Rehab for a 2012 Honda Fit

[Desertnate]

This 2012 was recently added to the family fleet. Previous owners took very good care of it mechanically, and I *thought* the paint was in pretty good shape considering 5 years of non-"Geek" life before I got my hands on it. While easy to correct, it matched some of the horror stories many of you have posted here before. As soon as we brought it home, I was actually excited to "play" with the car and see exactly what I could do with it. A couple weeks later I got my chance. This is the story of that adventure. I used a whole host of AG sourced products.

What isn`t pictured is a hour or two of vinyl pinstripe removal. The stripes were brittle, cracking, and simply ugly.
Removal products:

• Plastic razor blades
• Poorboys APC
• Stoner`s Tarminator

The morning of the big day, I washed the car down with a shampoo my wife won in a charity auction from a GM dealership. No idea who makes the stuff, but it`s pretty strong which makes it good of decon jobs. From there, I moved on to the clay. This is where things get interesting.

Wash/Decon

I started with the rear spoiler and got this off just that tiny area. I could feel the difference in each pass.



I was afraid I was in for a long morning of claying, but oddly enough most of the rest of the panels were in surprisingly good shape until I hit one 2x2`-ish area on the roof right above the driver`s door. Yes, only ONE spot on the car was this bad. The rest were a mixed bag of light returns on my clay bar.



Again, a noticeable difference with each pass of the clay. This leads me to believe the dealership "washed" and then "waxed" over the grime.
Product used: XMT Clay

With washing and claying out of the way, this was the result.



The car was already looking much better, but what you can`t tell in the flat lighting of a cloudy day is the paint has no real pop and it`s still pretty dull. Now was time to pull it into the garage and do my worst on the paint.

Wheels were washed with Griots Wheel Cleaner. The tire dressing used by the dealership was thick, sticky and slung all over the wheels. The Griots removed it, but the stuff gummed up my wheel brush. Not happy with that one.

Correction

Hitting the paint with LED`s revealed the true damage. This was representative of most the car. In normal daylight the metallic flake wasn`t really noticeable.



I then did two two test spots. One with Meguiars UP on and LC White Flat pad and another with Blackfire SRC Polish on the same type of pad.

Meguiars UP:



And the Blackfire...



As you can see, the Blackfire worked much better in this case. In just four passes I had the paint right where I wanted it. The difference was dramatic. This also worked out well for other reasons but more on that later in my "Lessons Learned".

While inspecting my work on the door, I noticed this view of the front and rear driver doors. Even in indirect lighting the heavy swirls which clouded the paint are noticeable.



Once complete, the paint across the entire car now looked like this. A big difference.



At this point I prepped the surface and then coated the car.
Product used: McKees 37 Paint Coating (original formula).

Final Results

Once the coating was applied and cured for a couple hours I took a good look and was very happy with the results. My youngest daughter, who really never pays any attention to my work, asked, "What are all those tiny spots in the paint? I`ve never seen those before on this car." Reply: "That`s the metallic flake in the paint!" That should speak for itself.



Outdoors a couple days later after the rain stopped...





Products also used but not featured:

• I used McKee`s 37 Plastic Trim Restorer on all the external plastics and trip. The more I use that stuff the more I like it.
• 0000 steel wool and Mothers Mag and Aluminum polish on the exhaust tip

Lesson`s Learned

1. Always check to make sure you have enough product for the job. I was fortunate the Blackfire polish worked best in this case. When I did a test spot with my UP, I was shocked to discover I had almost nothing left in the bottle. This mistake could have cost me time in a trip to the store for more product.
2. Original formula McKee`s 37 Paint Coating should probably be used up in a year. My bottle is a year old and I noticed the product flashed much faster and didn`t spread nearly as easily as the last three times I used it despite the temperatures being 60`s. The damp, cool, temps meant it took a LONG time to cure, but application wasn`t as simply as previous experiences.
3. Even if the paint is trashed you shouldn`t automatically reach for a compound. It might not be needed. I had my compounds and orange pads at the ready, but this paint is so soft all it took was a polish pad and a finishing polish. Test spot...test spot...test spot.... Where have we heard that before?
4. Don`t always stick with your "go-to" products, you might be surprised. In the past, my default on soft Japanese paint was UP. It worked well and I never questioned it until this job. I was surprised by how Blackfire created a shine that was more crisp and clear than UP.
5. Embedded road grime is real. Read up on Mike Phillips article regarding the topic. His pictures were enough to make me a believe, but I experienced it first hand with this car. One of the white pads used on this job was new from the package and it turned black. My other pads are stained purple by the blackfire polish, but they too turned significantly darker during this job despite the polish being purple in color.
6. If you`re going to take pictures of the job, plan that out ahead of time. I was constantly thinking of things to document after it was too late!

