dsms detail - Black STi sticky respray

The STi was hit by a drunk driver doh on the drivers side, whole side was re-sprayed.... bodyshop in the end sanded the entire car.

Issues included sanding scratches left over, solvent pop and runs in the clear.

Car came in very clean, wheels almost immaculate.

Little EZ brush works very well in between calipers and the hub mounting face. P21s gel cleaned up the barrels quick too.



Paint was pressure washed and I pre-soaked the whole car with a biodegradable APC at 5:1, this helped remove most of the prior wax coating. The owner did his best to maintain the finish.

Some of the prior oils/glaze dripping off with the pre-soak (learned this trick from Bryan Bursnwroth)





Car was rinsed again and washed with lusso auto bathe then clayed with Sonus green

Correction work





The paint was very unreceptive to the rotary, lots of buffer skip. Swicthed over to the new PC for correction, a little improvement but still very very sticky. I have done 2 OPB colored STI's prior and although they have a little sticky paint issue they are easily corrected.

This car was absorbing polish like crazy and gumming up cutting pads with 15seconds or so. After a few phone calls to Bob and Ryan (Rydawg) I realized there wasnt a wright or wrong answer as to how to approach correction on this clear, it just was a problem child.

M105 was needed to take care of some of the deeper defects but it was too aggressive for the paint and gummed up the pads very quickly.

Ened up with

SIP w/ green polishing pad
106FA w/ green polishing pad again
PO87mc w/ blue finishing pad

Even PO85rd on the PC left minor holograms, I switched up to 87mc because it has a tiny bit less cut and a bit more lubrication

After the 106FA, holos



After 87mc







Hood 50/50, haziness on the bottom half, corrected upper half



Finished the hood and brough it outside to inspect my work







Uncorrected area, rids and holos from the bodyshop



Opposite side corrected



Some experimenting with the new cyan cutting pads



Some results after the experimenting with the new cyan cutting pads. I like these pads on certain paints. I need to use them on a few more cars to give a conclusive review on weather they are great or just good.



Back to the issues, with the sun out I could see what else was left on the rest of the cah






Sanding scratches left over on the trunk



Wing 50/50





Before



After



In the end I was very disappointed I couldn't get complete correction in every area. I'd say the car got to about 90% as a whole.

It got very messy during correction so I re-washed it with the FK1 shampoo/degreaser and gave it an IPA bath before LSP.

2 coats of blackfire wet diamond left to cure 2 hours each
wheel sealed with rejex for winter

Dusted off with "Zee" duster, used to make fun of it but now am a believer:thumb:



Finished product



























Thanks for looking

:cig:

 

90% or not I still love it man!!!!!

The car looks fantastic.

 

i kno thats was hard job ..getting at that one dave wat compound u use ...wats the diffrence with subie paints

 

Looks great!

I have yet to run into a car with difficult clear....

Great work!!!!

 

Mate, for "only" 90% that looks so nice!

 

Great turn around Dave.

Looks like it fought you every step of the way, but you came out the victor. :headbang:

 

Nice work Dave. I know your paint with Subaru paint. I had to use pure ISO to get the sticky crap off the car. Pain in my ***.

 

stunning work, man! I never knew Subaru had sticky paint, I knew that Infiniti does. I heard Gloss It polishes work well on sticky paint, but I still haven't tried them... I don't have any new Infiniti to try it on yet...I see you are a big Flex rotary user, but used Metabo this time. How do you like both? I recently bought myself my first rotary - Makita 9227C. I really wanna master this thing.

 

awesome job on the subi i know how much of a pain this paint is because its similar to Mitsu's paint and man is my car a bitch to polish. Like you said even the 85rd leaves some problems

 

where did you get that extension from.?? the one when u were using the metabo

 

+ 1 :thumb:

 

Awesome job, that black looks damn good!

 

Awesome job man! :thumb:

 

Fantastic job David.

 

Looks great Dave! Don't you hate it when what you think should work doesn't?
+1 on the extention. I have a couple but they are hex shaped. I tape them but that one looks ALOT safer.

Mike

 

Looks Good! Thanks for the write-up :thumb:

 

Wow well done, vehicle looks great. Sticky clear coat is not something any one would enjoy but you sure turned that vehicle around well done :applause: :applause:

 

Great job on the STi, looks great!

Get some pipe insulation foam a home improvement store, the gray foam that goes around hot water pipes. Get one that fits the extension and cut it so it can cover most of it, then you can tape it or glue the foam to the spindle and now you have something safe that in case it bumps paint it will not harm it.

 

Great save for a great car! Nice work

 

Menzerna super intensive polish

Subby paints, some, are a little sticky. The issues with this one wasnt the factory paint but instead the poor respray.

To be honest I bough the metabo because I am too lazy to send in my makita to get fixed and I cant be stuck with 1 rotary... now I have 3 and realized they all have their purpose. The flex is lighter than the metabo and with all handles off it can fit into very tight spaces, the metabo however is super well balanced (one handed correction in tight spaces is easier with this machine than any other) and it can polish at 600rpm where the mini flex starts at 1100rpm

YET... believe it or not the best quality and well rounded one of the bunch is the makita. Buffs super smooth, ultra quiet and it will not heat up like the tabo and flex. I still need to get it fixed because I like using it a lot. You made a great choice with the Makita!

I think 85rd would have worked fine with a factory clear, on this one it just had a little too much cut to leave a clean finish. PO87mc worked better.

The extension comes with the metabo itself, I love using it.

Thanks Carlos