I had a referral from a couple of my regulars to do an exterior detail on a black M35 (they are all friends, or coworkers) this afternoon. The guy had just bought the car from CarMax and said he wasn't happy with the detail job they did. When I got to his house, I could see why. Severe rotary holograms and spiderswirls. In the full sun, most of the car actually looked grey instead of black (I took some pics but the roll of film is still half full so it may be a couple days before I can post them). In addition, they told him they had the bumpers repainted due to stone chips and scrapes but it was very obvious the passenger side front fender was also repainted (orange peel difference was very noticable). A few overspray issues too. He said a Carfax report came back clean on the car.
Anyway, UDM, Meguiars polishing pad and Optimum Polish added a lot of gloss but very little improvement in the swirls. White swirlbuster (cutting) pad and Optimum Compound was a little better but still maybe 30% correction. I switched to my Cyclo, yellow Edge cutting pads and Optimum Hyper Compound and was getting about 75% hologram correction on the driver's door but maybe 50% improvement in the halo swirls (absolutely the worst I have ever seen) on the driver's side front fender.
At that point, I called the customer out to look at the car. At some angles, the paint looked really good but at other angles, the halo swirls were still really noticable and some faint hologramming remained. I told him I didn't feel I was going to get enough correction for what I'd need to charge for the amount of buffing I was going to have to do. I said the paint has issues too serious for me to correct. I also told him he needs to take several pictures of the car in the full sun, both sides and all the horizontal surfaces before he takes it back to CarMax to complain. He wanted to know about maybe just doing a quick polish and wax but I said if I do the whole car and problems remain, CarMax will try to put it off on me and he is out any kind of solution they owe him. I took pictures before I started and of the panels I polished out so he can prove those areas I polished looked much worse before I touched it.
The car in question is a 2006 Infiniti M35 with less than 10,000 miles on it and the dreaded underhood sticker warning "hard clear coat". I think much of the car is going to have to be wetsanded (assuming enough clear is left after the dealer hacked up the car) to remove the defects. Considering I was able to get 90%+ correction on a black Audi with similarly rock hard paint with my Cyclo and I can't get anywhere close with this Infiniti tells me the defects are really deep on this car. I haven't used a rotary in years and wouldn't want this car to be a test bed...plus I don't think a rotary will be able to achieve full correction either.
He is going to call CarMax tomorrow to let them know he wants to come in and talk to the head manager about the swirls on Monday. He really doesn't want to let their detailers have another crack at the car though and if the car needs to be repainted, he is concerned about diminished value when he eventually sells the car. I told him I'd put him in touch with the lawyer my brother used to sue the bodyshop that trashed his new truck when he took it in for hail damage repair.
Real shame about how bad this car is. The interior looks perfect and the mileage is very low. Goes to show you should never buy a black car without seeing it in the full sun.
Anyone else run into this? Also, anyone have a good pad/product combo for the new Infiniti clear coats?
