The real work begins

Today I gave the car a much needed wash so that I could get the car ready for polishing.

Not bad.  There are a lot of tar spots on the wheels so I’ll need to clean them again.  Some new wheel bolts are in order as these ones are rusty.  I like these wheels a lot and they look good when they’re clean, which they almost never are.

This car hasn’t had a bath like this in a long time.  The foam cannon is great and I’m using Chemical Guys Honeydew Snow Foam car shampoo.  All the products I’m using I’ve purchased myself.

With the car washed and dried, it was time to remove dirt and contaminants from the surface of the paint with a clay bar.  I’m using a Simoniz clay bar kit because it was on sale.  That bar won’t be blue for long!

Just as predicted.  Not exactly sure what I removed from the surface of the paint, but it was black and greasy.  Good to get that removed.

Then it was time to test out a section of paint to get an idea of how it responds to the cutting compound and cutting pad, starting at a slow speed and slowly increasing while checking the results regularly.  I’m using Meguiar’s Ultra-Cut Compound as well as their cutting pad on my dual action polisher.  Meguiar’s makes this compound in 2 versions; one is for rotary polishers and the one I bought is for dual action polishers so make sure you get the correct one.

Starting with a small section of the trunk.  You can see all the light scratches and swirls.

The rear section of the trunk lid is plastic so I taped it off because it will need to be polished at a lower speed to prevent it from getting too hot from the polisher.

Sadly, my effort to show the polished and unpolished sides of the trunk for comparison failed because I was outside.  The crappy paint on the right is reflecting almost as much as the polished paint on the left and you can barely see any difference.

The contrast here is a bit easier to see – on the lower plastic portion at least.

Polishing the plastic portion of the trunk brought the shine back but it also revealed this.  I thought they were scratches at first but it looks like the paint is cracking.  Not sure how to address this yet.

Hard to notice any difference here between the completed side and the bad side.  Nice reflection though.  I will take photos of the paint indoors from now on.

The paint on the car is also covered in little blobs of pine tree sap which I need to remove before I can continue with the paint correction.  This sap is really nasty, very sticky and a pain to remove.  And it’s everywhere.

So for the next part in this series, I hope to be able to show you much better before and after photos of the paint.

Thanks