A CTS-V Coupe - we have been wanting to detail one of these for quite a long time now and while we had a couple booked, they always ended up canceling out...but not this time. The owner of this particular V is a well known and respected member of the EcoBoost forum and an all around nut when it comes to cars and speed. Considering his previous car was a Ford Flex....a 600HP Ecoboost...Ford...Flex...I'm sure you can imagine what he had done to an already extremely fast CTS-V.
While we had tried to set up a date to polish his car a couple different times...for one reason or another it never worked out. Then, a few weeks ago off of a whim while i was out with my girlfriend, i decided to swing by the Pavilions in Scottsdale, which holds a car show every Saturday night...and guess who i bumped into!
The owner and i chatted it up for a while...and i noticed right away, even in the not so bright parking lot lights at the Pavilions, that his hood was covered in buffer trails/holograms. While it looked bad in that light, it looked horrible in the sunlight the day he came to drop it off:
Yes, we are talking about some MAJOR holograms here folks! This was not pretty ....at all. The owner actually first booked a date to just have a wash done as he intended to take it out that weekend....and while he was there he was kind enough to take us for a ride. Dani and I both looked at it and thought it kinda had a bat mobile look to it...after taking a ride in a 10 second, 130 mph 1/4 mile car (and soon to be even faster)...we were convinced our bat mobile interpretation was on the mark!
Fast forward to that Monday, the date we had set for the correction and CQuartz Finest coating....first thing was first...and that was to document what we were starting out with....and as you saw above - it aint pretty.
As usual, from a distance, not bad looking at all. And again, as usual, once you put a light on the situation you want to scream...
I'll let that sink in for a minute. Ok...are we ready to continue? Alright...lets move on.
Initial analysis, the hood was JACKED UP! This was of course a very technical and carefully calculated conclusion...and while the hood was covered in buffer trails galore, the damage to the rest of the car was not to be underestimated.
Lots of good ole fashion swirls...
While the whole car of course was covered with them, we noticed the roof in particular was extremely bad...not just by the amount of swirls, but because of how DEEP they were.
There were some good scuffs in this paint, no doubt about it. After our walk around was complete we got it cleaned up and then got to work decontaminating the paint.
The Carpro Polyshave towel sold by Carpro-Us.com is an awesome tool. Priced well...works great and really makes quick work of bonded contaminates.
While prepping the paint...we came across a few very unfortunate things...such as the lip at the top of the hood. We had hoped it was just caked on compound that was not removed by whoever buffed the paint before...but this was an edge burn. Buff paint at too high of a speed with a rotary/high speed buffer and don't know what you are doing and you can expect this to happen.
Here i am decontaminating the roof.
We did find some other evidence of a bad buff job.....here is some left over compound on the under side of the rear clip
Cool exhaust huh?
Not so cool caked on compound residue.
Here is Dani working the front clip.
After the prep was done...next up was the test spot...the must do if you are going to be effective at getting the paint "dialed in" correctly....this is where we figure out what combo of machine, pad, polish(es) and technique works appropriately for this particular car. It should be noted that the hood and front quarter panels were repainted. We believe the front and rear clip were as well but, being that they were plastic we could not get a paint thickness reading on them.
Whats this mean? It essentially means we are dealing with 2 different types of paint here...OEM...and the repainted sections. This means as we travel panel to panel, we may actually end up having to use two different methods to get the paint perfect. Sometimes you get lucky and what start out with works on the whole car...other times you get areas that really make you earn your pay - as you have to troubleshoot the area and figure out why you aren't getting rid of the swirls...or why the paint isn't finishing down perfectly...and on black...this is always an adventure.
Side note: This is being done in June in Arizona. The outside temp was 110 degrees. To say this has an effect on how the polishes/pads/chemicals work compared to "normal" conditions, is an understatement.
Onward to the test spot!
Meguiars, meguiars, meguiars. Meguiars microfiber pads, compound (M100 in this case) and polish, used as a compound (M205) was what we found to work. For part of the car, M205 on a MF cutting disc was knocking out everything, but then we got to some panels that had some very deep RIDS left (M205 still got 85% correction or so, but we wanted more) so we brought out the M100.
