Detail for Charity... well, kinda. Trashed Toyota Avalon - Corrected and Coated.

[Paul Mitchell]

Great job! You brought that car back from the dead. I had a jet black 2007 Toyota Avalon and it had the softest paint I've ever seen on a car so I know what you went through cleaning up this mess. You could touch your finger to that paint and it would mar the finish. Worst paint I've ever seen. They should immediately trade it in as it will no doubt look like that again if they're the average car owner. The jet black Avalon is a car that needs a wrap.

 

[Calendyr]

Wow, you really made that car looks brand new. I bet the owner was estatic when he saw the results!

 

[zmcgovern45]

Great job! You really brought that car back to life.

PC

Thanks!

Another great job and for a good cause too :dblthumb2:

:dblthumb2:

Great stuff.

What do you apply your gel with? A bar-like tire applicator?

Yup - just a basic foam tire applicator from carrand.

Zach, Beautiful work as always. That paint was hammered to death. You brought the gloss back to life. Excellent turnaround. Looks like a black swimming pool. Great job again.

Thanks Chris!

Looks amazing! Excellent work!

Thank you!

Great work again! Thanks for the write up. What did the owners say when they came to pick it up?

Thanks for looking! The owners were happy - they said it looked nice. They weren't as excited as I would have hoped, but oh well, what can you do. I make it a point to spend some time going over some of these before/after photos with the owner at the time of pickup so they can see the true transformation, but these people didn't show too much emotion when I showed them the dramatic differences.

Yea I was curious about that as well. What did the owner ended up saying? I wonder what the wife said too...lol

^See above

Nice work as always Zach. As is common with photos of your work, the gloss on the car suggest that you've done some heavy modifications in photoshop, but the foreground and background would say otherwise (this is meant to be a compliment).

What kind of engineer are you?

^The photos are never enhanced to provide an appearance other than what was truly seen. The photos may be adjusted for better exposure, white balance, and contrast, but if I showed you the RAW photo straight out of the camera - the differences are usually minimal (unless I really screw up the exposure and have to save it)... If you ever want to see any RAW files let me know, I think most people would be surprised. The best way to show off the true beauty of the car is to find the best lighting and properly expose for the details you are trying to show off. thanks for the compliment! I am a mechanical engineer.

Incredible work as always!

Thank you

Amazing work! Hopefully this time they will take better care of it, however judging from the looks when you got it it is highly unlikely.

Thanks... and unfortunately I have a feeling you are right

Great job mate , such a turnaround !

:dblthumb2:

I can't believe how terrible the paint was on that car; looked like they never washed it...like ever.

You did an amazing job man!

^It was definitely neglected... thanks for looking!

Impressive....and thanks for supporting a great charity too!

^Thanks!

Very well done

great turn around! I always enjoy seeing hammered cars being brought back to life.

^As do I... but I'm glad this one is finished.

Way to rock the Missouri S&T(or for us old timers, UMR) shirt@ Couldn't tell on the right side of the hood, but once you switched over, it was clearly evident! Nice work, as always. How do you find Honda paint? I've looked at the chart, but I've not done this before, so I wanted your opinion if you didn't mind.

^It was still UMR when I started, but changed to Missouri S&T by the time I graduated... my diploma still shows UMR though

Assuming you mean Toyota Paint? This jet black paint was ridiculously soft and finicky... a real pain to work with, but my metallic grey (smokey granite mica) Lexus is not nearly as finicky.

Great job Zach,

That black always looks great cleaned up!

Thanks!

Thats awesome man, it looks she is receiving a brand new car out of that deal!

^Well it's surely not perfect, but a heck of a lot better!

Great job! You brought that car back from the dead. I had a jet black 2007 Toyota Avalon and it had the softest paint I've ever seen on a car so I know what you went through cleaning up this mess. You could touch your finger to that paint and it would mar the finish. Worst paint I've ever seen. They should immediately trade it in as it will no doubt look like that again if they're the average car owner. The jet black Avalon is a car that needs a wrap.

