lawrenceSA
New member
- Feb 7, 2012
- 1,713
- 0
When the customer arrived at my place on Friday evening we inspected the paintwork of his beloved Chico and discussed various options in terms of restoring his paintwork. What was immediately evident was that the paintwork was not in great shape 
- besides the 'usual' swirl marks and RIDS, there were many rust bubbles, etching marks, stains as well as patches where the early stages of clear coat failure were evident.
The vehicle spends its life outdoors and with no previous effective maintenance routine in place, the paintwork suffered accordingly - without a protective layer of wax nor frequent replenishment of polishing oils, the paint had not only become dry and brittle but had been exposed directly to the sun, speeding up the degradation of the clear coat as the UV protectants in the factory finish clear coat took a beating.
This compromised clear coat did not lend itself to any form of aggressive polishing and therefore we could not safely target absolute correction on this detail.
The objective then was to try and restore as much depth, gloss and clarity to the paint as possible by removing as little clear coat as possible (this should always be any detailer's main objective anyway) by focusing on removing as much of the bonded and embedded contaminants as possible, following this with a gentle polish and to then provide ample layers of protection to try and mitigate any further damage to the clear coat.
On Friday evening the interior was vacuumed, and all plastic panels and the dashboard were cleaned and treated.
Sat morning I got started at 06:00 with snapping a few before pics
The car
Actual damage to the paint (which only a re-spray would fix)
Surface dirt
Water spots
Stains and etching
Faded plastic trim
Early signs of clear coat failure
Rust bubbles (definitely an area to be avoided when polishing :fear: )
Looks like someone used rough green side of one of those kitchen sponges to clean up something here :bang:
Some more RIDS
So I then got cracking.....
The tires were then cleaned with Cyclo CM30 along with the rims using Turtle Wax Intensive wheel cleaner
I then attacked the door jambs, boot jamb, petrol cap area, around the door handles, mirrors, rubber seals etc with various brushes and Cyclo CM 30 to remove any built up dirt usually missed by the average car wash.
With all the really dirty stuff cleaned up it was time to start cleaning paint.... after a thorough rinsing the car was snow foamed with a mix of Maxi suds and Cyclo CM30 before being washed using the 2BM with Cyclo Polymer Hand wash and then rinsed and dried.
It was now time to start decontaminating the paint.
First I removed all the tar spots from the vehicle using AF ObliTARate - my preferred method is to spray the tar remover onto the vehicle 1 panel at a time in order to ensure even coverage - you will be surprised at how many spots of tar run (the product dissolved the tar) that you would never have seen with the naked eye - as opposed to 'dabbing' only where you 'see' tar. I also removed the tar first because particles of tar will generally be larger than a particle of iron (imagine how small the particles of hot brake dust are that sinter on your paint when expelled from a car in close proximity to yours)
- besides the 'usual' swirl marks and RIDS, there were many rust bubbles, etching marks, stains as well as patches where the early stages of clear coat failure were evident.The vehicle spends its life outdoors and with no previous effective maintenance routine in place, the paintwork suffered accordingly - without a protective layer of wax nor frequent replenishment of polishing oils, the paint had not only become dry and brittle but had been exposed directly to the sun, speeding up the degradation of the clear coat as the UV protectants in the factory finish clear coat took a beating.
This compromised clear coat did not lend itself to any form of aggressive polishing and therefore we could not safely target absolute correction on this detail.
The objective then was to try and restore as much depth, gloss and clarity to the paint as possible by removing as little clear coat as possible (this should always be any detailer's main objective anyway) by focusing on removing as much of the bonded and embedded contaminants as possible, following this with a gentle polish and to then provide ample layers of protection to try and mitigate any further damage to the clear coat.
On Friday evening the interior was vacuumed, and all plastic panels and the dashboard were cleaned and treated.
Sat morning I got started at 06:00 with snapping a few before pics
The car
Actual damage to the paint (which only a re-spray would fix)
Surface dirt
Water spots
Stains and etching
Faded plastic trim
Early signs of clear coat failure
Rust bubbles (definitely an area to be avoided when polishing :fear: )
Looks like someone used rough green side of one of those kitchen sponges to clean up something here :bang:
Some more RIDS
So I then got cracking.....
The tires were then cleaned with Cyclo CM30 along with the rims using Turtle Wax Intensive wheel cleaner
I then attacked the door jambs, boot jamb, petrol cap area, around the door handles, mirrors, rubber seals etc with various brushes and Cyclo CM 30 to remove any built up dirt usually missed by the average car wash.
With all the really dirty stuff cleaned up it was time to start cleaning paint.... after a thorough rinsing the car was snow foamed with a mix of Maxi suds and Cyclo CM30 before being washed using the 2BM with Cyclo Polymer Hand wash and then rinsed and dried.
It was now time to start decontaminating the paint.
First I removed all the tar spots from the vehicle using AF ObliTARate - my preferred method is to spray the tar remover onto the vehicle 1 panel at a time in order to ensure even coverage - you will be surprised at how many spots of tar run (the product dissolved the tar) that you would never have seen with the naked eye - as opposed to 'dabbing' only where you 'see' tar. I also removed the tar first because particles of tar will generally be larger than a particle of iron (imagine how small the particles of hot brake dust are that sinter on your paint when expelled from a car in close proximity to yours)
part - claying.... anyone who has sat claying a car for 3 or 4 hours knows how it feels :fear: :lol: and as said earlier, a lot of focus was to be given to restoring the depth, gloss and clarity (read shine) by removing stuff off the paint, as opposed to focusing on removing the paint. So with the tar and iron now gone, much of Saturday afternoon was spent listening to some tunes and claying the customer's car using Clay Magic Blue clay and ONR as lube
