CL500, J30, CLK320, really rough 325i

Scottwax · 04-30-07, 03:58

1998 Mercedes CL500, regular customer. Pretty good about having his vehicles waxed quarterly. I see them once or twice a month and the off weeks he runs his cars through a tunnel wash, so they are good test vehicles.

It only needed very light polishing, so I used Zaino All in One and a black LC CCS finishing pad and sealed with Optimum Opti-Seal. I got three pics before it started to rain, so I took another in the garage after I pulled it in.

I am still working on what level to adjust the exposure (+ or -) when shooting either very dark or very light colored cars so any comments whether I am moving in the right direction and a more natural looking exposure or not are appreciated.

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1996 Infiniti J30. This one was pretty rough. Lots of hail damage and the interior was really bad. The whole passenger side looked like someone dumped a gallon of coffee into the front footwell and it soaked all the way to the back footwell as well. The paint, other than hail though, wasn't too swirled, other than some light halos and a few rotary holograms on the hood from the front end repaint.

Honestly, I wasn't even sure why the customer was spending the money on this car, it is her work beater (her other car is an '07 Miata) and the interior was so bad but that isn't my decision. We were able to make a pretty good improvement on the interior but the stains on the passenger side wouldn't come completely out. The mats pretty much covered them anyway so that made her happy. Sorry, no interior pics, wasn't really worth it.

Here are a couple exterior shots, after washing/tires/fenderwells but before any polishing. The hail damage is pretty obvious in the 2nd shot.

I polished the paint with Zaino Z-PC using orange Edge Cyclo cutting pads, followed by Optimum Poli-Seal using a white LC CCS polishing pad and removed OPS with Optimum Car Wax.

Scottwax · 04-30-07, 04:05

Quick Optimum No Rinse before and after on a 1999 Ford F-250 that hadn't been washed in about 2 months.

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2004 Mercedes CLK320. The lease is up and the owners wanted it cleaned up enough to avoid any charges. The interior was cluttered with stuff but once it was emptied, it wasn't bad at all. The paint looked pretty good, some light halo swirls and a few light scratches. I used Optimum Poli-Seal and a white LC CCS polishing pad and it did a really good job cleaning up the paint, probably 85-90% correction-which was about all they wanted to pay for. I used Optimum Car Wax to remove the excess OPS and as the LSP. Turned out really well for any easy, light correction 2 step process.

Scottwax · 04-30-07, 04:19

1995 BMW 325. This car was absolutely hammered on the outside! Originally a Virginia car, recently purchased by the new owner, so he really didn't know how the previous owner took care of the finish. To me, it looked like it was scrubbed with a deck brush. A few areas with etched bird bombs, the clear coat on the roof appears to be on the verge of failure (light cracking is evident), lots of pitting in the paint (based on that and the sand my son vacuumed up, then vacuumed again after shampooing I think the car was at the beach regularly), many deep scratches, etc. What it really needs is a repaint but the owner isn't interested in spending $3500+ to repaint it right now and just wanted the finish to be as good as the current condition would allow. Nice to deal with someone who had realistic expectations going in.

This half and half shot shows what I was dealing with. The left side of the trunk lid has already been compounded and polished. The right side it untouched.

And a closer view of the left side. Notice the vast majority of swirls are gone but you can see the pitting, deeper scratches and surface paint cracking that was evident, plus some light hazing from getting very aggressive. With the hazy sun, these were about as good as I could get for comparison purposes.

I ended up having to go as aggressive as I had in my arsenal. Optimum Hyper Compound using yellow Edge Cyclo heavy cutting pads. I followed with Zaino Z-PC using green Edge Cyclo polishing pads, which effectively cleaned up the minor hazing I got from using OHC and yellow pads. I finished using Optimum Poli-Seal with a white LC CCS polishing pad and buffed off OPS and did a final seal using Optimum Car Wax. The car is obviously not perfect but the improvement was substantial and the customer was very happy.

Strokin04 · 04-30-07, 04:26

The BMW look's a 100 times better and the other cars look great as well!!! Mike...

klnyc · 04-30-07, 04:41

Holy crap those hail storm did some #s on the J30

Oh and that bmw was a dump....Great turn around, like always

awahl63 · 04-30-07, 05:16

Great job man

TH0001 · 04-30-07, 05:25

Scott you rock!!!

Roger V · 04-30-07, 05:37

Awesome. I gotta look into getting a cyclo.

Pats300zx · 04-30-07, 05:41

Beautiful work as always Scott...

O4cobra · 04-30-07, 05:43

Nice work as usual Scott.

Pretty good improvement on the BMW there!

zoomzoom mazda5 · 04-30-07, 05:52

Great to see your work!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

J.J. · 04-30-07, 08:04

Great work as always.

As for the pics, the first few look overexposed/whited out. I don't know what kind of info. you are looking for but usually your pictures look great.

I dunno, just MO, and as always, MO can be wrong.

JJ