Nissan 350Z (Black) Heavy Swirls & Scratches - Cannot remove all

[itay]

Hi,

As a weekend project I was working on a friends 350Z, This car's paint is rock hard!
I used:
Optimum hyper Compound & Polish
Meg's M86 (Solo)
Menzerna PO85RD 3.02 (Power finish)
(A little bit of M105)

Pads:
LC Orange
LC Gray (Finishing)
LC White
LC Foamed wool pad - Cutting with rotary

Polishers:
- DAS6 PRO (similar to Griots machine i think)
- Some rotary

The problem:
As you can see, big improvements but still no matter what, i couldn't get it 100% clear - Look at the picture of the hood of the car (After) you can still see some deep scratches that no metter what, they will not go. in the other pictures, there is big improvement, but not 100%

This car is 2005 model , NEVER BEEN DETAILED.

Any tips on how to totally remove these remaining deep scratches?

 

[opie_7afe]

judging from the before pictures they look to be some Random Isolated Deeper Scratches, some might be too deep to remove.i would do some more passes with m105 on orange or m105 on the foamed wool and make sure your running at 1200-1500rpm on the rotary and using 15lb/6.8kg of pressure(use bathroom scale with the polisher and a pad on it) if they are not coming out after some more passes on a test spot might just want to settle .....a good tip is do a test spot before doing whole car so you can figure out what you are going to use and make sure your method will work for the task at hand and you dont waste alot of hours and the paint not be to the level you want the paint to be at. good luck i never done a 350z so maybe some others can chime in.....

 

[itay]

All already tried and done. more passes, slower, smaller sections.
the whole car is has these deep scratches.
I tried every possible combination and basically, Hyper compound on a foamed wool pad on a rotary should have gotten rid of any defect.
I really think, as you said, that the whole car is filed with deep scratches , that on this specific hard coat are almost impossible to be removed.

The only thing left, maybe would be to Try Menzerna Compound?!

 

[Meticulous-Detail]

How about Megs DA MF 6inch pads with the D300 compound (if you have it) ?

I think you did a great job. Sometimes you just have to leave it at great; sometimes the pursuit of perfection may result in disappointment.

 

[itay]

thanks, my friend the car owner said the same thing.
But you know.. after successfully erasing many heavy swirls & scratches in other cars, I was hoping to get a better result.
Meg's MF.. not yet. i hope to get one soon.

 

[BobbyG]

Scratches that are through the clear coat unfortunately cannot be removed with compounds and polishes. These require mechanical repair by feathering with fine sandpaper and clear coating the entire panel.

Wet sanding the existing area with 2000 to 3000 grit paper is another way to mechanically blend these however caution must be exercised.

There is no guarantee that you can remove all the surface defects but what you might be able to do is make them less noticeable.

Scratches produce sharp features or edges. These grooves reflect light are are very viable to the eye. What you can do is compound the area smoothing out those sharp edges and changing how they reflect light which in turn makes them allot less noticeable.

Compounds such as Menzerna Power Gloss or Meguiar's M105 are more aggressive than your been using and might help some.

Something else to consider

Scratch Repair

Wet Sanding

 

[Meticulous-Detail]

thanks, my friend the car owner said the same thing.
But you know.. after successfully erasing many heavy swirls & scratches in other cars, I was hoping to get a better result.
Meg's MF.. not yet. i hope to get one soon.

I was amazed at the results I got with the Megs DA MF system. I was turned on to it by a professional detailer who rarely used Megs products, but now uses the Megs DA MF system all the time.

 

[itay]

Bobby, thanks for your comments!
when we worked on the car after the 3rd pass with a compound & foamed wool pad, i told my friend that I'm not gonna continue trying as it looked like exactly what you are saying - 350Z super hard clear coat, 6 years of "abuse" by careless washing and daily usage, just cannot be repaired to perfection by standard means.

I had to check, and get some more experienced feedback.

 

[LuxuryMobile]

Has the car been repainted?

Nissan paint and the paint on my 2003 350z was super soft.

It looks pretty good though, sometimes you should only take a daily driven car to a certain level. I can understand your frustration though.

 

[itay]

Never repainted...
Yeah, frustrated is the word.
As this is just a hobby, i didn't do a lot of cars, but the ones i did turned our amazing and all were simple daily driven cars.
As you can see in this pictures(i think this was my best project):

 

[TS656577]

Scratches that are through the clear coat unfortunately cannot be removed with compounds and polishes. These require mechanical repair by feathering with fine sandpaper and clear coating the entire panel.

Wet sanding the existing area with 2000 to 3000 grit paper is another way to mechanically blend these however caution must be exercised.

There is no guarantee that you can remove all the surface defects but what you might be able to do is make them less noticeable.

Compounds such as Menzerna Power Gloss or Meguiar's M105 are more aggressive than your been using and might help some.

http://www.autogeekonline.net/forum...ghly-specialized-technique-mike-phillips.html

Couldn't have said it much better. the after pictures look much better though.

 

[itay]

How about Megs DA MF 6inch pads with the D300 compound (if you have it) ?

I think you did a great job. Sometimes you just have to leave it at great; sometimes the pursuit of perfection may result in disappointment.

Finally got to try the DA MF with D300, they they better than perfect job! i was amazed how easy and quickly they did the job on the same car (just did a test section)

 

[Vellie]

Man your results are awesome. I would leave it at that as every pass you are diminishing the clearcoat and like they say those look like RIDS and I had them all over my escalade and trying to get them all will leave you in a world of trouble by stripping all the clear off. Unless he gets some clear sprayed on it to add to the thickness I would call it a day.

 

[itay]

Man your results are awesome. I would leave it at that as every pass you are diminishing the clearcoat and like they say those look like RIDS and I had them all over my escalade and trying to get them all will leave you in a world of trouble by stripping all the clear off. Unless he gets some clear sprayed on it to add to the thickness I would call it a day.

As i said... DA MF system is the best. so easy to use & delivers outstanding results.
That said, Cutting is great. in case of finishing, on VW gold it finished much better, on the Nissan i actually used Menzerna SF4000 which gave a much better finish.

 

[Meticulous-Detail]

Finally got to try the DA MF with D300, they they better than perfect job! i was amazed how easy and quickly they did the job on the same car (just did a test section)

Glad it worked out for you! I will never go back to foam for correction only for jeweling and LSP.

 

[TimmyG]

I've heard that paint on the 1st gen 350Z's is super soft and paint on the 2nd gen is just the opposite. Not sure if anyone else can verify that or not, but that's what I've been told.

 

[slickooz]

Finally got to try the DA MF with D300, they they better than perfect job! i was amazed how easy and quickly they did the job on the same car (just did a test section)

Great before and after! rops: Is that haze I'm seeing in the 3rd photo? Did it need to be polished after?

 

[TimmyG]

Can't wait to receive my 5" Megs MF cutting discs. Already have D300 - just waiting for the rest to arrive. Great results posted!

 

[itay]

Great before and after! rops: Is that haze I'm seeing in the 3rd photo? Did it need to be polished after?

Thanks!
yeah , haze.. the picture is before i used Menzerna Super finish -PO106FA with LC finishing pad.
the D301 & finishing pad didn't do the trick..

i wish i had the DA MF system the first time i did this car! i could have saved me a lot of time