Awesome Results, my audi, acura and vw all treated right. 56k no way

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\X/alter

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Well, my paint had been hurting lately and really needed some TLC. It had been taken care of well, but had some problem areas. The largest was self induced. After I painted my bike I compounded it with a rotary and it came out great. I took it to the car, and well.... was left with less than desirable results. It came out with that typical look I'm sure you've all seen where it is obvious someone has taken a buffer to the entire car with lines of swirls all over it. It also stripped all the existing wax and the color was very anemic and light. I don't really have any good pictures of it in this state, because well, it was embarassing :unsure: and I had no sunlight when I took these before pics. Here is what I started with.



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And on top of that, I had run over some blue paint which made it look like I had nailed a smurf doing 90MPH. It was all over the bottom of the car and coated the wheel wells.

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So I spent a bunch of money, learned a bunch of tricks and went at it. Here are a few shots, mid way through, before I started applying my sealant.



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After applying 2 coats of Wolfgang sealant, I rolled it out and couldn't believe my eyes. ALL of the swirls and scratches (except 1) were completely gone. The paint had an incredibly deep dark wet shine to it. The color was not only much darker, but the metallic properties really came out. I could not have been happier. Here she is, still all taped up:



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another hood shot

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And a shot of the muffler that I made shine like crazy after years of neglect and one WNY winter.



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It made me so happy. My paint had been reborn. I was able to get out blemishes in the paint that I didn't think were ever going anywhere. Of course, on the drive back to Rochester, it rained a majority of the time. But hey, at least it gave me a shot to show off the beading on the hood after a 400 mile drive on the thruway.



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Process

In case anyone wonders what I did.



First I washed the car completely, followed by a whole car clay. After that, I masked off the trim I was worried about staining with any of the products. Then I started with 3M Fine Cut Rubbing Compound and used a yellow cutting pad on my Porter Cable 7336. I attacked the big scratches that I wanted to get out, and any other problem areas that I thought I could knock down the with RC. After this I cleaned the pad and used 3M Swirl Mark Remover and went over the entire car to take care of all of the swirls and other micro maring all over the surface.



After the 3MSMR I switched to a white pad on the PC and applied Wolfgan Pre-Wax Polish, applying with the PC and then again, removing with MF towels. After hitting the entire car, I went back and got any of the small odd areas that I wasn't able to hit with the PC and did them by hand. Next I applied 2 coats of Wolfgan Sealant by hand using a MF applicator and removing with MF towels. The muffler was cleaned using Never Dull. I used 303 Aerospace Procetant on the trim and tires and Stoners Invisible Glass on the glass.



Like I said, I'm super happy. It was a TON of work, as really wanted things to come out perfect and had nothing better to do for a while.



I would like to really thank Mike and Corey (www.diamonddetailing.biz) for all their help and suggestions. Between them and all of the info I picked up on Autopia I know that I have gotten results that would have been impossible using my old methods, which IMO, were pretty darned good.



Anyone serious about detailing, I HIGHLY recomend purchasing a PC. I don't think that this would have been possible without it, as my arm would have fallen off days ago and I still would have been working. Seriously the best thing I've purchased for the car lately.



~Walter
 
Here are some other cars I worked on while I was home. My mother's Acura looked like she had literally driven it through a freaking forest. I felt bad and said I'd get rid of the huge scratches, but as I did, the little ones became even more noticable and I ended up compounding nearly the whole car with the PC. I ended up giving it the Wolfgan treatment as well. Here are some shots fo the scratches I started with.



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And the results



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Where some of those scratches used to reside.

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I know I could have gotten better results using a combo better suited for light cars, but I used what I had on hand. She loved the results. Again, the paint looked fantastic and was super slick to the touch, which was her favorite part. Well, that, and the fact that the huge scratches everywhere were gone. She couldn't believe it, and frankly, neither could I. I was quite impressed with the ammount of damage I was able to remove.



Then there was my brothers Passat. I actually did this car first and used it as a guinea pig to learn the PC on, which I might add, took all of about 5 minutes, if that. This car gave me so much trouble. The initial wash and clay took forever, as anyone who does this a lot knows, white cars SUCK! Esp. the rust! Here are some shots of his paint that I started with. It has HEAVY swirling and a fair ammount of scratches. Most he didn't even know where they came from, but I'm assuming the combination of roof racks and idiots using snow brushes did a good portion of it.



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Then a shot of me doing the work in the garage, all taped up. Pretty much done at this point.



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And then I was unable to really get finished shots because he went straight to work, and then it rained for 2 days! here is one once the rain sorta cleared though. Dunno what happened to my full car shots.



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The car came out great, and again, the PC destroyed 99% of the scratches on the car. The swirls are history as well and the car is left with a nice super slick really wet look to it. Again, this car would have benefited from a combo more geared towards lighter colors, but the results were impressive none the less.



~Walter
 
Very well done! :xyxthumbs Thanks for the pictures and write-up, it's always nice to read detailing success stories.
 
Good work, especially on the Audi (that clear is hard).



Next time, you mgiht try using your WG on the black strip that you had taped off. I haven't tried WG, but I use both BF and 4-Star UPP on the black trim on my Audis with great results.
 
very nice job on the audi. it's like you have a whole new paint job on it!!!!



and family cars always make good guinea pigs! :D
 
I am curious as to what product(s) you used to get the paint out of your wheelwells? My brother recently ran over so wet yellow paint and his wheels are a real mess. So any tips/help is appreciated.:bounce
 
Outstanding work! :bow



I wish I could put that much time into my Mazda, but I am so busy right now with customer's cars, mine has to wait.
 
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