This customer came to me after having his civic freshly painted black, everything was done the right way, the car was completely stripped of everything including glass and seals so that no area was missed. He was then referred by his painter to a "detailer" in the same complex to perform a wetsand/buff on the car. Well, unfortunately he got a hold of the biggest hack I have ever come across. There were severe holograms, swirls, sanding marks that hadnt been completely removed and worse of all he burnt through most of the edges on a fresh paint job!!!

He was well aware that he was getting a service that wasnt up to par once he got the car back and pulled the car into the sun only to find the car looking like a 20 year old car again. He pointed out everything to the guy and he declined any wrong doing, telling him that the swirls are normal for a fresh painted car and they will go away after a month. So he waited a month only to find they are worse and called me up to perform a 50/50 on the hood to show this guy what he was doing was completely wrong. I was able to get the hood looking like it should again and the guy claimed there was no different and trust me it was VERY different! haha! Long story short, the guy didnt even have a legitimate business and I ended up taking on the entire job. I had my work cut out for me!

Are you ready for a nightmare? Keep in mind this cars paint is barely even a month old.

The Hood.










Roof.




Rear Bumper


The painter for some reason shot extra clear but taped off the inner portions, it looked horrible and your eye is drawn straight to the tape line. I later sanded these portions level to reduce the eye sore.








This is a close up of the roof, if you look deeper into the paint past the circular swirls, you will see straight line scratches. These are sanding scratches that the previous guy failed to remove creating a horrible haze on the entire car.


Here is where the real nightmare begins,

 

Before starting the long buffing process I knew was going to be required on this car, we took out the lights, moldings and anything that was easily removable to make my job a little easier and to get a full correction all the way up to the edges.




Side Moldings and Skirts Removed.




The flourescents really brought out the worse of the sanding scratches, bringing them to focus.




The 50/50 from a few weeks prior that the hackjob declined seeing a difference between what he did and what I did. He must be nuts.

 

A quick walk around the car with halogens really lets you see how bad this thing looked in person. Once again, remember this is a BRAND NEW paint job!!














A close up of the sanding scratches that werent fully removed.

 

Knowing that I am going to have to cut into this thing pretty hard to get the sanding marks out I pulled out my Meguiars Red Wool Pad and began to prime it using the KBRM for fast hard cutting results. This combination is VERY aggressive and wouldnt recommend it to anyone without proper experience with a rotary.


Part of this method is applying M105 to the pad.


To my surprise, this method even being as aggressive as it was, totally blew away the finish left by the previous guy. I could only imagine he used rocks and a broom to polish this thing! haha! This is only the first step for me, still gets better!




Here is the passenger door panel untouched..


Here is the passenger fender after cutting with M105 and polishing with M205.


Passenger Door before.


After M105.


After M205 with camera flash.


rear 1/4.


After M105


After M205.

 

Driver Rear 1/4.


After M105.


here you find the difference between my very aggressive cutting stage on the rear 1/4 next to whatever the heck this guy did.


Driver Door After M105.


Driver Fender Before.


After M105.


No more swirls, just LOTS of dust!


Finally starting to see some depth in the paint again!


Here is the full hood completed.


Then moved onto the rear hatch/bumper area with a 50/50.

 

And finally, the results youve been waiting for! These were the best sun shots I could get.

 

Nice work as always... You definitally saved the day on this one. I would have murdered that other guy if I just spent a couple thousand on a new paint job and got it back like that.

 

Thanks, tell me about it!

 

Wow!! Unbelievable!! I want to learn how to do this sooooo bad.

The A6 I just bought has water stains that I could not remove w/ a clay bar and hand polishing or random orbital, but am so afraid if I try using a rotary, I'll do what that hack did to this Civic. My Jeep really needs some TLC too and am a DIY'er almost to a fault, so this is something that I just HAVE to try. Being a car fanatic, I'm actually embarrassed to admit that I can't detail a vehicle like this - great skill man. I'm just too damned worried that I'm gonna burn a whole through the paint!! I'm looking at a Makita rotary at Home Depot and its speeds are 600-3000 rpm. Do you use the M105 & 205 at a higher speed or is lower better? Would I be better off getting a DA like the G110 or go all the way and get the Makita? I really appreciate your time / opinion and am reading as much as I can on autopia (thanks for the link).

 

The problem with people like you Pres, is that the quality of your work is so far superior, that is demands notice, and notice leads to people suggesting you take these threads and build a web site.

Web Sites lead to Viral Marketing, which leads to increased business, and eventually, you move out of the home garage and into a stand alone business site with a garage, which leads to more work than you can handle.

Then you have to go out and hire a secretary to answer the phone and make the bookings and order the products, and eventually you take on some snot nose kid who wants to learn, and you teach him, and he gets kinda good at it, almost to the point where you think you can actually take a day off.

So you finally take that day off, actually look at your bank account, and go... WOAH, I need more time off to spend this money. So you start taking on more work and let the kid do his own jobs, you take Fridays off, only to get called at home by your secretary that she is tired of turning business away and you should think about hiring more people.

Now Flash forward 5 years, you are in a business park, you banging the hot secretary who does not even have to go to work anymore, the "kid" is now your manager, and a bunch of his buds work there, and when they are not waxing their own rides, they are rushing through your customers jobs, and putting out crap work.

Meanwhile there is some other guy working out of his home garage, looking at the after effects of one of your employees "best efforts" and it is one of the biggest hacks he has ever come across. Ther are severe holograms, swirls, sanding marks that hadnt been completely removed and worse of all your guy burnt through most of the edges on a fresh paint job!!!

The guy was well aware that he was getting a service that wasnt up to par once they got the car back and pulled the car into the sun only to find the car looking like a 20 year old car again. He pointed out everything to the guy and your guy declined any wrong doing, telling him that the swirls are normal for a fresh painted car and they will go away after a month. So the guy waited a month only to find they are worse and called him up to perform a 50/50 on the hood to show your guy what he was doing was completely wrong. He was able to get the hood looking like it should again and the guy claimed there was no different and trust me it was VERY different! haha! Long story short, you dont even have a legitimate business anymore and the guy working out of his garage at home ended up taking on the entire job. He has his work cut out for him!

MORAL TO THE STORY: Your the best at what you do, keep it simple and don't hire no wet behind the ear kids! But go ahead and hire the hot secretary, eventually you get to bang her.