When do you guys stop doing additional steps?

What I seem to find out is that on many cars (which never get posted is that the excess orange peel (found on fords, chevys, and others) does not lead to a more crisp shine. You can get the gloss ok but the orange peel in the end seems to limit the glow you see on bimmers, audi's, etc.

 

That Auroa had terrible orange peel, just the hood and trunk had none.

 

Completely agreed. Just between my own two vehicles (2004 Honda S2000 and 1999 Ford F250) the difference in the quality of the paint job is pretty amazing. The S2000, which was built at the NSX plant, has paint that's nearly perfect. The F250? Not so much.:giggle:

 

You know, GDAL, the owner of the Auroa used to work for GM and explained the reason for orange peel to me. It breaks up the light to actually detract attention from the defects that are on the body panel itself, under the paint. The panel itself isn't perfect, valleys, lots of other defects. Ford, not the greatest quality control, so hence more orange peel to hide it. If you wetsanded it down to no orange peel, the defects on the panel itself would be VERY visible.

Cool fact.

 

I had heard a different story from the body shop when I asked them about wetsanding my car, and safe amounts to remove.

What he told me is that the peel is there to make the paint surface stronger. Say if a rock chips the surface, for example, the chip will be minimized because of the texture on the surface. On a completely smooth surface (like a show car), it would crack the paint similar to how glass cracks. It would essentially spiderweb the ultra-smooth surface.

That's just what he told me though. Could be full of it, I don't know.

 

This is very true. I used to work for a Chevy dealership. We had new vehicles that sometimes had some sort of lot damage and it had to go to a body shop for repair before it could be sold. Well, the body shop that we used was really good at what they do. Bottom line....The quality of work that that body shop was putting out was so good that we had often had vehicles that came back to the dealership with body panels that were sanded down to the metal, repaired, reprimed, and resprayed.....look very different. The new panel was often very noticeable. (Much less orange peal.)

 

That's could be true, but there is no orange peel on most hood, and they get chipped all the time and don't spider web, so I would take that with a grain of salt. In fact, I've never seen a paint chip spider-web.

 

In my car, well i just dont stop. Detail has been going over 6 months and no sign of stopping. One day ill drive it again. Its getting flowcoated with some house of colour clear after i wetsand it. (underneath as well as the top)

On customers cars, i stop when its right. Sometimes i loose $$, sometimes i make it. Depends on the car.

 

I stop when the joint I'm smoking is out. By then the car looks pretty nice and I just wonder on and apply the LSP.