M100 has been a big plus for us in the heat. While M105 is still awesome stuff...when using a DA polisher...in 100+ degree weather...you have a very short buff cycle. M100 on the other hand gives us a longer buffing cycles with virtually no loss in cut and makes for easy residue removal after finishing a section. This is a big help for us.
Once we knew what to use to cut, Dani grabbed the other Rupes 21 and started rockin' out on the paint as well.
Now of course you're all wondering....hows the paint coming out! Well first lets check out the sides.
This is what we started with:
Got some nice swirls going on there as you can see.
This is what we were ending up with after compounding:
A bit closer, this was before - which you can see here the deeper swirls i was talking about...
And after:
Now for those of you with keen eyes, you can make out the very faint "tick" marks left over from compounding. So while yes, the swirls were gone, this paint was far from being complete. This is why further refinement and polishing of the paint will be necessary.
After polishing, you can see that absolute clarity and gloss is now visible. If you look closely towards the left side of the reflection, you can still see the slight "grey" look to the compounded, but not yet polished portion of the paint.
All in all...the car was coming along nicely. It was taking a lot of work (and a whole lot of sweat!) but we were winning. We took the liberty of taping off half of that horribly hologram covered hood...compounding and polishing half of it and then pulling it back into the sun the next day at the same exact time as we had the previous day (to get the sun at the same angle). The difference was crazy...
"OBVIOUSLY!"...this was what i was saying in the background when Dani was shooting a short video showing the difference in the paint...OBVIOUSLY we had not done the left side...and OBVIOUSLY we had completed the right
Check out that paint. Polished to a perfect gloss with HD Polish...the awesome carbon fiber paint pattern was now looking the way it should....amazing, at least on half of the hood hehe.
Conclusion...the owner was going to be ecstatic!
There was still more work to be done...and the roof, as noted earlier, was going to take a different approach to get into the condition that we wanted it. Enter Meguiars 3000 grit finishing discs....
It was time for a little damp sanding on the roof. While we could compound away over and over and over on the roof to remove the deep defects that were present, the quicker...and actually "less invasive" method (meaning that this is actually safer and will remove less clear coat) was to damp sand the roof with 3000 grit...then compound and polish.
The good ole Porter Cable 7424. Our first machine we bought years ago...and still even today its being used...never had an issue with it even once...just a great machine. Here it is being used to sand the roof.
From this step it left a uniform haze on the paint. The key word being UNIFORM. So rather than having defects ranging from a 1-10 in terms of depth, they were all at the same level now...which meant we should fairly easily be able to compound them out. While the combo of pad/compound/machine was working to remove the defects, it was taking a bit longer than i would have liked. So, i broke out the rotary and Megs Wool pad...along with M100 and was able to very quickly remove the defects on the roof.
I then followed up with the Megs M100/MF disc combo we had been using, to further refine the defects...and then polished with HD polish. Now, while this SOUNDS like it would take longer to do since I added in a couple of steps, in the end it actually saves time and gives a better result.
This is an idea as to how our roof looked after sanding.
Note its uniform. Next up would be the rotary and wool pad combo...
After that combo this is how the finish looked. Yup, there are buffer trails, but i dont care about buffer trails after wool and rotary. Really, its sort of expected....but since i'll be further refining the paint - all was good.
Dani in the mean time was doing some edge/tight area work...such as the side mirror here.
And the fun part, under the rear clip which was NOT easy to get to...
Let me take a moment to give a quick shout out to Mr Kevin Brown (again) of BuffDaddy.com ....because while using the Rupes 75 (seen above) early on in the detail, it suddenly froze up. It would not rotate or oscillate. After a quick text/call to Kevin, he actually sent a diagram of the inner parts of the Rupes...explained what had likely happened (a piece of rust go stuck), advised me to spray it liberally with WD40 and work the counter weight by hand to bust the rust free...and that all should be good (all this happened at the end of day 1).
The beginning of day 2 i went out and did as he had advised...and as you can see above..it worked like a charm...which thrilled Dani because, to use her words "I gotta have my lil' Rupes!"
Speaking of the end of day one....between having several polishers, lights, lil fans, air compressor line and cords..with more cords and a side of cords...well...this pic had to be taken...
