Quickest method of paint correction for production work.

That could work but that's not going to happen in 1.5 hours I don't think for a full car.
 
If you only have 90 minutes

Use your FLEX

Focus your correction efforts on the hood and trunk lid
M205 on a White Polishing Pad

Everything gets a quick pass with D151


Just do the best you can with the time allotted
 
I just did a quick correction (about 4 hours) on a patrol vehicle with 142,000 miles on the odometer. I did wash and clay (real clay) and the clay was black and brown with surface contaminants like I have never seen before. I tried to make the paint look presentable with the flex DA and was wasting a lot of time. I ended up going over the paint with Meg 105 and a yellow smart pad on a flex rotary followed with meg#9 and an orange pad with the rotary. I was not looking for perfection but meg 151 didn't show the results I was looking for. I'm pretty sure this is the first time since 2009 that the paint appeared smooth and shiny without a million swirls. It was also a black and tan color so the black would show mistakes. I think it would be difficult to do any type of correction in 90 minutes but an experienced detailer could definitely make the paint look better in that time. A rotary can get you in trouble very quickly but will get the job done way faster especially if removing noticeable scratches. A few quick passes and they vanish!

Mark
 
Axrow, IMHO, the quickest way would be to get a rotory and a flex. Hit the car with the rotory at bad spots, then finish with the flex 3401. "If you put in hollgrams at the bad spots, take them out with the flex. So basically, learn the rotory in bits and peices untill you no longer leave halos/hollograms. And, WLAH! That is your training my kind sire.
 
If you're blowing over the car in a hour and a half, then more material is being removed then necessary...I see this ALL the time. Clients bring me their Mercedes' that they had detailed a few weeks earlier because the swirls have come back or are worse then before they took the car. I check each client's car prior to touching it, you would be SHOCKED by the amount of clear left after these "detailers" buffed the car. I would NEVER do production work, and try to sell it as high-end paint correction. I do every car like it's my car, would I blast over my car with a rotary in a hour, NO WAY!
 
markm said:
I just did a quick correction (about 4 hours) on a patrol vehicle with 142,000 miles on the odometer. I did wash and clay (real clay) and the clay was black and brown with surface contaminants like I have never seen before. I tried to make the paint look presentable with the flex DA and was wasting a lot of time. I ended up going over the paint with Meg 105 and a yellow smart pad on a flex rotary followed with meg#9 and an orange pad with the rotary. I was not looking for perfection but meg 151 didn't show the results I was looking for. I'm pretty sure this is the first time since 2009 that the paint appeared smooth and shiny without a million swirls. It was also a black and tan color so the black would show mistakes. I think it would be difficult to do any type of correction in 90 minutes but an experienced detailer could definitely make the paint look better in that time. A rotary can get you in trouble very quickly but will get the job done way faster especially if removing noticeable scratches. A few quick passes and they vanish!

Mark
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They vanish alright, along with your clear-coat
 
Axrow said:
Most of these cars aren't that bad off, at all. Usually less than 30k miles. Maybe that's why he's able to get it done so fast? Not trying to insult anyone on here or what you do, I know you guys are used to taking this to another level.
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Ditto on miles have nothing to do with it. This is a brand new Lexus F Sport IS 350 that I saw at the grocery store last week. It's been hacked up by some buff n shine with a rotarty who had no idea what he was doing. And trust me, these pictures don't begin to capture how bad this car really was.

It'll take a true professional paint correction and many hours of labor to fix this mess. I'd bet this was done at the dealership or the local car wash by me that has a detailing bay. Compare that to my properly polished and protected GC.

As for WG Uber, you can smear it all over the car but if you don't move slowly and give the polish time to do it's just it's a waste of product and time. The same pretty much goes with any polish as far as I'm concerned.

And I'm with Pure and HD, there is no such thing as quick paint correction, there is such a thing as vehicle pre sale prep and that's basically what your doing. And if your making 2 grand a week doing it, $100,000 a year you keep on doing what your doing all the way to the bank :dblthumb2:





 
The sad part is that within a short time the new owners will likely have them on their way back to the original condition.
 
