Questions about Opti-Coat and spot repairs

Nth Degree

Nth Degree

New member
I have a customer who bought a used M3 as a daily driver about 4-5 months ago. I Opti-Coated it for him. There were a couple of small defects (2 chips on hood and gouge on rear bumper from something dragged out of trunk) that he decided, at the time, he would live with since the car is just a DD. Now he has decided to have those repaired.

Is there any advice I should give to the person doing the work as to how to remove the OC to do the work?

I have read that doing spot repairs with OC is not recommended. Does anyone have any first hand experience with this? I can do the whole panels, but the hood is a lot of real estate.

What polish is recommended for scuffing the OC for applying another layer?


I know that a couple of these topics have been touched on in the past. Wondering if anyone has experienced anything new with this and has new advice.
 
I think Optimum's Finish Polish is recommend to scuff and layer.

If the repair is made by repainting the panel I think they could scuff and prep it like they normally would.
 
How "used" are we talking about here?

I have a client whose E46 M3 I regularly deal with, and it too has been Opti-Coated. Just this past week, he decided to take it in to a body shop for the front bumper cover to be refinished. When he got it back and brought it to me to get all the body shop dust out, we noticed that there were a TON of fish-eyes and other defects -- probably because the bumper cover was not adequitely prepped.

Since we're talking about a refinishing scenario here as well, I would just make sure the body shop is told to be VERY thorough about scuffing with appropriate grit; by time they're done with that any OC should be long gone.

Oh, and as far as doing "spot repairs" to a panel, aka clear coat blending, I'd have to advise against as well. The smart play is to just get the whole panel refinished.
 
This is the car.

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The car was pretty heavily swirled. The paint was very hard and took a lot of time to correct, but turned out good except for the two rock chips in the hood and the scratch in the rear bumper that were beyond my capabilities. I advised that, if the repairs would be done, they should be done before the Opti-Coat. If the guy is good it should be kept small.

I am more concerned with the prep work for the repair, but I would still like to be able to avoid having to redo the whole hood and bumper if I can. I might just have to do a little testing and see what I can do.
 
I wouldn't worry about it. Any paint work is gonna require scuffing at the least and that will surely destroy the OC layer.
 
The original pro version couldn't stick to itself and looked hazy when spot repairing and we were recommending recoating the whole panel. Opti Coat 2.0 and the current Opti Guard are able to layer in most cases without polishing, but if you try it and it doesn't flash clear like normal a finishing polish will scuff it enough to add another layer.

As for the shop doing the repair they only need to use a scuff pad to prep for paint.
 
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