things I never used to notice!!!
- Thread starter SenojNW
- Start date
Congrats! Your well on your way to become an Autopian 
It's an addiction....I do the same...I actually drive myself nuts looking at all these cars all day...Picking out imperfections in them.....
Basically every car I look at I say to myself "wow that needs to be detailed" for one reason or another...
I wish I could turn that off sometimes ahahah.. Oh...and my girlfriend thinks Im nuts
It's an addiction....I do the same...I actually drive myself nuts looking at all these cars all day...Picking out imperfections in them.....
Basically every car I look at I say to myself "wow that needs to be detailed" for one reason or another...
I wish I could turn that off sometimes ahahah.. Oh...and my girlfriend thinks Im nuts
Yes - my wife thinks it is fascinating NOT!
Driving to work together has never been so interesting for her - "gee look at those swirl marks - that guy doesn't know what he is doing" or "thats a terrible case of clearcoat failure" (she now points these out to me!).
Or better still - "what have you bloody ordered off the net now?!!"
NOT!Driving to work together has never been so interesting for her - "gee look at those swirl marks - that guy doesn't know what he is doing" or "thats a terrible case of clearcoat failure" (she now points these out to me!).
Or better still - "what have you bloody ordered off the net now?!!"
LucasZCPM3
New member
I do have to admit I when to a car show a couple of months ago where I couldn’t get past the Swirs on a Murcielago roadster. Then again the only Manufacturer there that had properly detailed cars was Rolls Royce.
At a car show at Mohegan Sun last year I was looking at a couple Cobra replicas. One was yellow with black stripes, the other was black. While glacing over the paint on the black one, the owner walked up and asked "what do you think?"
I replied "The cars are awesome," then went back to looking at the paint over the car. He must've got curious and slowly followed me around before asking what I was looking for in the paint. I said "nothing in particular, really...just checking it out", but he insisted, so I (as nicely as possible) pointed out some holograms and swirls. He seemed a little surprised, so I offered to teach him how to clean it up for free if he wanted, but he declined.
There was a very rare Porsche Speedster there, and there was an insane amount of swirls in it.
No matter how nice the car, some people just don't know any better. A few years back I didn't either, I used to cake Gold Class on my old Cougar and buff it off with a cotton bonnet on a cheap Waxmaster thinking it was helping, with no prep.
I replied "The cars are awesome," then went back to looking at the paint over the car. He must've got curious and slowly followed me around before asking what I was looking for in the paint. I said "nothing in particular, really...just checking it out", but he insisted, so I (as nicely as possible) pointed out some holograms and swirls. He seemed a little surprised, so I offered to teach him how to clean it up for free if he wanted, but he declined.
There was a very rare Porsche Speedster there, and there was an insane amount of swirls in it.
No matter how nice the car, some people just don't know any better. A few years back I didn't either, I used to cake Gold Class on my old Cougar and buff it off with a cotton bonnet on a cheap Waxmaster thinking it was helping, with no prep.
tomee
New member
yup, whenever im at a shopping centre car park, i always look at cars paint finishes..
and always think to myself... i never say it out aloud when my gf is next to me, becasue she will totall ignore it
and always think to myself... i never say it out aloud when my gf is next to me, becasue she will totall ignore it
My wife says that it's in my blood to be addicted to something. I used to be a bike racer and for 17 years I was addicted to bikes. Then I had an accident in 04 that ended my career. What to do with all my free time????? Having detailed my own cars and some friends for the past 10 years, Now I am addicted to detailing. All of my friends laugh but my wife gets it. She encourages it b/c her car obviously wins as well . If not, who knows what I'd turn to. When we go on road trips we play i spy with bad paint jobs and she asks me "what kind of car is that?" ""what would you do to fix it?"
I love it!!!
. If not, who knows what I'd turn to. When we go on road trips we play i spy with bad paint jobs and she asks me "what kind of car is that?" ""what would you do to fix it?" I love it!!!
I too never used to notice such things. Prior to starting browsing this forum, all I would notice if a car was dirty or not.
Now I notice:
-Swirling and how easy they are to see on certain colors
-Minor dents, scratches, scuffs and thing about how I would remedy them
-Whether or not other's cars could use a claying/polish/paint seal
Mostly I notice how most people really don't care for their car's appearance. I asked my co-worker last week how often he waxes his car and he said "no need to". He washes his car every month but won't wax it. It's a nice deep blue Odessey van now. But we'll see how it weathers.
Now I notice:
-Swirling and how easy they are to see on certain colors
-Minor dents, scratches, scuffs and thing about how I would remedy them
-Whether or not other's cars could use a claying/polish/paint seal
Mostly I notice how most people really don't care for their car's appearance. I asked my co-worker last week how often he waxes his car and he said "no need to". He washes his car every month but won't wax it. It's a nice deep blue Odessey van now. But we'll see how it weathers.
WSUcommuter
New member
I've had to justify the presence of other cars looking bad as nothing more than making mine look that much better.