^Yup, when I washed the car after polishing, I left some light marring so I had to touch up a few areas... gotta love jet black Hopefully the coating will help provide some resistance to such easy marring or else I have a feeling this car will be in bad shape in a matter of months.

Wow, you really made that car looks brand new. I bet the owner was estatic when he saw the results!

^Thanks! They said it looked good, but didn't seem overly excited about it unfortunately.

 

[Dr_Pain]

They said it looked good, but didn't seem overly excited about it unfortunately.

What a flipping shame!!!!!!! :nomore:

Sorry to hear, brother! I take pride in my work and do get a little offended when customers don't seem as excited as I am. Getting paid is nice but a little show of excitement is much nicer! (that is why I try to comment, show gratefulness and/or show excitement for even the simplest thing (like my waitress coming to refill my water)

Great work, awesome photography.... as usual!

 

[Calendyr]

I guess they don't really care, otherwise they would have kept the car in better condition in the first place. But that's still sad to hear for me, it's like that lady got a brand new car after you were done.

Sigh...

 

[Sydtoosic]

Nice work Z...:buffing:

 

[zmcgovern45]

What a flipping shame!!!!!!! :nomore:

Sorry to hear, brother! I take pride in my work and do get a little offended when customers don't seem as excited as I am. Getting paid is nice but a little show of excitement is much nicer! (that is why I try to comment, show gratefulness and/or show excitement for even the simplest thing (like my waitress coming to refill my water)

Great work, awesome photography.... as usual!

^Thanks... and yeah, it is a bit of a let down when they don't start jumping for joy, but when they don't know it is in terrible shape to begin with - you can't expect them to appreciate the dramatic difference.

I guess they don't really care, otherwise they would have kept the car in better condition in the first place. But that's still sad to hear for me, it's like that lady got a brand new car after you were done.

Sigh...

^I wouldn't say they "don't care", rather they just don't know any better. To a lot of people, simply taking your car through a car wash once a week (or month) is 'proper maintenance' because that is what someone taught them to do and it is easy. The thought of taking an hour or two every week and hand washing your vehicle seems ridiculous to the majority of the world lol People are busy enough as it is, and many of them just refuse to find the time to learn proper maintenance of their paint because it is A LOT of work and takes time.

Nice work Z...:buffing:

^Thank you sir :dblthumb2:

 

[DaVinciAutoSpa]

Great job! Wow, that was impressive.

And you're being too modest when you say it's not perfect. How much time did you spend on it? (Sorry if you already stated that).

 

[zmcgovern45]

Great job! Wow, that was impressive.

And you're being too modest when you say it's not perfect. How much time did you spend on it? (Sorry if you already stated that).

Total Time: 15 Hours

^From original post

Thanks for the compliments, but I promise - it was no where near perfect.

Obviously there was some clear coat failure as I had shown in some of the photos, and the rear of the vehicle (which I did not picture) was very poorly repainted and needed to be sanded down and/or resprayed. It didn't look too great if you caught it at the right angle.

All in all - I was very happy with the results though!

-Zach

 

[ntwillie1]

Very nice turn around.

 

[HateSwirls]

You did an amazing job dude on this one.
The front bumper looked liked it was was with a scotch-brite pad but you fix all that.
So much work went into this car, I know I've been there
Thanks for posting the pictures and of course the write up

 

[charleyh2]

A very nice turn around. Sorry about the less than excited response from the owner - sadly, I've gotten that same response from some when returning a car after fixing neglect. I always take away that I did my best and know that somewhere in there the car is jumping up for joy...can't hear it, but I imagine it is there. It just pains me to see how some care for one of the biggest investment one makes.

Thanks for sharing and for the photo tips, I'll be putting these to use in the future.

 

[zmcgovern45]

Very nice turn around.

:dblthumb2:

You did an amazing job dude on this one.
The front bumper looked liked it was was with a scotch-brite pad but you fix all that.
So much work went into this car, I know I've been there
Thanks for posting the pictures and of course the write up

Thanks for looking! It was a challenge, but the results always make it worth it... regardless of how excited the owners are or aren't. rops:

A very nice turn around. Sorry about the less than excited response from the owner - sadly, I've gotten that same response from some when returning a car after fixing neglect. I always take away that I did my best and know that somewhere in there the car is jumping up for joy...can't hear it, but I imagine it is there. It just pains me to see how some care for one of the biggest investment one makes.

