Volvo 850 Turbo Paint correction

MuttGrunt · 05-20-09, 01:06

This 1995 Volvo 850 Turbo came to me from a local regional forum member (from xceedspeed.com , a Michigan-based car site). The owner is currently in college and wanted to clean up his vehicle, which was repainted last fall. He's a car-guy and the vehicle is in very good shape for its age. The vehicle has front air dam and rear spoiler off the 850R, and the front bumper painted. As he was to attend a major car meet in Pennsylvania, he hoped to remove some small defects from the paint and have it looking as good as possible for the time-target he wanted to spend on it. Because the vehicle wasn't an over-night job, I didn't take as many pic's as usual (but I'm sure you'll get the idea)

As a first for me, the owner gave me a hand where he could in order to spend less time detailing, and to learn some tips while we went in order to keep his vehicle looking as good as possible in the future. Even so, we ended up putting 7-8 hours of work in: all worth it when the vehicle was finished
As he stopped by just a week earlier to meet up to discuss what I might try to do to the vehicle, I already had a good idea of what I was in store for. Upon arrival:

just dusty and light water etching, light swirls, and few random isolated deep scratches.

Started with the wheels of course, and gave them a healthy spraying of P21S wheel cleaner gel before agitating. Of course with the owner taking care of these beauties (he tells me they are the Pegasus 18's that come stock on the v60R), there wasn't much to worry about.

before:

after (inside the wheels was the biggest difference)

The exhaust tip was cleaned with #0000 steel wool and P21S finish restorer

before:

after:

Next the vehicle was foamed with a dish soap / citrus degreaser / car wash soap mixed via the Gilmore, then washed. Following, the vehicle was clayed with Meg's aggressive clay and yielded light contamination, and showed me this aftermarket clear-coat was ultra soft. No problem: with the goal of a single-step correction, it made it that much easier.

pulled in after clay:

MuttGrunt · 05-20-09, 01:07

I ended up going Lake Country Black pad + Menzerna 106. This combo got rid of all the swirls while leaving few RIDS and finishing down perfectly for a single step correction.

it's a little tough to tell, but you can see there's more clarity on the bottom section's reflections. The metallic paint + orange peel in the base color takes a little away in reflections

these 50/50's came out much better:

even the taillights cleaned up nicely. I went over them with the same combo as the paint, and though I didn't think it turned out well at first, once I stepped back to see the other light, it was clear the side I did looked much better.

Tail's finished:

Once finished up, the Volvo received two coats of wolfgang paint sealant 3.0. A sealant would help bring the flake in the paint out, would give better durability, and allow two coats to be put on for more even coverage because of how quickly it cures vs a good carnauba (was going to use either Dodo Juice Blue Velvet or Dodo Juice Purple Haze if we went with a 'nuba). The windshield and front windows got treated with Aquapel, and tires got Meg's hot tire shine.

after one coat:

and all done: