel cleaner and misc brushes on wheels. Tuf Shine cleaner on tires. Tuf Shine brush.

Medium nano sponge for clay. Dodo born slippery for lube.

Flex 3401 for correction-speeds 4-6 and Griot's 6" for sealant application.

HD CUT and HD SPEED was on deck for today.

HD POXY lsp

Meg's 5" thin foam cutting, polishing and waxing discs.

Blackfire tire dressing.

Blackfire AIO tire/trim on engine compartment

Adam's total interior detailer on interior.

Metro vac and master blaster

HD glass on glass

I don't think I am forgetting anything, but I may have...this thing had a TON of real estate to cover and I am BEAT!!!!

Onto the pics! Let them tell the story...


How the vehicle arrived to me:









This is how the majority of the vehicle looked:






The 'artwork' on the vehicle was just ridiculous!






























50/50









Tailgate scratches:







After:





After shots:


















































End result: SUV came out great! Customer was absolutely blown away by the results I could achieve. It was not 100%, but I feel I got about 85% corrected. I could not get all of the very heavy scratches completely out, nor a lot of the road rash (hit a fence), however, for not wet sanding and not having to have the car repainted, I feel, as does the customer, the results are excellent!

Thanks for looking!
 
^^^^Thanks there tough guy! Yeah, usually: my shoes fell off! And my glasses too! LOL

I'm good with the paint work too!
 
Outstanding job Scott! Looks amazing my friend!
 
Damn. Please tell us about how you reduced the deep scratches.
 
Sizzle Chest said:
I had a new customer contact me last week about her black GL350. Her young son decided that he wants to be an artist and had taken a rock and scratched pretty much everything he could reach on the paint surface. I wanted to look at the vehicle to see what could be done. She brought it in for a quote. It looked pretty bad.

I did a few test spots to see if I could do anything at all. She did not want this to turn into an insurance job and have the vehicle repainted. I made no guarantees.

The vehicle came in today for a complete paint correction and sealant application.

I found that this paint was extremely soft and marred very easily.

UWW'd the vehicle after arrival and after it cooled down. Meg's D108 on engine compartment. Adam's deep wheel cleaner and misc brushes on wheels. Tuf Shine cleaner on tires. Tuf Shine brush.

Medium nano sponge for clay. Dodo born slippery for lube.

Flex 3401 for correction-speeds 4-6 and Griot's 6" for sealant application.

HD CUT and HD SPEED was on deck for today.

HD POXY lsp

Meg's 5" thin foam cutting, polishing and waxing discs.

Blackfire tire dressing.

Blackfire AIO tire/trim on engine compartment

Adam's total interior detailer on interior.

Metro vac and master blaster

HD glass on glass

I don't think I am forgetting anything, but I may have...this thing had a TON of real estate to cover and I am BEAT!!!!

Onto the pics! Let them tell the story...


How the vehicle arrived to me:









This is how the majority of the vehicle looked:






The 'artwork' on the vehicle was just ridiculous!






























50/50









Tailgate scratches:







After:





After shots:


















































End result: SUV came out great! Customer was absolutely blown away by the results I could achieve. It was not 100%, but I feel I got about 85% corrected. I could not get all of the very heavy scratches completely out, nor a lot of the road rash (hit a fence), however, for not wet sanding and not having to have the car repainted, I feel, as does the customer, the results are excellent!

Thanks for looking!
Click to expand...
very very nice job.
 
Mercedes and porche have good paint to deal with that situation ,try that on Lexus crap thin paint.
 
Thanks for the replies everyone!





Ebg18t said:
Damn. Please tell us about how you reduced the deep scratches.
Click to expand...


First of all, this Mercedes had extremely soft paint. One of the softest I have run into besides some Porsche paint. It marred easily with your finger!

So, with that being said, I used HD CUT and a Meg's crimson low profile cutting disc on my Flex 3401 at speeds of 4 to 6. Pretty decent pressure and numerous passes. (I took paint reading before and during this process so I new I wasn't 'killing' the paint) I then wanted to reduce some of the haze that the CUT and 'heavy' pad left so I went over the same areas with my Flex and a Meg's yellow polishing low profile disc. Speeds of 3-4 were used. This really 'cleaned up' the panels, finished down great, and left a fantastic gloss afterwards as well.

That's my process. If this had been 'normal to hard' paint, I would have been doing some wet sanding in order to reduce these monsters!

Hope this helps and thanks for looking!
 
Thank you for such great information.This type of post really contributes in a positive way and makes me happy that I read your job story.
 
Amazing work!

Looking at those scratches I'm impressed that you could even get 85% correction. They look really deep. Could you feel them with your finger nail or do they just look deeper in a picture than in reality?
 
^^^^Oh, you could feel them. They were severe.


Thanks wing commander!
 
Awesome job. At a glance, the scratches looked very deep and my thought was "repaint". I bet the client was pleased.
 
I judge by seeing the pics, not the process, products, technique, decades or days of experience & your results show that you got that talent when you decide the process & rule it plus it always matches the end results. Beyond compare.

Regarding Mercedes GL 350 well, it's crazy car with too small engine for it's size, I like MB only when it carries letters > 350 :laughing:

I am happy for you got busy with nice, exclusive cars.
 
A freaking rock?!? Wow. Amazing save. The 3D stuff seems to be your rock stars (no pun intended!). I just got mine and can't wait to give them a try. I'm always happy that the customer was blown away by your work. Whenever that happens, it's a win for every detailer in our industry when we can show people what we do and why we do it. Great job!!!
 
Oh. My. Gawd. Great save!!! I think you have a customer for life now.
 
Amazing work Scott!
You turned a disaster into a miracle :xyxthumbs:
 
Thanks for the kind words everyone!!! They are much appreciated!
 
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