Dani described it as "Bufferville USA". She also described it as a freaking mess that was driving her crazy! Since having OCD is a must to be a good detailer lol, seeing THIS really whacks you out with the quickness! You have to stop and untangle this mess because you know if you don't you will just set a match to the whole thing because looking at it is going to drive you crazy!
While we had tried to set up a date to polish his car a couple different times...for one reason or another it never worked out. Then, a few weeks ago off of a whim while i was out with my girlfriend, i decided to swing by the Pavilions in Scottsdale, which holds a car show every Saturday night...and guess who i bumped into!
The owner and i chatted it up for a while...and i noticed right away, even in the not so bright parking lot lights at the Pavilions, that his hood was covered in buffer trails/holograms. While it looked bad in that light, it looked horrible in the sunlight the day he came to drop it off:
Yes, we are talking about some MAJOR holograms here folks! This was not pretty ....at all. The owner actually first booked a date to just have a wash done as he intended to take it out that weekend....and while he was there he was kind enough to take us for a ride. Dani and I both looked at it and thought it kinda had a bat mobile look to it...after taking a ride in a 10 second, 130 mph 1/4 mile car (and soon to be even faster)...we were convinced our bat mobile interpretation was on the mark!
Fast forward to that Monday, the date we had set for the correction and CQuartz Finest coating....first thing was first...and that was to document what we were starting out with....and as you saw above - it aint pretty.
As usual, from a distance, not bad looking at all. And again, as usual, once you put a light on the situation you want to scream...
I'll let that sink in for a minute. Ok...are we ready to continue? Alright...lets move on.
Initial analysis, the hood was JACKED UP! This was of course a very technical and carefully calculated conclusion...and while the hood was covered in buffer trails galore, the damage to the rest of the car was not to be underestimated.
Lots of good ole fashion swirls...
While the whole car of course was covered with them, we noticed the roof in particular was extremely bad...not just by the amount of swirls, but because of how DEEP they were.
There were some good scuffs in this paint, no doubt about it. After our walk around was complete we got it cleaned up and then got to work decontaminating the paint.
The Carpro Polyshave towel sold by Carpro-Us.com is an awesome tool. Priced well...works great and really makes quick work of bonded contaminates.
While prepping the paint...we came across a few very unfortunate things...such as the lip at the top of the hood. We had hoped it was just caked on compound that was not removed by whoever buffed the paint before...but this was an edge burn. Buff paint at too high of a speed with a rotary/high speed buffer and don't know what you are doing and you can expect this to happen.
Here i am decontaminating the roof.We did find some other evidence of a bad buff job.....here is some left over compound on the under side of the rear clip
Cool exhaust huh?
Not so cool caked on compound residue.
Here is Dani working the front clip.
After the prep was done...next up was the test spot...the must do if you are going to be effective at getting the paint "dialed in" correctly....this is where we figure out what combo of machine, pad, polish(es) and technique works appropriately for this particular car. It should be noted that the hood and front quarter panels were repainted. We believe the front and rear clip were as well but, being that they were plastic we could not get a paint thickness reading on them.
Whats this mean? It essentially means we are dealing with 2 different types of paint here...OEM...and the repainted sections. This means as we travel panel to panel, we may actually end up having to use two different methods to get the paint perfect. Sometimes you get lucky and what start out with works on the whole car...other times you get areas that really make you earn your pay - as you have to troubleshoot the area and figure out why you aren't getting rid of the swirls...or why the paint isn't finishing down perfectly...and on black...this is always an adventure.
Side note: This is being done in June in Arizona. The outside temp was 110 degrees. To say this has an effect on how the polishes/pads/chemicals work compared to "normal" conditions, is an understatement.
Onward to the test spot!
Meguiars, meguiars, meguiars. Meguiars microfiber pads, compound (M100 in this case) and polish, used as a compound (M205) was what we found to work. For part of the car, M205 on a MF cutting disc was knocking out everything, but then we got to some panels that had some very deep RIDS left (M205 still got 85% correction or so, but we wanted more) so we brought out the M100.
M100 has been a big plus for us in the heat. While M105 is still awesome stuff...when using a DA polisher...in 100+ degree weather...you have a very short buff cycle. M100 on the other hand gives us a longer buffing cycles with virtually no loss in cut and makes for easy residue removal after finishing a section. This is a big help for us.