Pureshine said:
This kind of work is called Buff and shine. It does piss me off when people call this kind of work paint correction. True paint correction takes hours and lots of training. Don't mean to be an ass but There is no way to any kind of true paint correction 1-3hrs ever.
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what do you consider training ? Could self teaching on the internet be considered that ?

Because I know there are many people on this forum without an ounce of traditional training that have worked on maybe 10 - 15 (possibly numerous times) cars max that can do excellent paint correction and produce a results very similar to a professional if enough time us allowed.

DA machine and pad technology has been the tool thats allowed this in the past maybe 6 - 8 years or so, along with the internet (Megs online and Mike Phillips on AGO setting a loose standard). Before that time with the limited amount of tools and flow of quality information available I would agree with you. While I personally would always agree that traditional hands on training is a good thing. I think the only thing it really offers (if not using a rotary) is the techniques and proper sequence of using those techniques to become more efficient and less redundant in your work.

But thats just my opinion. I believe its why detailaing has become so popular to the car owner and enthusiast these days. In the past the only thing a car owner knew was to wash their car every once in a while and wax it with a product bought at the local store.
 
99monguse said:
If you're blowing over the car in a hour and a half, then more material is being removed then necessary...I see this ALL the time. Clients bring me their Mercedes' that they had detailed a few weeks earlier because the swirls have come back or are worse then before they took the car. I check each client's car prior to touching it, you would be SHOCKED by the amount of clear left after these "detailers" buffed the car. I would NEVER do production work, and try to sell it as high-end paint correction. I do every car like it's my car, would I blast over my car with a rotary in a hour, NO WAY!
Click to expand...

Its also pretty much a sure bet that there are going to be a LOT of burned edges on the paint and especially on trim pieces. Guaranteed.

Axrow, does your shop use masking tape ? I just cant see how 1.5 hours will allot enough time to be careful enough to avoid these types of mistakes. I know this is kind of jumping off topic though. But it just makes me cringe when I think of all the byproducts of production type detailing with a rotary polisher. I think a lot of mistakes can be avoided by using a FLEX DA, but like most have already stated I dont think its possible to keep up with the workrate with that type of machine. It doesnt correct fast enough, ime. The Flex is way more powerful than a regular DA , but its not that much faster in the end. just more effective.
 
Ok some of you guys were right. This guy is the worst detailer I've ever seen in my life. He started out actually doing a decent job, trying to show off. Now he's just awful. Puts on spray wax as he clays new cars, then uses the spray wax again, then puts on wax over that? But when he waxes a car he touches just a few areas with the wax on a DA, doesn't wait for it to dry and wipes it off. Its not a wipe on wipe off wax. Then with the used cars anymore he uses a glaze with a ton of fillers. Wipes it on by hand, just in a few areas, then it drys before he gets to it, then hell go over it with his 10 year old buffer pad to remove it, and calls that buffing? Then at the end hell take dirty old towels and wipe over the car for 20 minutes, putting scratches in the paint. I already told my boss I'm either not working with him anymore or finding another job. He has burnt the paint completely off the edges of a few cars. Doesn't tape anything off. And he uses our wash mitt on wheels. Its a struggle every day to not punch him.

On the other hand... I got a flex 3401 and love it. I think the menzerna fg400 finishes out well enough for our used cars. On customer pay I do 2500 and 4500 after. But I love the Flex. I dont always do small areas with 8 passes. I've been doing larger areas with 4-5 passes and its good enough for our used cars. Doesn't take long at all to do an entire car that way.
 
Axrow said:
Ok some of you guys were right. This guy is the worst detailer I've ever seen in my life. He started out actually doing a decent job, trying to show off. Now he's just awful. Puts on spray wax as he clays new cars, then uses the spray wax again, then puts on wax over that? But when he waxes a car he touches just a few areas with the wax on a DA, doesn't wait for it to dry and wipes it off. Its not a wipe on wipe off wax. Then with the used cars anymore he uses a glaze with a ton of fillers. Wipes it on by hand, just in a few areas, then it drys before he gets to it, then hell go over it with his 10 year old buffer pad to remove it, and calls that buffing? Then at the end hell take dirty old towels and wipe over the car for 20 minutes, putting scratches in the paint. I already told my boss I'm either not working with him anymore or finding another job. He has burnt the paint completely off the edges of a few cars. Doesn't tape anything off. And he uses our wash mitt on wheels. Its a struggle every day to not punch him.