Final Thoughts

​This was a fun job. Most of the vehicles I`ve worked on before were close to being this neglected. It was interesting to see the transformation as I worked. There were some deeper gouges in the hood, but with the polishing they disappeared under most lighting conditions. Since this is a daily driver with thin, soft Honda paint, I wasn`t about to chase after those. This 75% solution is exactly what the car needed.

[RoccoVA]

Strong work. Looks great!

[RTexasF]

That color really suits that car and you brought it to life, nicely done.

[nickclark08]

Great work!

[Accumulator]

I love daily-driver makeovers!

DesertNate- Nice work, and that Fit looks really good in that color. Glad the vinyl stripes came off OK, and overall it appears to be in really nice shape...no egregious curb-rash on the wheels, for instance. How`s the interior?

I think that`s a great addition to the family`s fleet!I forget, is a `12 still the original version of the Fit, with the livelier suspension? Is it auto or stick (no, no..I will NOT hate on an automatic)?

[Desertnate]

Strong work. Looks great!

That color really suits that car and you brought it to life, nicely done.

Great work!

Thanks, guys. It was an enjoyable job. My other cars were all purchased new and well cared for, so actually working on something in that shape was really rewarding.

I love daily-driver makeovers!

DesertNate- Nice work, and that Fit looks really good in that color. Glad the vinyl stripes came off OK, and overall it appears to be in really nice shape...no egregious curb-rash on the wheels, for instance. How`s the interior?

I think that`s a great addition to the family`s fleet!I forget, is a `12 still the original version of the Fit, with the livelier suspension? Is it auto or stick (no, no..I will NOT hate on an automatic)?

Thanks. I like being able to make a normal, heavily used car shine like concourse winner. The color does work well with the styling lines of the panels and makes it look bigger than it really is.

The stripes weren`t too bad to remove, but they did leave some "ghosting" where the area under the stripes is darker than the rest of the paint, but after all the work you have to look for it to notice.

The car is in fantastic shape. Despite having two previous owners, it was never serviced by anyone other than a dealership. Three of the wheels appear to be brand new, and the fourth had one spoke refinished, but otherwise it too looks like-new. There isn`t a speck of body rust anywhere. The interior looks like-new as well. The previous owners must not have had kids! This is the Sport trim, so it has better seats and trim than a standard Fit. The fabric is better than anything I`ve seen on any Asian car other than a Civic SI. It`s really thick and plush, but also has a very durable feel to it.

The `12 is actually the second gen of the Fit, but I don`t know if the platform changed much between gen 1 and 2. The thing steers and turns like a shifter kart. The body leans quite a bit, but all four wheels stay firmly planted to the ground. It`s actually a lot of fun despite being gutless. Put that platform on a small roadster vs. a tall hatch and it would be fantastic...despite being FWD.

Funny you should ask about the transmission. It`s an auto, but since it`s the Sport, it has the better transmission with the paddles. We purchased the car because after my attempts to teach my daughter to drive stick led to one off-road excursion, three damaged wheels, and the alignment being knocked totally out of whack on my car, we decided our plans of giving her one of our other two manual hatchbacks wasn`t a great idea. This Fit is perfect for a new driver...almost like Honda had that demographic in mind when they designed it.

[Accumulator]

Desertnate- Thanks for the added info, sounds great! Yeah, I can`t help but think of my old CRX`s when I see your Fit and I bet it`s plenty fun. Good to hear that the v2.0 ones still handle well in the Real World.

Again, not hating at all on the decision to go automatic. VERY few of the "I`m always gonna drive a manual" people I know actually do it right and if you`re gonna abuse the clutch/synchros anyhow, well....why bother with it IMO.

Heh heh, guess it`s no surprise that they just replaced some of the wheels, I do that whenever I buy something used.

The interior looks like-new as well. The previous owners must not have had kids!

Or maybe they just raised `em right