be careful of polishing scratches!

[Kelso]

so a guy i work with hit a trashcan on the way to work. it caused some scratches, not very wide, but deep. not too noticable. i offered to try taking some of the lighter ones out.

theyre hard to see but they are there, look at the edges

well i attacked it with xmt3 and an orange pad. decided to use my old LC pad since it doesnt get much use and i want to use it and toss it when it gets old. that is exactly what i did after this. look what i did to the paint!

im polishing the one area and i see orange foam flying through the air....i couldnt figure out why it would do that so i pull the machine from the paint and my guess is one of the scratches turn into a chip and thenit proceeded to rip the paint right off and cut the pad up.

he basically said "#### happens" but he already had a bit of damage on other parts of the bumper so he didnt care at all. its only dime sized but i felt so terrible about what i did to his paint...

 

[abrcrombe]

Sorry to hear that happened. Good thing he didn't mind too much. You should probably offer to wash/wax his car or something just to make up for it. BTW, what is that car?

As for the pad, one of mine got cut up like that, but it was on a badge. I guess we all need to be aware that pads are very soft. It is foam and can rip quite easily. I know I use them like they are tanks and just go at it.

 

[bambo2888]

how did it happen, just got caught on the scratches?

 

[Gary Sword]

It's easy to ware the paint down quick on an outside edge but I have never seen it look like that. That looks more like a big chip in the paint and it's right before the edge. It's hard to imagine doing that unless there was something embedded in the pad. Sorry it happen Kelso. At least it was already messed up.

 

[Kelso]

yea it caught on one of the deeper scratches and im guessing just ripped the paint right off... i made some stupid mistakes, i was on speed 6 and not moving very quickly... ill definatley wax it for him or something, just glad i dont have to pay for a respray!

its an 05 mazdaspeed mx-5. great car, i drove it through some twisties by my house a few weeks ago and scared him half to death, he doesnt push the car as much as it can go, so i showed him how to drive it like it was built to be driven!

 

[abrcrombe]

So was the scratch sticking out like... was their metal or paint shards that weren't flush with the panel? That is the only way I am thinking it could have ripped it up. Maybe it got caught on the gap somehow... sucks either way.

 

[Kelso]

well the scratch wasnt a wide one but it went past the paint and i didnt notice that at first....im guessing it caught the edge, or it may have been a small chip, i remember 2 or 3 chips in the general area...

 

[ltoman]

I am so sorry!! Thanks for sharing with the rest of us.
May I ask - you must toss this pad now, right?
Where are you going from here?

Good luck.
Sincerely,
Lauren

 

[Kelso]

oh i have edge pads but when i got them i had some barely used LC pads that were still good so i used my lc pad , basically just wanting to use it up so i can toss it. once this happened i decided to do just that, so back to edge!

 

[Whitethunder46]

Sorry to hear that happened. Good thing he didn't mind too much. You should probably offer to wash/wax his car or something just to make up for it. BTW, what is that car?

If he would let him. No offense to Kelso, but if anyone did that to my car I wouldn't go back to the same person/company. I know it was entirely not Kelso's fault and just a mechanical error by the machine and pad, but it would be offly hard to have that customer let him do it again.

 

[Kelso]

none taken and had it been an actual customer i would have offered to repaint it, but he didnt mind because he understood the bumper was damaged to begin with

if it happened to my car id be pissed, but if the company takes care of the situation, i would definately go back.

 

[Nica]

Sorry to hear about the little accident Kelso. My Volvo that I've been working on has some bad rock chips too and that is exactly what I've been worried about. I thought I was going to loose one of my pads but I've been trying to be as careful as I possibly can and so far so good.

At least your buddy was okay with it....shake it off man, it's all in the learning. Remember what doesn’t kill you only makes you stronger.

 

[Kelso]

what doesn’t kill you only makes you stronger.

very true here, i learn from my mistakes usually. i just think most people are overly secure about the PC but it can still cause damage when handled improperly so be careful and learn from my mistake, but dont be afraid to use the PC because hey its only paint, it can be redone.pc accidents are pretty rare i think but it happens. just glad i didnt try the rotary on that spot!

 

[wytstang]

Well that sucks

 

[R1DC2]

Dang!

 

[PhaRO]

I'm just guessing here but since the scratch was from hitting a trashcan possibly the paint was weakened (minor cracks) around the scratch.

 

[Kelso]

i wouldnt disagree with you on that, its quite likely.