On the other hand... I got a flex 3401 and love it. I think the menzerna fg400 finishes out well enough for our used cars. On customer pay I do 2500 and 4500 after. But I love the Flex. I dont always do small areas with 8 passes. I've been doing larger areas with 4-5 passes and its good enough for our used cars. Doesn't take long at all to do an entire car that way.
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sadly, this is more common than one would like to imagine.

I do some work for a company that works directly through a high volume new/used dealership and despite being asked to do quite a bit of business, the cars are trashed either from washing with brushes and water in a 55 gallon trash can or from some guy using a rotary and old pads. I'm constantly fixing scratches that neither the salespeople or the company employees have "no clue" how they got there.

Education is key in this industry and if someone comes along saying they can "correct" or "buff" a car in an hour and a half, they're very uneducated.

I just do my work and do the best job I can do. I just don't listen to anybody else because when it comes to "detailing, apparently anybody and everybody knows everything, especially in the dealerships' world.

Enjoy the Flex and since you have a guy doing crap work right along side you, you'll be noticed sooner or later for doing a superior job.
 
Axrow said:
On the other hand... I got a flex 3401 and love it. I think the menzerna fg400 finishes out well enough for our used cars. On customer pay I do 2500 and 4500 after. But I love the Flex. I dont always do small areas with 8 passes. I've been doing larger areas with 4-5 passes and its good enough for our used cars. Doesn't take long at all to do an entire car that way.
Click to expand...

FG400 with a flex 3401 and clean pads will produce near lsp ready results 80% of the time (might not be perfect but most car buyers would not notice) but then you get a car with soft clear coat and the FG400 will leave some serious micro scratches or hazing, for those cars you should get something like ff3000 or PF2500, that way you won't change one kind of defect for another one.

and when in a hurry, the last thing you want is to neglect using clean pads!
 
I watched a Mike Phillips video this weekend, where he mentions on a one-step that often the best results will be with a Cleaner Wax and the softest pad you can get away with

I could see doing this in an hour and a half

I am a bit confused though, because I thought you would want to use the firmest pad you could get away with

I understand the objective is to not leave marring that would require an additional step, but iI wonder why you wouldn't go as firm as possible to remove the most defects possible, while still not leaving marring?

Hopefully MP will chime in
 
allenk4 said:
I watched a Mike Phillips video this weekend, where he mentions on a one-step that often the best results will be with a Cleaner Wax and the softest pad you can get away with

I could see doing this in an hour and a half

I am a bit confused though, because I thought you would want to use the firmest pad you could get away with

I understand the objective is to not leave marring that would require an additional step, but iI wonder why you wouldn't go as firm as possible to remove the most defects possible, while still not leaving marring?

Hopefully MP will chime in
Click to expand...



Perhaps a firmer pad would cause micro marring that the pad/cleaner wax combo can't deal with.
 
Don M said:
Perhaps a firmer pad would cause micro marring that the pad/cleaner wax combo can't deal with.
Click to expand...

I agree that a firmer pad is more like to cause marring

A firmer pad also tends to remove more defects

My thought was that you want to remove as many defects as possible, while avoiding a 2nd polishing step and there fore you would use the firmest possible pad that does not produce marring

For example...do your test spot with your chosen AIO on an Orange CCS, if you have marring....go down to a White CCS....still marring go down to Grey CCS

Each step down will likely remove fewer defects

I guess if you agreed with the Customer that the package they had chosen would remove 75% of the defects...you could start with the grey pad and if it didn't get out 75%, step up to a firmer white pad
 
This might be a dumb question, but is it bad to work a larger area such as an entire door or half a hood instead of sticking to a smaller area at a time?
 
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