Once we knew what to use to cut, Dani grabbed the other Rupes 21 and started rockin' out on the paint as well.
Now of course you're all wondering....hows the paint coming out! Well first lets check out the sides.
This is what we started with:
Got some nice swirls going on there as you can see.This is what we were ending up with after compounding:
A bit closer, this was before - which you can see here the deeper swirls i was talking about...
And after:
Now for those of you with keen eyes, you can make out the very faint "tick" marks left over from compounding. So while yes, the swirls were gone, this paint was far from being complete. This is why further refinement and polishing of the paint will be necessary.
After polishing, you can see that absolute clarity and gloss is now visible. If you look closely towards the left side of the reflection, you can still see the slight "grey" look to the compounded, but not yet polished portion of the paint.
All in all...the car was coming along nicely. It was taking a lot of work (and a whole lot of sweat!) but we were winning. We took the liberty of taping off half of that horribly hologram covered hood...compounding and polishing half of it and then pulling it back into the sun the next day at the same exact time as we had the previous day (to get the sun at the same angle). The difference was crazy...
"OBVIOUSLY!"...this was what i was saying in the background when Dani was shooting a short video showing the difference in the paint...OBVIOUSLY we had not done the left side...and OBVIOUSLY we had completed the right
Check out that paint. Polished to a perfect gloss with HD Polish...the awesome carbon fiber paint pattern was now looking the way it should....amazing, at least on half of the hood hehe.
Conclusion...the owner was going to be ecstatic!
There was still more work to be done...and the roof, as noted earlier, was going to take a different approach to get into the condition that we wanted it. Enter Meguiars 3000 grit finishing discs....
It was time for a little damp sanding on the roof. While we could compound away over and over and over on the roof to remove the deep defects that were present, the quicker...and actually "less invasive" method (meaning that this is actually safer and will remove less clear coat) was to damp sand the roof with 3000 grit...then compound and polish.
The good ole Porter Cable 7424. Our first machine we bought years ago...and still even today its being used...never had an issue with it even once...just a great machine. Here it is being used to sand the roof.
From this step it left a uniform haze on the paint. The key word being UNIFORM. So rather than having defects ranging from a 1-10 in terms of depth, they were all at the same level now...which meant we should fairly easily be able to compound them out. While the combo of pad/compound/machine was working to remove the defects, it was taking a bit longer than i would have liked. So, i broke out the rotary and Megs Wool pad...along with M100 and was able to very quickly remove the defects on the roof.
I then followed up with the Megs M100/MF disc combo we had been using, to further refine the defects...and then polished with HD polish. Now, while this SOUNDS like it would take longer to do since I added in a couple of steps, in the end it actually saves time and gives a better result.
This is an idea as to how our roof looked after sanding.
Note its uniform. Next up would be the rotary and wool pad combo...
After that combo this is how the finish looked. Yup, there are buffer trails, but i dont care about buffer trails after wool and rotary. Really, its sort of expected....but since i'll be further refining the paint - all was good.
Dani in the mean time was doing some edge/tight area work...such as the side mirror here.
And the fun part, under the rear clip which was NOT easy to get to...
Let me take a moment to give a quick shout out to Mr Kevin Brown (again) of BuffDaddy.com ....because while using the Rupes 75 (seen above) early on in the detail, it suddenly froze up. It would not rotate or oscillate. After a quick text/call to Kevin, he actually sent a diagram of the inner parts of the Rupes...explained what had likely happened (a piece of rust go stuck), advised me to spray it liberally with WD40 and work the counter weight by hand to bust the rust free...and that all should be good (all this happened at the end of day 1).
The beginning of day 2 i went out and did as he had advised...and as you can see above..it worked like a charm...which thrilled Dani because, to use her words "I gotta have my lil' Rupes!"
Speaking of the end of day one....between having several polishers, lights, lil fans, air compressor line and cords..with more cords and a side of cords...well...this pic had to be taken...
Dani described it as "Bufferville USA". She also described it as a freaking mess that was driving her crazy! Since having OCD is a must to be a good detailer lol, seeing THIS really whacks you out with the quickness! You have to stop and untangle this mess because you know if you don't you will just set a match to the whole thing because looking at it is going to drive you crazy!
