2007 Audi A6 S Line

[Scottwax]

2007 Audi A6 S Line, owner recently purchased the car and wanted the swirls and water spots removed and the paint properly protected. With the car pulled out into the sun, a lot of light to moderate spider swirls and buffer trails were visible on the car, the worst holograms were right by the S Line emblem on the trunk. The owner had some badging removed and the dealer buffed that area...badly. Overall, it really wasn`t too bad.



The car was washed with ONR and clayed with Optimum Opti-Clay. Tires and fenderwells dressed with Armor All.



I no longer bother using a DA polisher on Audis due to how hard the paint is so I began with Optimum Hyper Polish with a yellow Meguiars polishing pad using my Dewalt 849 rotary. Really made very short work of the water spots, however, it was leaving noticeable holograms-very surprising since I was able to get it to finish hologram free on a Lexus IS350 I did recently. Lexus paint tends to be somewhat soft and Audi hard but this A6 had some pretty soft paint. Even with a black waffle finishing pad, I couldn`t get OHP to finish out hologram free. Since it is designed for harder paints, and this car had soft paint-nearly as soft as BMW jet black, a different strategy was in order.



I switched to Meguiars #205 and a yellow Meguiars polishing pad, again using my rotary at 1000-1400 rpms. That did the trick. Left the paint nearly hologram free and was removing nearly everything! Just goes to show you why it is good to have more than one polishing product line at your disposal.



Here are a few before and afters-as you can see, the swirls weren`t too bad, although they are worse than the pictures showed:



http://www.autopia.org/gallery/files/8/7/8/2007_audi_a6_sline_before1.jpg



http://www.autopia.org/gallery/files/8/7/8/2007_audi_a6_sline_after1.jpg



http://www.autopia.org/gallery/files/8/7/8/2007_audi_a6_sline_hood_before1.jpg



http://www.autopia.org/gallery/files/8/7/8/2007_audi_a6_sline_hood_after1.jpg



Hood polished, top of the fender isn`t:



http://www.autopia.org/gallery/files/8/7/8/2007_audi_a6_sline_hood_halfnhalf1.jpg



http://www.autopia.org/gallery/files/8/7/8/2007_audi_a6_sline_backend_before1.jpg



http://www.autopia.org/gallery/files/8/7/8/2007_audi_a6_sline_backend_after1.jpg



I left the back end of the car out in the sun (106 today when I got home!) to flash off the oils in #205 and was happy to see the paint was still looking good 3 hours later after polishing the rest of the car. Typically, if anything was missed you will see it after 5-10 minutes of exposure to the sun in the summer.



After polishing the car out with #205, I finished it off with 3M Ultrafina using a blue Ultrafina waffle pad at 1000-1800-1000 rpms. The paint was then sealed with Clearkote`s Carnauba Moose. Very pleased how this one turned out, especially with only a couple polishing steps. The owner seemed very happy too. :)



http://www.autopia.org/gallery/files/8/7/8/2007_audi_a6_sline_trunk1.jpg



http://www.autopia.org/gallery/files/8/7/8/2007_audi_a6_sline_backend_sun1.jpg



http://www.autopia.org/gallery/files/8/7/8/2007_audi_a6_sline_front1.jpg



http://www.autopia.org/gallery/files/8/7/8/2007_audi_a6_sline_frontend1.jpg



http://www.autopia.org/gallery/files/8/7/8/2007_audi_a6_sline_rear1.jpg



http://www.autopia.org/gallery/files/8/7/8/2007_audi_a6_sline_side1.jpg



http://www.autopia.org/gallery/files/8/7/8/2007_audi_a6_sline_front2.jpg



http://www.autopia.org/gallery/files/8/7/8/2007_audi_a6_sline_front3.jpg



http://www.autopia.org/gallery/files/8/7/8/2007_audi_a6_sline_frontend2.jpg



http://www.autopia.org/gallery/files/8/7/8/2007_audi_a6_sline_side2.jpg

[ADetailedFinish]

Nice job on the beautiful audi!

[Labster]

Great work as always Scott. People always ask why I have a few different polishes with the same cut. Case and point!

[Thomas Dekany]

That is beautiful Scott! How long did this take you?

[Scottwax]

That is beautiful Scott! How long did this take you?



Total time was about 5 hours, had some help from my son and we only did the exterior (we did vacuum though) on this car. I need to get a better camera, mine doesn`t show how really deep the paint looked in person.

[Thomas Dekany]

I can`t understand how you can do it in 5 hours? You are a miracle Scott.

[Scottwax]

I can`t understand how you can do it in 5 hours? You are a miracle Scott.



Soft paint = easy to correct once you figure out what works. If my son hadn`t helped, would have been closer to 6 hours-he helped me wash the car and dress the tires and fenderwells, then, since I do the polishing, he took a nap during that time, woke up in time to wax it while I cleaned up the mess from polishing and cleaned the glass.

[Alexshimshimhae]

Amazon.com: Canon EOS Rebel T1i 15.1 MP CMOS Digital SLR Camera: Camera & Photo (http://www.amazon.com/Canon-T1i-Digital-18-55mm-3-5-5-6/dp/B001XURPQS/ref=pd_zg_rss_ts_p_3017941_1?ie=UTF8&tag=httppaulmccbl-20)



sir with the amazing work you do--this camera I believe would do your work some more justice. Just a thought

[dsms]

Looks awesome Scott!

[maxepr1]

Nice work Scott!! Isn`t this heat just great, I have a Dodge 2500 I`m doing a full correction on! I lost nine pounds today and I got at least 2 days left on it!! 105 tomorrow!!

[JohnKleven]

Nice work Scott, and you made great timing that`s for sure.

[Scottwax]

Nice work Scott!! Isn`t this heat just great, I have a Dodge 2500 I`m doing a full correction on! I lost nine pounds today and I got at least 2 days left on it!! 105 tomorrow!!



Loving the heat! I wish it was like this all year. Winter and cold weather depress me.



BTW, a few hours after finishing the Audi, I went out and put 36.5 miles on my road bike. :)

[imported_artikxscout]

yeap, great work Scott. I was hoping to see you use the DA which is what i`ve been going with more often now. See if you can buy yourself a cheap Nikon D40 on craigslist. Those things are cheap enough now that you can replace your Point and Shoot. It`ll help tremendously to capture your work.

[bryan]

great stuff scott, where did your professional photog stuff go

[DinoV]

Hey Scott, just wondering where you learned OHP is made for hard paints. Is OHC made for hard paints also? Was planning on getting some to try on my DD but it has soft paint.