My first attempt ...

[JoeRacer]

*Sorry for the poor quality photos, I don`t have an SLR like all you pros on here



A few months ago I purchased a 2009 Camry that had been poorly taken care of. There was a lot of oxidation in the paint, and nearly every crack and crevice of the car had built up dirt/gunk. The paint when washed/waxed never had a very good shine to it, but I got a good deal on it so I decided to purchase it with the intent to have a professional detail it. After watching a few videos I decided to give it a try myself, and I figured after I do two vehicles the equipment would pay for itself. So I bought a Porter Cable 7346SP (apparently the same as a 7424XP but marketed as a sander?), a hook`n`loop backing plate, a full set of Uber pads (two of each color so I could do some experimenting), Clay Magic clay bars, some ONR, and a butt-load of mf towels. I had read that the Meguiar`s Ultimate line was easy to work with, so I decided to give that a try.



The first thing I had to do was wash and claybar the car. I used the ONR two-bucket technique, and some 1Z einszett Anti-Insekt Bug + Tar Remover on the front of the car. I then clayed the entire car. The side skirts, and bumpers had a lot of embedded gunk that came off pretty easily with the clay. Here is a picture of the side skirt:







You can see the gunk on the left side, and on the right is the area I had already clayed.



After I had washed and clayed the entire car I did a test spot for the following process: orange pad with Meguiar`s Ultimate Compound> blue with Meguiar`s Ultimate Polish > black with Meguiar`s Ultimate Liquid Wax. Unfortunately the light was failing me, so I snapped a few crappy photos of the test spot. Despite the poor photo quality you can still get an idea of how bad the finish was beforehand:







Next time I will have to use some wider tape, because I actually went over the tape a little so you can see the tape line on both sides ... whoops



I did the work at a friend`s house so I could make use of his garage to store the car at night. The next day I started the polishing process for the entire car. Afterwards I found a few spots that didn`t polish up quiet 100%. Most of them were near edges or corners. A few I went ahead and hit again with the yellow pad and the UC, and that seemed to do the trick. Here are a few comparison photos that I took after just the first polish (orange + UC), but later I followed up with the green + UP:



Dirt that had accumulated behind the windblocker in front of the sunroof:











Front end all bugged up after 1400 mile road trip, this is after I sprayed the bug-remover on it and was waiting for it to do its thing:











On Sunday I finished up with a coat of wax using the black pads, and here is the finished product:







When I first got done, looking at the car it felt like the paint was brand new. All-in-all I am happy with the results, but I know that I could have done better in some areas. For my first time though I am just happy I didn`t break anything that requires a professional to fix lol. From the few instructional videos I watched I felt like I knew enough to give this a try, but after doing it I definitely have a lot of questions on ways to improve my technique. I`ll be searching the forums for more info, thanks for the great site!

[iBookmaster]

Looks really nice. You did a great job.

[mets2010]

Nice work! Front bumper came out great!

[JoeRacer]

There was so much gunk embedded in the paint, I was amazed at how much the clay took out. I didn`t really expect that honestly, I figured the polishing was going to do most of that. I wasn`t even sure if the paint was okay to polish it looked so bad to start with, I just kind of figured the worst thing that could happen is that I would end up having to repaint the car to fix it lol. I think after this the upkeep shouldn`t be as bad, but it took a lot of work to get it to this point. I`m just happy I found this forum, all of the great info here is what helped me decide it was something I could try to tackle myself!

[Accumulator]

JoeRacer- Hey, that turned out great! And props on being cautious and not overdoing the polishing, especially around the edges :xyxthumbs

[Scottwax]

Nice work, turned out great!



You will have to keep up on the finish, for some really, really, really stupid reason, Toyota (and Honda) do not clear coat their solid white paint.

[JoeRacer]

Thanks. I thought my paint was pretty bad, but when I was shopping for a newer Camry I saw a lot with pealing on the roof and front bumper. It`s pretty crazy because the cars are only a few years old. I just needed something that would be pretty reliable, and have good gas mileage on the highway. So far so good.

[CK_Autospa]

great job.

[Lowejackson]

Nice work, impressive turnaround

[someidiot]

awesome job!

[alpha]

Awesome job! The car looks great! The before pics made the car look old and the after pics make it look like a new car.

for some really, really, really stupid reason, Toyota (and Honda) do not clear coat their solid white paint.

what`s actually quite annoying is that this is dependent on the car; at least for Honda. Some of the cars painted with Taffeta White have a clearcoat, some do not. I think this may only be with Taffeta White (at least for Honda`s white cars, but I`m curious now). A few of Honda`s red cars are single stage as well.



I know for sure that Honda`s Grand Prix White has a clear coat over it, since my GPW S2000 has a clear coat and any GPW NSX that I`ve seen has a clear coat as well. I also know that Acura`s new Bellanova White Pearl has a clear coat since I recently detailed my mother`s new TSX she picked up the other week.



Starfire Pearl on Lexus cars also has a clear coat.



As for other shades of white from Toyota or Honda, I`m not sure.