Detailing a car with clearcoat failure

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ThirdgenTa

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Does anyone have any tips? I have never done one and don't want to make it worse or ruin any of my supplies.
I normally do a wash, clay and wax for the exterior.
Will my clay get gummed up?
How about my towels, applicators and pads?
What should I use on the wheels? All the clearcoat is coming off them too. I normally use Brown Royal or Megs APC 4:1, but that's probably too harsh because it's "Clearcoat safe".
Any tips you can give me would be appreciated. I am doing this car tomorrow morning.
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Nothing you can do other then wash the exterior at this point
 
I've always thought it would be pretty cool to sand all the rest of the clear off and go with a mattee look

Throw some chrome wheels on it, and you got urself a HotRod :dblthumb2:
 
I usually pass on these cars and let the customer know detailing this is not worth the time because only a paint job will fix this. Also for insurance purposes not worth the risk but I usually offer the customer an interior detail and a thorough wash but if they insist just polish and wax the parts that dont have clear coat failure... Just my opinion and let them know in a nice way without offending them in their investment! Funny because if they would do the details before it gets like this instead of being cheap lol and hoping you do miracles for a few bucks then embarrasment should'nt be an issue... Never wax this is the result jejejeje
 
Well they bought the car a few years ago and got a great deal on it because of the bad paint. The car only has 40,000 miles on it and runs like new. They know they need a repaint and were asking me if I knew anyone who paints cars. I only charge $75 for what I do, but don't know if I should take anymore off the price if I can clay and seal for the time being. Is there any negative consiquences to claying and waxing?
 
Never done one but I have always wondered.

1. Could you hit it with your 105 on a aggressive pad to just get off the loose/white crap then hit it with a good AIO like 360, just to make it look better?

2. Wetsand and then treat it like a bad single stage and at least make it better looking?

Who has actually done one that can give us a run down. I don't think the owner expects a miracle but would like an improvement.

Like that sig line I see, the customer is not looking for a swirl free car just clean swirls.
 
As stated, that paint is past the point of return, wash it, clean the wheels and interior and call it good.
 
Jons6.7 said:
Never done one but I have always wondered.

1. Could you hit it with your 105 on a aggressive pad to just get off the loose/white crap then hit it with a good AIO like 360, just to make it look better?

2. Wetsand and then treat it like a bad single stage and at least make it better looking?

Who has actually done one that can give us a run down. I don't think the owner expects a miracle but would like an improvement.

Like that sig line I see, the customer is not looking for a swirl free car just clean swirls.
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I have seen this done before. There was a dark metallic blue Toyota Celica that had bad clearcoat failure that had shown a small spot of bare color coat. A rotary was used with a wool pad to level the paint which camouflaged the area and made it look a whole lot better, but alas, it was just about as bad again in two months, but it wasn't waxed, either. The guy buffing it was a friend of the owner doing it as a small favor, as he was already there to buff the wet sanded lacquer on another car.
As long as he had the buffer in his hand, he thought he would try. When he was done, there was a ghost line where the bare color met the clear, and there was a color difference between the clear and the bare color. It was all glossy, except the bare was much less glossy and darker.

This isn't a service that I would offer a customer, though.
 
Ya she's not expecting a miracle or anything. I already told her ther is nothing I can do about the clearcoat and that it needs a repaint. I just did her Minivan today and she was extremely impressed. She's referred me to 6 other customers before so whatever I can do. I just don't know if I should wax the front of it and the sides where there is no clearcoat failure, yet. It's mainly on the roof and the trunk lid.
 
ThirdgenTa said:
Ya she's not expecting a miracle or anything. I already told her ther is nothing I can do about the clearcoat and that it needs a repaint. I just did her Minivan today and she was extremely impressed. She's referred me to 6 other customers before so whatever I can do. I just don't know if I should wax the front of it and the sides where there is no clearcoat failure, yet. It's mainly on the roof and the trunk lid.
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I don't see a reason to not wax what can be waxed. If it is part of what she is paying for it isn't going to hurt anything. :xyxthumbs:
 
Blackthorn One said:
..... there was a ghost line where the bare color met the clear, and there was a color difference between the clear and the bare color. It was all glossy, except the bare was much less glossy and darker.

This isn't a service that I would offer a customer, though.
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This is a good description of what you can expect as witnessed by my work on my own cc failing vehicle.

My advice is: for the time and effort it would take to remove that clear and then coat the paint with Opticoat you might as well re paint it.

If you want to remove the loose edges the Master Blaster will do that.... Im the MAN. But be warned....:nomore:

You could make it look a lot better if you can accept the risk but it will not be worth the time required unless she wants to pay a lot of $ when she could just get it repainted.

I have a car coming in with cc failure on just the rear lid and rear view mirror. I explained to the gentlemen there was nothing I could do for that.

However being hard headed as I am I am giving second thought to wet sanding them both, polishing the small lid and coating it with OC and painting the rear view mirror.

Gotta think on it a little more and place this in my estimate. The only reason I gave it a second thought is the panels are so small and every other part of the car doesn't have failure... Plenty o swirls but no cc failure.
 
I did a 1995 BMW last week that was very similar to this. The guy knew we couldn't do anything for the clear coat failure. So we went with Klasse AIO, it really helped the areas without clear coat failure because it has a chemical cleaner not abrasive. It removed oxidation and sealed. For the condition of the car, I don't think it could have turned out any better without a repaint.
 
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