Accumulator
Well-known member
Warning: More of Accumulator's Autopian Heresy follows 
IMO we gotta watch that we don't get *so* wrapped up in this stuff that it a) takes the fun out of the whole car-hobby thing and/or b) makes us marring-phobic fanatics
And I can be quite guilty on both counts myself! Gee, if I didn't care about marring (and all the time I spend detailing) so much I'd have a lot more miles on my good cars and a lot fewer miles on that minivan 
I know some guys whose cars could sure use some correction, but they're having a ball with them so IMO more power to them. A perfect example is a guy who bought his XKE new in Germany back in the '60s- he and his wife are *still* having loads of fun with it and, while I cringe at how it looks, I know better than to tell the old guy how to treat his pride and joy.
And I sometimes gotta remind myself that correcting the original paint on a rare car means taking *off* a good bit of that original paint, and it's only original once. Not that a striking a balance/finding a happy medium wouldn't be a good idea....
But yeah, Accumulatorette and I are always about the marring on everything we see. Heh heh, at [an event that had better remain nameless] she asked me "oh my, how would you ever fix *that* " ) about a show-winner that the owner thought was perfect :chuckle:
IMO we gotta watch that we don't get *so* wrapped up in this stuff that it a) takes the fun out of the whole car-hobby thing and/or b) makes us marring-phobic fanatics
And I can be quite guilty on both counts myself! Gee, if I didn't care about marring (and all the time I spend detailing) so much I'd have a lot more miles on my good cars and a lot fewer miles on that minivan I know some guys whose cars could sure use some correction, but they're having a ball with them so IMO more power to them. A perfect example is a guy who bought his XKE new in Germany back in the '60s- he and his wife are *still* having loads of fun with it and, while I cringe at how it looks, I know better than to tell the old guy how to treat his pride and joy.
And I sometimes gotta remind myself that correcting the original paint on a rare car means taking *off* a good bit of that original paint, and it's only original once. Not that a striking a balance/finding a happy medium wouldn't be a good idea....
But yeah, Accumulatorette and I are always
about the marring on everything we see. Heh heh, at [an event that had better remain nameless] she asked me "oh my, how would you ever fix *that* " ) about a show-winner that the owner thought was perfect :chuckle:My GF hates me for it, we'll be going down the highway, and some nice Vette or Hummer or something really nice will go by, and whereas used to she would say something along the lines of, "I want one of those!" now it's "look at the orange peel and swirl marks!" I really is amazing how many nice BRAND NEW cars out there have such horrible paint.
imported_bdornseif
New member
I even started to check out and comment on the swirls in the paint on the cars auctioned at the Barrett-Jackson Classic Car Auction when they televised it on Speed Channel in January. My wife looked at me like I was new to the planet.
Bruce
Bruce
Good to see this has stimulated so much discussion...
I almost got sprung the other day checking out some clearcoat failure in a parking lot - I just thought it was a good opportunity to get a better appreciation of how thick clearcoat really is... WHAT???
Spotted the cleaners at a car dealership next to a busy city road the other day doing their daily rounds to clean up the "new" cars. The process involved a light spray with the hose followed immediately with a chamois! *CRINGE* I know for a fact that I can detail my car one day, park it in a city parking lot and find it covered in dust and brake dust by the end of the day...
No wonder there are so many "new" cars out there with bad paint...
I almost got sprung the other day checking out some clearcoat failure in a parking lot - I just thought it was a good opportunity to get a better appreciation of how thick clearcoat really is... WHAT???
Spotted the cleaners at a car dealership next to a busy city road the other day doing their daily rounds to clean up the "new" cars. The process involved a light spray with the hose followed immediately with a chamois! *CRINGE* I know for a fact that I can detail my car one day, park it in a city parking lot and find it covered in dust and brake dust by the end of the day...
No wonder there are so many "new" cars out there with bad paint...
picking apart other cars is just the first stage of it......lol
last year i was turned into a full blown autopian.
first - you start out with the noticing every small thing
second - you start forming in your head, what combos i would use to correct this and that and to make it shine like crazy.
thrid (wich is my current stage) - Is buying every thing you can think of even though you have so much crap at home and havent even used all the new stuff you have recently purchased......(i am fighting a loosing battle of ordering just about the entire jeff werkstatt line and a rotary, god save us all)
last year i was turned into a full blown autopian.
first - you start out with the noticing every small thing
second - you start forming in your head, what combos i would use to correct this and that and to make it shine like crazy.
thrid (wich is my current stage) - Is buying every thing you can think of even though you have so much crap at home and havent even used all the new stuff you have recently purchased......(i am fighting a loosing battle of ordering just about the entire jeff werkstatt line and a rotary, god save us all)
imported_NT2SHBBY
New member
how about when a friend/aquaintance approaches you with their freshly "cleaned" car asking your opinion of it and all you can say is "It would look so much better if you'd get rid of those nasty swirlmarks" :nervous: