Hi everyone! I present to you, a 2008 Mitsubishi Eclipse. This particular detail was done back in September. I'm just catching up on some posting.
This client called me and expressed his concern with a brand new new car he had just purchased. The vehicle had received a 'perma-shine' treatment at the dealership, so I knew it was going to be bad...but not THAT bad. Boy was I wrong! 36 hours later, the car is back to beautiful.
I showed up in the morning of a day which was calling for rain. Skies were overcast as expected and remained that way for the majority of the day with a few peeps of rain here and there.
Keep in mind this car only had 300kms on it. It looked like it was at least 2 years old with the amount of deep swirling it had accumulated. Holograms, RIDs, deep scratches on the bumper, scuffs, and even rust on some of the components in the engine bay, and on the exhaust.
Walk-around of the Eclipse:
Rust on muffler:
Paint damage:
It was evident that paintwork was in dire need of help. On that note, I got started with a thorough wash.
- Pretreat with P21S Total Auto Wash on lower half of car
- Rinse
- CWG @ paint cleanser dilution via 2BM & Sheepskin wool mitts
- Dried with WWMFs
Washing with the heavy concentration of Citrus Wash & Gloss helped to strip the paint of anything that would interfere with the paint correction process. After washing the Eclipse, I inspected the paint for contamination. To be on the safe side, I clayed the entire car with Riccardo Yellow Clay & ONR Clay Lube. It was an extra 25 minutes well spent.
Paint Correction:
This paint was HAMMERED! For a car with only 300kms on the clock, it sure looked like it had seen a lot more than claimed. Given it was a new car, I knew there was lots of paint to play with, so I opted to remove as many paint defects as possible, while keeping in mind I had an ample amount of paint to work with. For the paint releveling stage, I chose to go with
M105 on 6" Sonus Yellow pads, and 6.5" Orange
LC pads on the rotary at 1800-2000rpm. This was my first time using
M105, and I found it to cut exceptionally well, and very quick! The abrasives cut nicely and finished down extremely well, even on this very soft paint.
The before and after pictures below are the result of
M105 on Yellow Sonus, and Orange
LC pads @ 1800-2000rpm. Approximately 3-4 compounding steps were needed, and took the rest of the day to complete.
Before
After
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After
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After
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After
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After
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After
After the compounding was done, I decided to pack it up for the night and head home to rest.
With all of the compounding out of the way, I decided to give the car a thorough wash before removing the compound marks and haze. Using a pH neutral wash the car was thoroughly cleaned and thus prepared for the next polishing step.
Make It Shine: 2008 Mitsubishi Eclipse (36 hours!)
Linear Mode
