2015 Dodge Challenger Scat Pack - Black- *Soft Paint*

jrm523

jrm523

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Let me start by saying this was my first big polishing job (with a DA). I recently found this forum, joined and made a huge purchase as it has been way past due for my Challenger to get a good polish job done on her. I have always done this by hand in the past. I started by doing tons of research on everything from what products to use to technique (I even purchased Mike Phillips book and read it twice!). I was certain that i would not have a perfect outcome due to my inexperience and the millions of product combinations out there but in the end i couldn't be happier!

The car:
2015 Dodge Challenger Scat Pack - pitch black - soft clear coat

Products used:
Harbor Freight DA multi-speed polisher
Lake Country 5" backing plate
Lake Country Hydro-tech pads (Blue, Tangerine, Crimson)
McKee's 37 Universal Detailing Clay
Menzerna Super Finish 3500
Wolfgang Deep Gloss Paint Sealant 3.0

I started with claying my car. I did not like the McKee's clay at all. It is very tough and not pliable. This made it near impossible to use being that it was a little cold outside. I ended up using some clay i purchased at a car show a while back (cant remember the name offhand). I then performed my test spots and started with the tangerine pad but ended up moving to the blue pad. My paint had only had sealant applied when i purchased it in 2015. The paint had swirl marks and random scratches (IE: cat or another animal tried to climb the side of my car ###). I was able to take out most of them with the blue pad by going slow and doing 6-7 passes with medium to hard pressure. I was able to remove 98% of my scratches and only have a few oddball deeper ones here and there.

My procedure was the following: 6-7 passes with blue pad, wipe, 4-5 passes with orange pad, wipe, final pass with crimson pad and Wolfgang sealant. The car turned out amazing. I have never seen the paint look that good.

Overall the process was extremely time consuming (i'm a bit of a perfectionist) and I was surprised at the endurance it takes to see this through. I'm in shape but have a bad back and was sore all over after finishing today. It took approximately 2 days for me to complete. I apologize for not having more "before" pics.


Before pics (including scratches from cat like animal and normal swirl):
View attachment 61000 View attachment 61001 View attachment 61002 View attachment 61009


After pics:

View attachment 61003 View attachment 61004 View attachment 61005 View attachment 61006 View attachment 61007 View attachment 61008 View attachment 61010 View attachment 61011
 
Nice car. Did you use the blue first? then the orange? Or is that a typo
 
hoyt66 said:
Nice car. Did you use the blue first? then the orange? Or is that a typo
Click to expand...
Thanks fellas!

I used the blue (cutting) pads first and then the orange (polishing) pads after. Then I used the crimson pads for the sealant.

I'm still blown away with how good the car looks.. We took her to run errands tonight and I kept looking back. I was worried about swirls being that the clear is so soft but I stripped the polish on my test spot and there was none.



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That is awesome! Hope my detail will look that good!!!

Tom
 
jrm523 said:
Thanks fellas!

I used the blue (cutting) pads first and then the orange (polishing) pads after. Then I used the crimson pads for the sealant.

I'm still blown away with how good the car looks.. We took her to run errands tonight and I kept looking back. I was worried about swirls being that the clear is so soft but I stripped the polish on my test spot and there was none.



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Click to expand...

Got it. Nice job. I always look back at my car. It's a prerequisite for autogeeker's :-)
 
Wait you used 3500 for the entire car all the steps ?

That’s a finishing polish you should have used some sort of compound to start it would have cut many passes off your process. Passes = time.

Looks great though


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MattPersman said:
Wait you used 3500 for the entire car all the steps ?

That’s a finishing polish you should have used some sort of compound to start it would have cut many passes off your process. Passes = time.

Looks great though


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Click to expand...
I used the 3500 for the first two steps (blue and tangerine pads) and the Wolfgang sealant for the third and final step. The challenger has extremely soft paint and the blue pad with the 3500 got every swirl and scratch out minus the deep ones.

I was trying to use the least aggressive products to get the job done considering my paint is so soft. Granted I'm a total beginner at this stuff and im sure there may have been a more optimal way.

