I got a call from a guy wanting his black 1989 Mercedes 190E buffed out. I told him I would have to see the car to give him an accurate price and that is when he told me what happened.
He drives a cement mixer and apparently, they use an acid wash to remove the cement from the trucks, and one of the drivers moved his truck around to the employee parking area and used the acid (diluted) on a windy day. You got it, the paint job on all the horizontal surfaces is acid etched. Pretty deep, too. Using Clearkote's Blue Moose (a pretty strong compound) and Meguiars DACP made no real difference, even though I was getting a lot of black on the towels. The acid etching is just too deep for buffing, so I told him he needed to get an estimate from a body shop to wet sand it out-definitely one that will use a paint thickness meter to make sure that there will still be adequate paint thickness to wet sand all the acid etching out.
The guy told me he doubted his company would pay for that, and that in the spot I worked, the paint had the best shine it he had seen on it since he bought the car, and to go ahead and write him up an estimate, which I did for a $135-165 range. He thinks that is all his company will approve for the damage. I told him that he would have to agree that he will be satisfied in writing that not all the acid etching cannot be removed by buffing before I start on the car and that his company would also have to approve that for me to do the work. I don't want to get into a situation where I do the work, then he complains or his boss complains that some of the etching is still there and refuse to pay me. Honestly, I think his company should pay for proper wet sanding and do this guy right, but I also know how they will try and cheap out and try to pay as little as possible.
I really don't even know if I want to take on this job if his boss approves it, because there is no way I can get out all the acid etching. It will have a blinding shine when I get done, but it will also make the problem possibly even more apparent.
:hm
He drives a cement mixer and apparently, they use an acid wash to remove the cement from the trucks, and one of the drivers moved his truck around to the employee parking area and used the acid (diluted) on a windy day. You got it, the paint job on all the horizontal surfaces is acid etched. Pretty deep, too. Using Clearkote's Blue Moose (a pretty strong compound) and Meguiars DACP made no real difference, even though I was getting a lot of black on the towels. The acid etching is just too deep for buffing, so I told him he needed to get an estimate from a body shop to wet sand it out-definitely one that will use a paint thickness meter to make sure that there will still be adequate paint thickness to wet sand all the acid etching out.
The guy told me he doubted his company would pay for that, and that in the spot I worked, the paint had the best shine it he had seen on it since he bought the car, and to go ahead and write him up an estimate, which I did for a $135-165 range. He thinks that is all his company will approve for the damage. I told him that he would have to agree that he will be satisfied in writing that not all the acid etching cannot be removed by buffing before I start on the car and that his company would also have to approve that for me to do the work. I don't want to get into a situation where I do the work, then he complains or his boss complains that some of the etching is still there and refuse to pay me. Honestly, I think his company should pay for proper wet sanding and do this guy right, but I also know how they will try and cheap out and try to pay as little as possible.
I really don't even know if I want to take on this job if his boss approves it, because there is no way I can get out all the acid etching. It will have a blinding shine when I get done, but it will also make the problem possibly even more apparent.
:hm
