Well, it’s been nearly a year since I last detailed a car due to a bad illness and one thing and another getting in the way of things. So to ease myself back into the driving seat so to say I decided to pick this beauty… The victim: 2004 Audi A3 2.0TDi in solid black. The owner has used what could only be described as an automatic scotch pad to clean the car weekly. Running defects • Matt finish to the paint. • Clear coat failure. • Shoddy repair to the rear bumper with “fish eyes” due to trapped silicones everywhere. • Oh and to top it off the stone ships were “touched up” using a tin of black paint from a motor factors applied with a ¼” paint brush!! Nothing like breaking myself in easy. To help, I have to say a big thanks to both PJS and Clarke G for the sterling efforts in turning this pig around in the time we did! So onto the initial pics! Stone chips were “touched up using a ¼” brush… Nice. Bird lime etching everywhere. Clear coat failure in several places. After washing/de-taring, claying and a final wash this is the result….. Milky white “scum” oxidation all over the paint work!!! Is it too late to respray this thing! On initial start I decided to use Menz a5RD in a cutting pad with the rotary. However this and EVERY other combination including a Powergloss/fastcut plus mix on a heavy cutting pad just “bounced” off the paintwork making no impact whatsoever!! Eventually I got the following combination to work: • Menz power Gloss/85RD mix on a Megs heavy cutting pad then to a LC Compounding pad applied using my Dewalt DA (2 hits) • Refined using 3M perfect-it applied using a compounding pad, again by DA. For LSP we decided on • CG Wet Mirror Finish applied by DA with a 3M waffle finishing pad. • 1 coat Dodo Double (Hard) applied by Megs foam applicator then refined and worked by DA with a 3M waffle finishing pad. This gives a much better finish to the wax than applying by hand. • 1 coat of Dodo Double (soft) applied by Megs foam applicator and left to harden. • Finishing buff using Zaino Z8 because it would be rude not to! First off a Top Tip.. never clay using sweet smelling QD if you live out in the country or in no time your car will be covered in a thousand flies looking for lunch!! PJS hard at work with the cyclone!! Now this is hard core wet sanding in with the rotary!! Time for a hard earned buttie break! Here is the result of a really bad repair and paint job. “fish eyes” from silicones all over the rear bumper!! Bumper corrected and now just nice depth and reflections! Correction finished so we rolled her out and washed her down to see if we missed anything and where the marring form heavy correction remained if any. Clarke hard at work at the wheels! So that’s where the biscuits whet to! Interior wet vacuumed, cleaned with APC and all surfaced dressed. Seats were given liquid leather cleaner and then conditioned After LSP the finished pictures. Hope you liked. Ronnie…
Very nice job. It sure looked like you had you're work cut out for you. It's alway nice to have the safety guy keeping an eye on you. Great job. it looks awesome. Way to go...:thumb:
Good to see you posting again Ronnie it sure has been a wile. That Audi was beyond desperate need of a good detail, I have to admit I had to cringe a bit when I saw the rotary wet sanding :scared: Great turn around though oh and garage is looking good, good to see it all done up now. Look forward on seeing you around eace:
Rotary wet sanding, if you have the confidence and take plenty of readings during it, is nothing to be scarred of. It was done for quickness, since my hand was cramping from doing some other scratches on the roof - oh and it was late on in the evening, with a Chinese takeaway beckoning. So, with this one being 11" long at least, and the paint being its awkward self, there was no way it was being done by hand. Plenty of water, speed setting 1 (800rpm) on the Kestrel, and even then, it took long enough with the 3K 3M pad. Needless to say though, it came out, and the paint lost about 14µm - 150 down to 136, with another 1-2µm after final refinement.