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Pitch Black (no metallic effect) has always been and continues to be softer than the old pearl Brilliant Black and the current pearl Phantom Black. Surprisingly I don't get a lot of Pitch Black Mopars, but quite a few Brilliant Black and Phantom Black Challengers, Chargers and 300s make their way to me.

Here's an example of hazing left behind by an aggressive compound on the large "C" pillar (or "B" pillar if you want to call it that) on a 2014 Pitch Black Challenger. Look to the left of the line of demarcation. A finishing polish and pad cleared it up very nicely.

View attachment 61015

Here are few shots from Brilliant Black and Phantom Black. A similar compound and pad were used, but less hazing is visible. There is still haze on the pearlescent paintwork, but on Pitch Black the effect is much stronger and more noticeable in normal lighting.

2015 Phantom Black Charger
View attachment 61016

2007 Brilliant Black Charger (the paintwork looks blue because of the camera's inaccurate white balance)
View attachment 61017

2008 Brilliant Black Challenger (the white balance is off on this one too)
View attachment 61018

Granite Crystal Metallic seems to be more resilient and less prone to micro-marring than the other darker colors from Dodge and Chrysler. I had a Granite Crystal Metallic Challenger for two years and all of the other Challengers I've worked on of the same color have required a more aggressive compound and pad than the blacks, dark reds and dark blues.
 
Beautiful car and excellent results! Love those cars.
 
osiapstndp said:
Pitch Black (no metallic effect) has always been and continues to be softer than the old pearl Brilliant Black and the current pearl Phantom Black. Surprisingly I don't get a lot of Pitch Black Mopars, but quite a few Brilliant Black and Phantom Black Challengers, Chargers and 300s make their way to me.

Here's an example of hazing left behind by an aggressive compound on the large "C" pillar (or "B" pillar if you want to call it that) on a 2014 Pitch Black Challenger. Look to the left of the line of demarcation. A finishing polish and pad cleared it up very nicely.

View attachment 61015

Here are few shots from Brilliant Black and Phantom Black. A similar compound and pad were used, but less hazing is visible. There is still haze on the pearlescent paintwork, but on Phantom Black the effect is much stronger and more noticeable in normal lighting.

2015 Phantom Black Charger
View attachment 61016

2007 Brilliant Black Charger (the paintwork looks blue because of the camera's inaccurate white balance)
View attachment 61017

2008 Brilliant Black Challenger (the white balance is off on this one too)
View attachment 61018

Granite Crystal Metallic seems to be more resilient and less prone to micro-marring than the other darker colors from Dodge and Chrysler. I had a Granite Crystal Metallic Challenger for two years and all of the other Challengers I've worked on of the same color have required a more aggressive compound and pad than the blacks, dark reds and dark blues.
Click to expand...
This is great info! Thanks for taking the time to show all of the different examples. This will be a great reference thread for people with these cars/colors in the future.

Before I knew that paints could be hard/soft I always wondered why my car seemed to scratch so easily even though I would take such good care of her.

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so great sir.
Me too, I started to buy a lot of things to experience on my car, I read Mike's books (however, conditions of use and quality of vehicles used in My country is different from the USA) I started working, it was a great experience.
 
Holy smokes. I have one of these cars and have been pulling my hair out trying to fix the micro marring and what not. I can't wait to get my hands on this combo to try out. I almost went back to the dealer and complained that there isn't a clearcoat on the car considering how easily it scratches.

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So, I tried the same setup as the OP. Man, this works amazing.

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Hopefully coming in the morning. Ran out of pads and need to finish off the roof and hood. Plan is to use Poorboys Black Hole for anything I may have missed and top with Wolfgang's DGPS.

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Mueley said:
Hopefully coming in the morning. Ran out of pads and need to finish off the roof and hood. Plan is to use Poorboys Black Hole for anything I may have missed and top with Wolfgang's DGPS.

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Click to expand...

Awesome. Love me some MOPAR's. :)
 
Never really took photos of my car before but here's what I got from the polish/pad recommendation of the OP
edfd4ea21dc097d960bd5e3a94af44f1.jpg
e1e34f4c6cee92bd22f4f53aaa43e6ad.jpg


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