I've got an emergency...

A guy contacted me last minute (an hour ago) to have his car polished, here's the background story:

"Hey Mike, I was referred to you by a friend. I have a black 2010 subaru WRX and as I was parked today someone was pressure washing a fork lift with some paint on it, to make a long story short bits of the paint got all over my car and I now need to get it detailed, I need this done asap...."

So....... any tips on how to do a subaru? I've never done one.....

Here's what I plan on doing:

Wash with ONR
Decon with IronX and Clay
1 step with DA, white CCS and custom made Prima Finish (It's a lot like PO85RD)
Menz PL or Vic's Chaos/Mayhem.

Customer's coming at 7am, I have to wrap it up before 2pm as he has an appointment at 3pm around where he lives (Which is approx. an hour away from where I'm at)

Thanks in advance for any tips!

 

Be sure of who is paying for it. I used to get these all the time. They act fine with prices after work is done they say bill x insurance company. Be sure that is clear, they pay you, they submit your bill to ins.

I don't think you are going to get the 90/95% correction with a 1 step finish polish on a DA. If you and he both understand it will more likely be 25-35% correction and are fine with it. then yes sounds good. To be honest. I prefered 1z metalic polish and wax (now polish and wax) for 1 steps. Correction on a white pad with a flex was about 40-60% removal of light to moderate marring based on level of marring and hardness of paint.

Good luck

 

He actually just wants the paint splatter removed.
With it being soft Subaru paint, I told him marring of the paint (When I clay to remove the paint splatter) may be inevitable.
He's paying me first, then going to get money from the owner of the forklift.

 

good, you may want to look at bumping it to a two step

 

this paint wont be caked on there i dont think. Hopefully your clay bar gets it all off. the paint will be very soft, so i think anything like M205 should get the marring out easily.Or Prima in your case. I think youll be fine

 

I tried claying it, all it did was make all the paint specks loose and moved it around, I think I may need to use a pressure washer to rinse it off.
As far as the paint goes, it was an absolute nightmare! The 2010 obsidian black WRX hatch was so soft, I was marring the paint as I was wiping the polish residue off. I tried different wiping techniques, different towels, different QDs to help lubricate it, and nothing worked..... Told the customer I'm going to go back on Monday and work on it the whole day.

 

sounds lame, but try tape to life off the paint specs. I did a 11" sti with the same paint and I feel your pain.

 

So....... would anyone experienced in Suby paint be willing to share some techniques?
I got the polishing down (PO85RD with LLC white, correction is 80-85% for me with DA), but I'm having trouble wiping the polish residue off. Seems like everytime I wipe the residue off I'm marring the crap out of the clear......

 

you are going to laugh, but I spray it down very liberally with filtered water, the MF has to be wet, and It takes a few passes, but it works. I use alot of towels on subarus, maybe 15?

Also I assume you are working under Halogen lights, since that heats up the panel as well as the friction, i let the panel cool a few minutes before trying to wipe it off, but Subaru paint is so soft, i can take my finger and rub it on the finish and it will mar the finish.



as for correction I use SIP, SF and PF and green uber depending on the issue and I used very little polish and swapped pads alot.......sometimes a blue uber works well too. i had issues with holograms on my car for some reason, so I used a blue uber and PF and it worked great for 80%, went to SIP to get 90% took me total time was maybe 15 hours spread over 3 days.

others may have different methods, but this worked for me.

 

Filtered water! This is one of those times where I say "Why didn't I think of that" lol, great idea!

Here is my method for polishing:
Griot's DA with 5.5 inch LC CCS white
Menz PO85RD, 8 section passes (horizontal, vertical, 8 times), I basically finish the po85rd down until it became an oily residue, I found this to be the most effective method since the clear is so soft. I was able to achieve 80-85% correction with this.
I tried wiping away the residue with:
1. 50/50 IPA and distilled water
2. ONR @ car wash strength
3. ONR @ QD strength
4. Megs last touch @ full and 1:1 strength
5. Gloss-It QD
So far nothing's worked, but I will definitely try distilled water next week (I ordered additional stuff so I have more combos to do the correction with).
I've also enlisted the help of a friend, who is a member here, so hopefully the two of us can figure something out.
I'm also going down to Richard Lin's shop to pick up more towels, I feel that I need to use a fresh towel per panel to deal with the polishing residue.
And yes, I'm working under a single halogen work lamp.

 

oh yeah, minimum 1 towel per panel......... one that is wet or damp to wipe it off, then one dry with IPA mist to wipe of the excess, its a hassle, but that is what works for me.

 

I just bought 12 new towels, lol.

 

yeah, it happens LOL. also I bought some peak MF polishing towels, they are/ seem softer then a plush MF towel you would get from most detail supply shops, i need to try it out. It may be total crap, who knows.

keep the towels damp, I find the scratching as usual comes from dry MF towels.

 

I'll most definitely keep that in mind, thanks for the advice man, I appreciate it!

 

I love my car, hate my paint.......... LOL

 

I can only imagine your pain.
I love my car and I love the paint (Honda paint, easy to scratch, but hassle free to correct, lol)

 

ive seen detailers on here use those towels that looks like shag carpets... I have some also but they are from CG and they leave some lint on the finish.

i know Chemical guys sells them, they are blue.
and also ive seen some on Amazon by Eurow.

I know for sure DSMS used them on a subaru because it was the only thing that worked without scratching it.

Also since you are working under lights. Let the panel cool down, maybe start on another panel. I know from body shop experience that warm paint in not good. Smell the panel after you polish it. Cool paint wont have a smell. Just another way to avoid touching the paint.


Also i like the idea of switching pads every panel. But for some, like me, i cannot do that since i just bought 1 of each color pretty much. So if your like me, if its starts to dust then just rinse the pad and spin it dry. Plus the pad can be wet because we use water or qd to work with polishes.

 

I have like 8 of those eurow shags, lol.
hmm, good call on warm paint vs cold paint, I will keep that in mind.
And yeah I have four 5.5 inch white pads + four 6.5 inch white pads.
Well, put it this way, I bought 4 of each pad in both 5.5 and 6.5 except the yellow lc pads, lol.

 

Have you tried the shags yet?
I have 6.5 pads, and then a 9 inch wool pad to know out correction faster on tougher cars.
Looking to purchase a few of the most important pads in really small sizes. But i need more work to make that purchase.

And its just a ton of pads to wash. It would get annoying.

 

I tried the eurow shags, they just lint like crazy, lol.
Pads isnt too bad for me since I use Prima polishes most of the time, it rinses out in running warm water, no special soaps!