Just Make It Shiny!

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This car was originally in for mechanical repair, but since I had a few extra days with it, I decided to spend some time on the exterior.

The goal was to get this car looking better and protected. Throughout the entire vehicle, there was lots of oxidation, haze and paint defects. In particular, there were very heavy defects on the roof and along the lower-half of all doors.

Since this was a dark color with fairly soft paint, it would take multiple polishing steps to fully restore the gloss after any heavy correction. So in the interest of time and paint preservation, I did not chase the deeper defects.

I decided to use a medium polish with a light cutting pad to remove the oxidation and the light defects, and follow-up with a finishing polish on a finishing pad to really maximize the gloss.

Here was the process:

Wash w/ Meguiar's Hyper Wash
Iron-X spray for chemical decontamination
Nanoskin Medium Grade Mitt as a Clay Alternative
Optimum Hyper Polish w/ Lake Country Orange Pad on Rupes 21
CarPro Reflect w/ Rupes White Pad on Rupes 21
IPA wipedown
Optimum Opti-Coat as LSP
Tire Dressing was a P&S product -- probably silicone based.
Trim was dressed using BlackWow Pro

General condition of the paint - lots of oxidation and defects:



Here's a before/after of a section of the roof.

Before:



After -- Optimum Hyper Polish & Lake Country Orange Pad only:



(Note: As expected, all of the deep defects are still there. However, the oxidation, haze and lighter defects are gone -- so, it's shiny again!)

To me, the correction step left a noticeable haze on this soft paint, so I ran over the entire car with an ultra-fine finishing polish to bring out maximum gloss. But for some unknown reason, the paint began acting extremely sticky during this step.

CarPro Reflect gave me the best results for this step. Both HD Polish and Menzerna SF4000 were sticking very badly. Even CarPro Reflect began to dust horribly after the 2nd pass, which I have NEVER seen it do before.




This was how the car looked after all polishing was completed, but before the final wash and paint coating application.



Up-closer:




All done -- final pictures after Opti-Coat application, tire dressing and BlackWow Pro on the trim:






As you can tell from the different backgrounds, I worked on this car over the course of several days. In total, I spent about 8 hours. The goal was to get this car shiny and protected -- and I think I accomplished that.

I should also thank qwertydude for making me more cognizant of the importance of paint preservation.

Happy Detailing!
 
Originally Posted By: The Critic
This car was originally in for mechanical repair, but since I had a few extra days with it, I decided to spend some time on the exterior.

If you don't hurry up, you're going to miss the snow. Remember, my garage is heated.
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Looks excellent, I seriously wish I lived near you so you could detail mine. Oh, and out of curiosity...what mechanical repair was this in for?
 
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Paint preservation is vital nowadays with such thin paints and I'm especially paranoid about Hondas. The reason being is they're notorious for peeling clear. Very very thin and somewhat delicate clears.

There was a class action lawsuit too because the clear was so prone to peeling even in as little as two years.

http://www.consumeraffairs.com/automotive/honda_paint.html

Luckily the Fit seems to be less prone to peeling but it's still a rather delicate paint that shouldn't be heavily polished.

But otherwise it looks good. About as good as your gonna want to get a neglected car.
 
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Thanks guys.

Originally Posted By: gregk24
Looks excellent, I seriously wish I lived near you so you could detail mine. Oh, and out of curiosity...what mechanical repair was this in for?


I replaced the throttle body, plugs and coolant.
 
I am not sure if I am impressed with the finish as compared to the amount of the work that was done to the car. Here is a similar picture of a 15 year old paint as it came out out automatic car wash. You tell me how bad is this as compared to the Fit picture. If the Fit had 10 finish, what would you give to this one?
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Unless you post closeups of the paint including full sun shots or indoors with a bright light reflecting. There's no way to judge the quality of the finish by those photos.

Critic has shown the amount of swirl removal quite well and considering how deep the original swirls, I hesitate to call them swirls but really numerous deep scratches.

But even the gloss improvement can readily be seen in the outdoor finished shots. I don't think that van is even remotely comparable. The reflections look dull and the overall gloss is average at best.

The Fit after polishing wouldn't be a 10, on a detailing level you at most could improve that car to a 9 because of the previous very severe neglect. Critic went conservative to preserve the paint. I'd give it a 7. The van if you can post full sun shots or well lit reflections. I'd likely give it a 4-5.
 
Originally Posted By: Vikas
You tell me how bad is this as compared to the Fit picture. If the Fit had 10 finish, what would you give to this one?

Heck, I'm not even 100% sure what color that van is, so wouldn't even try to guess the condition of the paint from those pics.
 
Quote:
I'd give it a 7. The van if you can post full sun shots or well lit reflections. I'd likely give it a 4-5.
I would be thrilled if you would give 4 to the van which came out from an automatic car wash vs the 7 for the multi-step process! My next annual car wash would be on a sunny day.

The Fit final results as posted don't do justice to the amount of efforts expended on that vehicle. I mean if one can get better than 50% results with nothing but a car wash on a 15 year finish compared to lot newer car with hours of work done on it, what is the point?
 
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Welcome to the world of "when things go wrong". Been there more often than I care to admit but always managed to pull it off. Sometimes there is just no explanation for the way things turn out. Glad you managed a "save" on this one.
 
Originally Posted By: Vikas
Quote:
I'd give it a 7. The van if you can post full sun shots or well lit reflections. I'd likely give it a 4-5.
I would be thrilled if you would give 4 to the van which came out from an automatic car wash vs the 7 for the multi-step process! My next annual car wash would be on a sunny day.

The Fit final results as posted don't do justice to the amount of efforts expended on that vehicle. I mean if one can get better than 50% results with nothing but a car wash on a 15 year finish compared to lot newer car with hours of work done on it, what is the point?


Some people like hamburger, some people like steak. Is there a difference in what essentially makes them up? Not really they're both beef products.

But for the people that care about how their car looks the difference between a 4-5 condition paint and a 8-10 condition paint might as well be as big as the grand canyon.

I don't think you're understanding. If this was out of 100 points and I gave the car a 50, essentially a failing grade and the Fit an 80, which is a solid B then maybe that scale will give you a better picture about how some people see their paint quality. Even the 70 I'd probably give the Fit is at least still a passing grade if somewhat average.

I can tell you unless that van was regularly detailed, it's paint is as liable to be trashed as the Fit was in the before pictures.

So just running it through a car wash certainly wouldn't give it any real gloss and any shine enhancers will literally wash away in the next rain or car wash and you're back to looking like trashed paint. Whereas, like on my cars, when it rains and I drive it and all the water flies off taking the dirt with it, I've had people ask me if I just detailed my car because the paint looks so good and glossy and nothing sticks to it after the simple rain rinsing it got. Which is actually quite a rare occurrence what with the drought in southern California.

For the past year or so I've only been rinseless washing my cars using my homemade rinseless wash and detailer spray. Saves water, time, and even in direct sunlight I can wash the car and leave no spots. On my black Caddy it's especially important since on a hot and dry day with a regular wash the panels start spotting badly within about 30 seconds and will be completely dry after about 2 minutes. The rinselsess wash lets me work a single panel at a time so the water has no time to spot between cleaning and drying.

And since my paint is polished it always comes out looking freshly waxed and detailed since I add a wax booster to my rinseless wash.
 
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