Don't worry, it's nothing TOO exciting, lol. But this gem was uncovered in a local trade-in. It's a '98 Civic with 35,000 original miles on it and is in outstanding condition both inside and out. The owner wanted to get it as super clean as possible anywhere and everywhere I could on the car so that he could eventually list it for sale. Even in such fantastic shape, it needed to have that ugly layer knocked off to uncover the shine it has now. Foam wash Clay bar Dried Masked Griot's 6" DA with Uber Orange and Green foam pads Menzerna SF4000 Menzerna Powerlock Starting with the arrival pictures as always... Nothing exciting on the clay bar so we skip a couple steps over to the light inspection. Starting trying a couple different combinations but this paint didn't really respond well until I got to Orange foam pad with SF4000 for some reason. There were several areas on this car that I had great difficulty with (not sure if age, or repaint?) but I was happy with how most everything turned out. Love this shot of the trunk Rear end before: Rear end after: Time to pull it outside and see how angelic she looks! Not bad. Let's pull it back in again and start to tackle everything under the hood, jams, etc. Have to knock off the layer of dust and dirt that has accumulated in probably the last 17 years... Pretty good difference! I did a little bit more work after these pictures were taken so it looked a bit better upon pickup. Onto the jams! As always, thanks for looking. Total on this one was at about 30 hours.
Damn good rescue there. I was surprised when i read you used an orange pad on a Honda. In my limited experience their paint is soft enough to use a white pad for correction. Maybe thats just newer hondas, or like you said: Repaint? Obviously it was the right choice here.
Yeah. I first tried with the green foam polishing pad, which is pretty soft. But not much happened. Anything pre-2000 usually has nice, soft, relatively easy to correct paint.
Great job!! I have seen a number of these kinds of cars lately. Loads of people trying to brighten them up before sale. Its amazing how much more a clean car can fetch than a dirty one.
Car looks great for being 17 years young! Out of curiosity, why do you clean the engine and jambs last? If I have an engine detail then I do it first and the jambs with the general prep. Car looks great!
I usually do as well but originally it was just going to be exterior paint correction job. The rest was requested after I had already done the paint correction work. Didn't bother me though, just made sure to stay tidy and gave it the usual final wipe off!
