Jaretr1
New member
- Jan 29, 2011
- 2,391
- 0
Hello,
This car was recently purchased by the boyfriend of a friend of mine. It was a previous rental car. Therefore, as one might imagine, the paint was hammered. Not only covered in swirls, but also had the vertical scratches of 100's of passes through an automated car wash. It also had plenty of rids, and small dings and scratches. Other than the front bumper which had either been replaced or repainted (as it the color was way off), the rest of the paint seemed to be original, which is good news as the car had not been in a major accident that I could tell.
I did not charge the owner a lot of money, and I didnt want to spend an entire weekend on the car, so I basically did a one step correction. Simply compound and protect, well I guess thats two steps.
To begin with I washed the car. After the car was clean, I took my nanoskin towel and went over the entire car. If you dont have a nanoskin towel or mitt, you need one! This is just so fast and easy than any other method of decontaminating the paint.
After the car was clean, I went to work. My tools of choice were both my Rupes Bigfoot and my trusty PC 7424XP. When Ford designed this car, they didnt consider making machine polishing easy. The hood has deep ridges that the Rupes could not get into. A few years ago I bought a 4" CCS spot buff kit (not really sure why) and had never used it. Im glad I had it as these pads on the PC made getting into these valleys possible. The thickness of the CCS pad helps in these tight corners. It also made getting the windshield frame much easier as 4" was nearly a perfect size match. It was nice to have a variety of tools at my disposal to really get a job done well.
CCS Spot Buffs 4 Inch Foam Pad Kit
For the Rupes I used the Lake Country Thin pro pads, Orange 5.5" on the 5.5" backing plate. These are great pads and also seem to be quite durable.
Lake Country ThinPro Foam Pad System 5.5 Inch
I used both Wolfgang Uber compound on some areas, and Mckee's 37 Fast compound on others. I wasnt concerned how well they finished given how bad the paint was. However, both finish down fine and left no haze or micromarring that I could see. These are both excellent compounds.
Before
The vertical scratches from the automated car wash are evident in this photo.
After. I would say I achieived about an 80-85% correction on the car. Like Mike Phillips says, sometimes there just isnt enough clearcoat to polish. I am sure I could have gotten even more aggessive, or taken even more time, but I was trying to limit how much work I did on the car based on what I charged.
Unfortunately it was cloudy when I finished. But I can say the blue came to life without all the scratches and swirls hiding it. Its a really nice color. I did a wipedown with Carpro Eraser ( I love how that stuff smells) to make sure I got all the compound residue off the car. I protected using Hydro2 on all of the exterior including the wheels. My friend already uses hydro2 on her car, so I figured it would be easy to use it on all the cars. And Hydro2 is just so easy to apply! Finished the tires using Mckees Tire Gel.
This car was recently purchased by the boyfriend of a friend of mine. It was a previous rental car. Therefore, as one might imagine, the paint was hammered. Not only covered in swirls, but also had the vertical scratches of 100's of passes through an automated car wash. It also had plenty of rids, and small dings and scratches. Other than the front bumper which had either been replaced or repainted (as it the color was way off), the rest of the paint seemed to be original, which is good news as the car had not been in a major accident that I could tell.
I did not charge the owner a lot of money, and I didnt want to spend an entire weekend on the car, so I basically did a one step correction. Simply compound and protect, well I guess thats two steps.
To begin with I washed the car. After the car was clean, I took my nanoskin towel and went over the entire car. If you dont have a nanoskin towel or mitt, you need one! This is just so fast and easy than any other method of decontaminating the paint.
After the car was clean, I went to work. My tools of choice were both my Rupes Bigfoot and my trusty PC 7424XP. When Ford designed this car, they didnt consider making machine polishing easy. The hood has deep ridges that the Rupes could not get into. A few years ago I bought a 4" CCS spot buff kit (not really sure why) and had never used it. Im glad I had it as these pads on the PC made getting into these valleys possible. The thickness of the CCS pad helps in these tight corners. It also made getting the windshield frame much easier as 4" was nearly a perfect size match. It was nice to have a variety of tools at my disposal to really get a job done well.
CCS Spot Buffs 4 Inch Foam Pad Kit
For the Rupes I used the Lake Country Thin pro pads, Orange 5.5" on the 5.5" backing plate. These are great pads and also seem to be quite durable.
Lake Country ThinPro Foam Pad System 5.5 Inch
I used both Wolfgang Uber compound on some areas, and Mckee's 37 Fast compound on others. I wasnt concerned how well they finished given how bad the paint was. However, both finish down fine and left no haze or micromarring that I could see. These are both excellent compounds.
Before
The vertical scratches from the automated car wash are evident in this photo.
After. I would say I achieived about an 80-85% correction on the car. Like Mike Phillips says, sometimes there just isnt enough clearcoat to polish. I am sure I could have gotten even more aggessive, or taken even more time, but I was trying to limit how much work I did on the car based on what I charged.
Unfortunately it was cloudy when I finished. But I can say the blue came to life without all the scratches and swirls hiding it. Its a really nice color. I did a wipedown with Carpro Eraser ( I love how that stuff smells) to make sure I got all the compound residue off the car. I protected using Hydro2 on all of the exterior including the wheels. My friend already uses hydro2 on her car, so I figured it would be easy to use it on all the cars. And Hydro2 is just so easy to apply! Finished the tires using Mckees Tire Gel.
