yes 2 e's and no a in sneaky Long story. A lot of you have seen my other thread expressing anger with ML paint. I completely under estimated how much work it would be. I wish I had charged way more, but the car wasn't 100% perfect when it left my house, there was a section that I couldn't repair. The owner didn't think it had been repainted, but who knows. The paint matched pretty good, orange peel was identical and everything..so I am not sure why the swirls wouldn't come out. This thing came to me with SWIRLS Swirls! and MORE SWIRLS!!! Luckly I know a good detailer... It too forever just to get that spot done. I need something better than a rotary. I am not sure how a owner of an ML55AMG would correct paint on their own if the paint is so hard. The thing that suck about having paint this hard is all the areas you do by hand get left with swirls. GloomyX came over for a bit, and he saw me work in every hand applied polish and they did nothing for the door handles. No improvement at all. Rotary+Maroon pad + M84, on some spots was getting the swirls out, but it didnt look super clear. I did most of the car with M84, then followed uo with 1Z Pasta Intensiv. Using M02 on lighter sections. That is it after the PI. I followed all of this up with 1Z HGP..and it really did nothing for the paint. PI looked like it was the way to go, but it dusted all over the place. I washed this truck 3 times! Here is what I am talking about Yes all of that is DUST!!! Then 2 hours passed where I didnt take pictures because I was so frustrated with the paint. I finished the "polishing"...should be GRINDING. Cleaned up the wheels with Soap and water (I think they were Ceramic Brakes). Then I just wiped down the engine with an absorber and some ONR. Dressed with Adams VRT that I found. I didn't feel 100% comfortable spraying water on the 5.5 AMG engine because I know it has a bunch of temperature gages in the engine. Before: After: Then I moved inside while I was waiting for the M21 to set. I was going to use Vintage...but I got lazy / was in a hurry. Polishing took forever. Here is my 50/50 on the leather: I used QID on the Navi screen and then steamed everything else. Dressed all the vinyl with M40 and left it at that. I was going to Vac the trunk...but there was stuff in there and I didn't want to invade the owners privacy so I didn't do any vacuuming at all. D that isnt a bad excuse haha) Here are some of the glory shorts: ... I know I amost forgot to remove wax from the mirrors :tiptoe::banned: In conclusion. I will never do an ML again, or at least not for that price. I would work on this one again because the owner is a nice guy, and the paint correction is already done. Lesson learned...never do SUV's for cheap. i did it for my usual "full size" car price because he was a beyond member. Comments/Questions?
uuuh....... Did you say you had a HARD time? According to this pic YOU WON and you kicked its ACE!!! NICE WORK!!!! :woot:
:'( Door handles and gas cap area owned me. plus that is with the work lights on the car so it might look better than it is.
Well done sneek :thumb: the vehicle looks good. You know if you would of had a paint gauge you would have been able to determine if the vehicle had been repainted or re-sprayed :roll: The 50/50 picture it showns the difference you made to it. So your saying that a rotary is not strong enough....mmm...I would question that statement sneek, I think the rotary has plenty of power for corrections. I haven't done a vehicle that I haven't been able to do paint correction to. I have found that when doing a test panel it can take quite a bit of time and I have a full range of pads from cutting foam/wool pads all the way to finishing foam/wool pads...I'm really curious about these vehicles now...I really hope I get the opportunity to detail one of these bad boys, sounds like a blast to detail :wicked: Man I love a good challenge :mounty: The dusting pictures is crazy and I thought Menzerna was bad for dusting hahahaha, Menzerna dosen't dust no where near what that picture you posted there. I don't know sneek the end results look good to me :woo: but then again being there is different then seeing the pictures. Thank you for sharing buddy, vehicle looks great...if you need wool pads next time let me know you know I got lots :chest:
That is some lovely AMG action there Pat! More dust than Tony Montana's desk!!! Great great work, you should be proud!
The door handles though.... I guess one mans sealing is another mans floor. The owners friend did come with him to pick it up and said the car looks like glass though. There is no doubt in my mind that wool would be able to cut down the paint enough, but then how do I remove the scratches and hazing caused by wool. I could probably get it pretty good, but not perfect with wool, so more polishing is needed. For the most part it did come out good. I just wish it was better, thats all. I guess for the price the owner got a bargain, but I would have loved to have used wool on it. I wanted to use some Yellow presta wool pad...but I was on the clock as well. I know the owner wanted it back that night. I used the PC for waxing...and it made me want to cry. I can't believe I used to use one.
Consider me in the group of very impressed. Man you did an outstanding job and I know it's frustrating when you are polishing/correcting and you keep thinking "Man I got to wash this thing AGAIN!:bat:
Yea I know what you mean about wool, it requires at least two steps, I know some expereianced wool users can finish LSP ready with wool....I can't but I'm getting closer every time. I've done a few vehicle with wool and I need at least two steps most of the time it takes three steps of polishing but wool is wicked :headbang: Keep in mind though three steps of polishing is time consuming and it costs extra :whistle:
yeah. Even if you can get it "LSP ready" I feel that I owe the customer a second follow up polish...just because I personally would be really really pissed if I paid someone to detail my car and I found a hologram. That would just be unacceptable. PS: Carlos i just remembered that I owe you $97 and I need to take 2 more Cookie Monsters and we will be all even. Let me know when you are free. I am busy pretty much everyday, but if we have a quick meeting it will be fine.
Oh yes money :chest: um..just let me know when you got time and I can drop the towel off and pick up the cash :woo: heck I can even meet up with you at school, let me know :thumb:
man thats a tough cookie right there...and what really sucks is that you couldn't do a proper engine detail on it... and I have to go with Nica on the rotary thing.... if a rotary can't do it, it ain't happening, but that's only part of the equation. You also have to account for proper polish/compound, mixed with pad, then add your speed. All that plays factor. And to be honest with you, a you shouldn't need a paint gague to tell a repaint. to me once a car is repainted, there is going to be some trace of the painted area.
Well there are certain painters in town that are really good. They match original HEAVY O.P. and everything. No shrinking no DIP, no runs on the lower parts... nothing. I had them paint my Accords bumper after some asshole hit and run my car. I am not even sure if you could tell if it was repainted with a gauge. Carlos come over and check my bumpers...I wont tell you which one..and you tell me which one is repainted. The are expensive..but so worth it. They didn't really want to do my car, but I had a good reference. I was wondering if it was a repaint because I think the swirls could be under the clear, because even though it is hard, it should be doing something. I need some Wool! M85 is scary on such a new car though. It is something I only planned on using after wetsanding or some seriously neglected paint. I will book another one to detail haha (bad plan right here) and try it out. I wanted to do a full engine detail on it...but I was scared/I didn't have time. I only wiped down my last E55(same engine). Actaully the last AMG I did had a screen that monitored all of the sensors inside the engine, and there were tons of them...hence why I don't feel comfortable doing them.
Man I think you shoulda used a grinding stone or something just kidding. It looks good! I guess some day there will be a special polish just for "MLs"..
haha I am going to get all the presta wool pads now. I have learned my lesson on a good note. I looked at beyond and he posted up.
Wow! Einszett dusts that bad!? When ever I have a vehicle that had severe defects spip the wool and go right to 2000 grit paper. May as well get rid of orange peel while am at it.
Great job on the detail. Looks pretty good... One thing I personally don't like about German cars, is too much electronics under the hood, which is very sensetive...I myself don't feel very comfortable spraying that enigine with a flood of water, worse case scenario I would probably stick with P21S total auto wash and a terry towel.