Thanks for sharing and for the photo tips, I'll be putting these to use in the future.

^ It doesn't bother me at all... I did my job, and got paid well for it. If they don't appreciate their car enough to notice the dramatic difference, or accept that they were the cause of its initial condition, then that is not at all my problem. I informed them of how they need to maintain it, and that if they do not, then it will look like that again in no time. The rest is up to them Glad you picked up on the quick photo tip I threw in there :xyxthumbs:

 

[detailer25]

Wow! What a transformation! Black is hard to work on, yet you made it look easy.

 

[zmcgovern45]

Thanks! Just takes time, experience, and the right products

 

[pointillistic_practitioner]

Awesome job! I purchased a used '98 bmw 323is in bmw "schwarz" black recently. It was covered in dirt, contaminants etc. After a wash and clay, the paint was TRASHED...and I mean worse than this... looks like someone took a tree branch or brillo pad to some spots...especially on the sunroof (which is metal on the top) and trunk lid. Used poorboys ssr3 on my GG DA with a yellow pad and the scratches are still there (no they're not new scratches from that aggressive combo, they're the same ones). In any case after wash I noticed similar spots to the ones on your door from bird dropping... one big one on front hood, several smaller ones on car. It pisses me off b/c if not for the scratches and etching, the rest of the finish looks good now (notwithstanding more minor swirls I need to polish out b/c I didnt have time to do 2 step or more correction). Anyway, that's my long story, but thanks for posting this, I think you have helped me diagnose my issue...not ready to do a repaint....will have to find time to correct paint fully and maybe opticoat it to protect what remaining clear is left on the etched spots....Unfortunately I don't have the funds to buy a paint thickness guage right now.

 

[SON1C]

Zach you perform some of the best work I have ever seen.

 

[zmcgovern45]

Awesome job! I purchased a used '98 bmw 323is in bmw "schwarz" black recently. It was covered in dirt, contaminants etc. After a wash and clay, the paint was TRASHED...and I mean worse than this... looks like someone took a tree branch or brillo pad to some spots...especially on the sunroof (which is metal on the top) and trunk lid. Used poorboys ssr3 on my GG DA with a yellow pad and the scratches are still there (no they're not new scratches from that aggressive combo, they're the same ones). In any case after wash I noticed similar spots to the ones on your door from bird dropping... one big one on front hood, several smaller ones on car. It pisses me off b/c if not for the scratches and etching, the rest of the finish looks good now (notwithstanding more minor swirls I need to polish out b/c I didnt have time to do 2 step or more correction). Anyway, that's my long story, but thanks for posting this, I think you have helped me diagnose my issue...not ready to do a repaint....will have to find time to correct paint fully and maybe opticoat it to protect what remaining clear is left on the etched spots....Unfortunately I don't have the funds to buy a paint thickness guage right now.

^I would recommend a more aggressive compound and pad, like M105 and Meguiar's Microfiber cutting pads to help remove some of the remaining RIDS if you feel like chasing them down. You WILL need to follow up this process with a polishing pad and finishing polish if you want to see the best results... no question about it. Sounds like you're on the right path, but with a car that old, it may be too far gone to bring back but you can definitely improve it.

Zach you perform some of the best work I have ever seen.

Wow, Thanks Drew! That means a lot!

 

[oldmodman]

You should tell them that their car was stolen while it was sitting in your driveway and you replaced it with a brand new one.

It certainly looks like it!

How bad was the interior? I hope it wasn't like the outside finish.

 

[zmcgovern45]

You should tell them that their car was stolen while it was sitting in your driveway and you replaced it with a brand new one.

It certainly looks like it!

How bad was the interior? I hope it wasn't like the outside finish.

Ha! Thanks.

The interior was fantastic! Just needed a light vacuum and to be wiped down with some conditioner and protectant. They clearly cared for their interior, but were not as concerned with OR they were simply unaware of how to properly care for the exterior.