VW Passat, Porsche Cayenne Turbo

Scottwax · 12-31-07, 10:45

2003 Volkswagen Passet. Trying to detail this one for quite some time, but between my car accident, rainy weekends, the owner's work schedule, etc, it took about 2 months to finally get to this car. Really ugly day when I got there. The supposedly sunny, low 50s day ended up being cloudy and in the low to mid 40s. If I had know the sun was never going to come out, I would have brought my halogens. Anyway, using my LED flashlight, I could see the car was significantly spider swirled and the left front fender had some holograms from the body shop. Knowing VW clear is pretty hard, I started off with an orange Soft Edge one step pad (seems typical orange pad cut) using Optimum Compound and 1400-1800 rpm. Not much progress. I then went to Optimum Hyper Compound and a burgandy Meguiars pad, again at 1400-1800 rpm. Still didn't seem to be doing much.

I then decided to try more speed, so I went with Optimum Compound, a yellow Meguiars polishing pad and kicked the rotary up to 2200-2400 rpm and several slow passes and then finished out with a few passes on 1200-1400 rpm. Bingo! I followed with Optimum Poli-Seal and a blue Soft Edge polishing pad at 1400 rpm dropping to 1000 rpm to finish out and then sealed the car with Clearkote's Carnauba Moose. A couple areas I couldn't seem to get full correction on, mostly around the repainted fender.

My customer was kind enough to send me a nice e-mail letting me know the car ended up 90-95% swirl free (buffing without good lighting makes it tough to get 100%) and even though it rained on his car that night, he took some pics for me. Apparently he didn't wash the car, so the horizontal surfaces aren't 100% clean.

Couldn't remove that one scratch, but I could tell, even on a cloudy day.

Scottwax · 12-31-07, 10:56

2004 Porsche Cayenne Turbo. Regular customer, I wash it nearly every week, usually a light polish and wax 5 times a year. This time we decided to do a full correction on it. Honestly, considering it had been a good 18 months or so since I did any deep polishing, it wasn't too horrible. It did have some water spots though and he had no idea where he got 'em.

Took higher rpms and a softer pad on this one too. Pretty bad hazing and hologramming with the orange Soft Edge pad, so like the VW, Optimum Compound and a yellow Meguiars polishing pad at 2200 rpm, finished at 1400 rpm. Optimum Polish, again with a yellow Meguiars pad at 1400-1800 rpm, finishing at 1200 rpm which removed all light holograms from the OC/yellow combo. I followed with Optimum Poli-Seal and a blue Soft Edge polishing pad at 1000-1200 rpm.

Before:

After:

Side by side:

I finished the car off with Clearkote's Carnauba Moose.

No real sun other than the middle of the street by the time I finished (start time 10 AM, finished at 4:45 PM), so I'll get some sun pics next time I wash it at his office.

BigAl3 · 01-01-08, 12:02

nice

gtpaul · 01-01-08, 12:59

Well done Scott.

fishbonezken · 01-01-08, 01:28

Hi Scott,
how long did the VW Passat took you? it looks great!

Stephenwz968 · 01-01-08, 04:56

Great job Scott, I know what a pain the VW paint is, and you really did a great job with it!

Steve

TH0001 · 01-01-08, 08:35

Cars look great Scott. Email me if you still have my adress, I would like to speak to you. Happy New Years...

zoomzoom mazda5 · 01-01-08, 04:23

Great work Scott, love the shine on the Porsche!

CBlakeNS · 01-01-08, 05:17

Very nice work!

JoshVette · 01-01-08, 09:22

Scott, great work on them all. I'm surprised that you had to crank up the rpm's that high for that Porsche with such light swirls? I know Porsche clear is typically pretty soft, you may see better result if you try working the polish in more thoroughly and not just hitting it with high rpms. (no offense, just constructive critizism) Glad to see you working a rotary, it'll make a world of difference and those "new" paint jobs are better paying.

Got_Leather · 01-01-08, 09:49

Awesome work man. Are you still using WilliamHBonney's rotary or did you go out and get one?

Scottwax · 01-01-08, 09:49

Josh-I tried a bit more pressure and slower passes and more rpms worked better. Maybe because it was in the 40s and 50s while I was working? The swirls were a bit worse than they appear too.