Tough week-Mustang, Montero, Kia Spectra, Saturn, Santa Fe, Accord

Scottwax · 07-15-06, 12:57

I did 11 cars for a law firm in June, they contacted me and said they had 8 more for me to do. Got 7 of them done this week. 2 are posted in the thread with the Dinan M5, the rest here. I got off easy with the first 11 cars, these last ones haven't been as easy other than the '06 Maxima in the other thread. Either messed up paint or trashed interiors or both.

2000 Ford Mustang. Thinning clear coat on this one and the base coat was oxidizing under the clear. I am pretty sure the hood was repainted, positive about the rear bumper because they didn't mask off the holes in the bottom of it and painted the foam behind it blue. Anyway, the hood was a lost cause, but polishing did add some gloss. You can see in the pics it is faded. I used Optimum Polish and green 4" Propel pads with my Cyclo and EX w/carnauba.

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2000 Kia Specta, pretty much the crappiest car I have ever detailed. The interior was a horror show, deep, deep stains on all 4 seats, ground in grime in what passes for carpet in 2000 Kias (basically what other cars use in the trunk), the cup holder area was solid goo. You should have seen the look on my son's face when he opened the door to vacuum it. Anyway, I am doing all the cars at a set price each and informed them that either someone would have to pony up extra on this car or we'd just do what we could for the price. The company certainly wasn't paying for it and the owner said he'd be thrilled if we just washed it. My son gave the interior a good once over but the deeper stains barely budged. Didn't even bother with pics despite the improvement because quite frankly, it still didn't look that great. Even spending a lot of time probably wouldn't have helped because of the depth and age of the stains combined with cheap interior materials. At least the cup holder area was spotless and the door panels and mats turned out decent.

The paint was equally scary. Bird bomb etchings right through to the primer, bonded contaminents, swirls, scratches, obviously repainted panels repleat with sanding marks underneath, etc. I went ahead and clayed it and then used Optimum Polish and green 4" Propel pads with my Cyclo and EX w/carnauba.

As you can see, even after polishing, the bird bomb etchings and severe pitting in the hood made that area a lost cause.

Anyway, it cleaned up better on the rest of the car better than I expected, even after we moved it to his normal spot in the sun, it looked decent from about 5-6 feet. You can see the scratches and scuffs on the rear bumper that remained though.

Scottwax · 07-15-06, 01:07

2001 Mitsubishi Montero. This one wasn't too bad other than something got inside and peed on the driver's side mat and carpeting. However, she had removed the bug guard on the front so we could get to the paint and was going to put it back on which is why I didn't remove those plastic squares on the hood. Same as the other two, Optimum Polish and green 4" Propel pads with my Cyclo and EX w/carnauba.

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2006 Hyundai Santa Fe. Pretty decent shape, just some light holograms on the front left fender, rest of it has very light halo swirls which polished out nicely. Optimum Polish and green 4" Propel pads with my Cyclo and EX w/carnauba.

The shade shots didn't turn out that great because I was shooting a vehicle in the shade with sun behind it. but I did have time to get some sun shots too. BTW, this Santa Fe had a really nice paint job on it. Hyundai has come a long way!

No swirls and really wet looking paint!

Scottwax · 07-15-06, 01:17

1999 Saturn. Other than some interior staining (not nearly as bad as the Kia) and scratches on the hood down to the plastic, it wasn't too bad-well, the interior glass was pretty nasty. What really struck me was the complete lack of halo swirls on this car. None. Zero. Zip. This one got Optimum Polish and green 4" Propel pads with my Cyclo and EX-P.

Only one more left to do next week.

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2006 Honda Accord. Owned by a regular who also has a Nissan Titan. He has a 90 mile round trip commute so he bought the Accord to drive to work and save gas. Not sure how cost effective it is to buy a $24,000 car to save gas though. Anyway, we'd cleaned it once before when it was brand new about 5 weeks ago and hit it with Optimum Car Wax. Today, we washed it with Optimum No Rinse and waxed it with Natty's Blue. He really liked that combo on his Titan so I used it on the Accord too.

Full overhead sun isn't the best for shooting silver, you lose some of the wet look. BTW, the red Beetle next to the Accord is the one I polished and waxed in late April. As you can see, the owner is pretty good about keeping it clean and PB's EX w/carnauba is holding up well!

The metallic shot came out weird, I guess the brightness of the sun's reflection sent the exposure meter off into la-la land.

Reacher · 07-15-06, 02:33

Scott, I so need to get you to come and work on my truck.

I was wondering, would you let me apprentice with you a bit so I can learn how to properly take care of my vehicles? I have read alot of the articles, but I am sure they pale in comparison to live experience. I live in Irving btw.

darin925 · 07-15-06, 05:51

Excellent work as always Scott!

dtailmycar · 07-15-06, 09:11

If that Mustang had have some at least "healthy" paint. It would had been the killer of the day. I just love the color and some nice wheels too

awahl63 · 07-15-06, 09:33

+1 on Hyundai coming a long way. They really are nice cars now. Nice job as always Scott.

tumbler · 07-15-06, 12:52

saturn had halo-ing from previous or by your cyclo ?

if by your cyclo, how did you remove them ?

whats your method for using ONR in really hot sun ?

fantastic work as always

maxi · 07-15-06, 05:35

your hand like gold

very nice work always.

RAG · 07-15-06, 06:08

Scott, I was just curious - do you offer discounts for volume work? To me it's a big dilemma, as I've always said "no" to volume discounts...figuring that since I'm usually booked anyways, giving discounts would cost me money...sometimes they hire me anyways, some times not, in which case I wonder if I shouldn't have tried to squeeze them in anyways, if even for a discount rate.

Bence · 07-15-06, 06:36

Quote:

Originally Posted by tumbler

saturn had halo-ing from previous or by your cyclo ?

if by your cyclo, how did you remove them ?

whats your method for using ONR in really hot sun ?

fantastic work as always

Tumbler, the Saturn was completely hologram free...

Beason · 07-15-06, 06:52

Scott you used to love #80 Speed Glaze, but Ive noticed you've started to use OP more because of dusting and use in the sun, but besides those two things how do the two compare to each other?