This car was purchased just a few months ago from someone who lived up in new york. And up in the north, cars are subject to a lot more abuse from road salt, snow, ice, etc. The S430 had some very deep rids and swirls covering the entire car. in addition to that, this car has the rock-hard Mercedez Ceramic clear coat. Nevertheless, i was able to clean up the paint to 99% perfection, using a combination of Meguiar's M105 and Menzerna polishes. On average it took 5-6 passes of M105 on a wool pad to remove the defects in the paint. This car was only booked for an exterior job, thus the engine bay and interior were not touched. Enjoy! Cleaning Exterior -Wash -1Z Anti Insekt -CG CWC -Meg's mitt -P21s TAW -Wheels -CG CWC -Meg's Wheel Brightener -P21s TAW -EZ detail brush -Swissvax wheel brush -OXO tire scrubber -ARO -Wheel Wells -P21s TAW -Meg's APC+ -Meg's Super Degreaser -DD wheel well brush Clay -Special yellow poly clay -ONR lube Polishing -Exterior paint -Meg's M105 via Black TufBuf wool / LC PFW pads (5-6 passes) -Menzerna SIP via Orange über pad (2 passes) -Menzerna PO85RD via blue über pad -Makita 9227C -3M Yellow Foam Backing Plate -1000w halogen lights -BMW LED flashlight (Someone stole my brinkmann! ) -ISA 50/50 wipedown -DD über MF towels -Racatac LSP -Paint -Collinite Insulator Wax -Swissvax Mystery -Optimum QD -CG 530XL MF towels -DD Fluffy green "no name" towels -Wheels -Swissvax Cleaner Fluid -Swissvax Autobahn -Optimum QD -CG Barebones (wheel wells) -Swissvax Pneu Glass -Adam's Glass Cleaner Before: Here you can see just how oxidized and scratched up the paint was on this car. at first i told the owner then it should take no more than three days... boy was i wrong... After taking the before shots, i drove the car into my garage and prepared all the necessary things for the three-bucket wash. (two for paint, one for wheels) After washing and claying the entire car, i realized that the imperfections in the paint were a lot worse than i had previously expected. sorry, no brinkmann shots this time around... i think someone stole it from my garage, i couldn't find it anywhere... just as an example of how hard this clear is, here's how the passenger side front fender looked after 4 passes of M105 unfortunately i could not find my Brinkmann Dual-xenon light, so i had to use the LED flashlight my M3 came with to check for holograms. it actually turned out to work quite well... Door before polishing after 2 passes of M105 after 4 passes of M105 6 passes finally did the trick this one took about the same amount of passes buffer marks from M105 After SIP and after 6 long days.... thats all! thanks for looking! Dom
At first I was like . . . Then I saw the afters and I was like Great transformation, that was some nasty paint there. I would of given up after 2 passes and said f-it, ha.
Nice work!!! Hope you were able to get paid for the extra work you had to put in!!?? Any idea how much clear had to be removed to get it levelled?? Car looks great!!!
Good work! Look into the Kevin brown method, it will help you a lot. Looks like you smashed into the emblem pretty hard with something though, be careful about that.
ive never heard of that method... and about the emblem... i had to move it around while polishing that area, and i completely forgot to put it back in place
Amazing turn around and damn that really was a hard clear coat, great job I always enjoy your write-ups!