Car wash damage

[mw230slk]

Ok I'm new here so hi all and please give me some advice...

I have just bought a 2001 slk 230 in black (not metallic). I love the car and want it to be perfect but sadly it isn't, so now I've got to find out how to sort it...

The problem is the car's been put through an automatic car wash for all it's life (not by me! never in a million years!)

The inevitable result is the worst clear coat damage I've ever seen - the boot and bonnet are particularly bad with very visible surface scratching and the resultant flat finish.

I've tried to polish it by hand using Autoglym SRP and even ScratchX but it's just not helping at all. Has anyone on here experienced this sort or clear coat damage and found a solution?

Any advice on how I could sort this would be appreciated...would a Portacable poloisher help me here or should I call in the professionals (who in SE London??)

matt

 

[Ian B Walker]

I think you have probably answered your own question. I have seen the results of the Portacable device and to say that they were good would be an understatement. A member here, who will no doubt add to this thread, will answer all your questions and probably more.

 

[mw230slk]

Thanks Ian, I'd read that the Portacable was supposed to be good but wanted to know if anyone on here had used one to improve the sort of damage done by an automatic car wash, and if they have what polish/pads did they use?

 

[Mambo]

Take a look at this thread for advice on what to get....

 

[Will]

Hi Matt - and welcome to the forums

Firstly, the trouble you are facing is that you have one of the worst cases for swirl marks - black paintwork and a 'scrubbing brush' car wash . Black cars are a labour of love, they look superb when they are clean and perfect, unfortunately the trade off is that they show swirl marks, stone chips and dirt very well.

Your swirl marks/scratches can almost certainly be reduced to a point where the car looks great, if not totally removed. Depends on the condition of the paint and other factors, such as how often it may have been compounded in the past.

A proper bodyshop would be able to machine polish the paintwork with special cutting polishes such as Farecla G3 or G10, which will give the paintwork a new lease of life.

I have a circular polishing mop and have compounded several cars over the years. To get superb results on dark colours does take patience, but the end results are well worth it.

If it were mine, the procedure I would follow would be basically to wash the car very well (twice!), then de-contaminate the paintwork using a clay bar system, machine polish the paintwork using the finest grade compound that you can get away with (you don't want to remove any more paint/laqcuer than absolutely essential), then either machine or hand polish and wax the corrected paintwork to perfection

Spend another few hours (a day!) going round all the trim, lights, door shuts, engine bay etc and clean/polish these areas by hand - end result being that you will have an incredible looking car which will remind you why you put so much effort in!

Once you have got your vehicle into this condtion, your only challenge will be to maintain it. Bird droppings, dirty washing sponges etc can all ruin this perfect finish, so try and wash the car as carefully as possible - search on the forum for methods involving two buckets and gentle washing mitts etc.

Good luck

Will

 

[grasmere]

Matt, thats good info from Will,

to try it out you might use the procedure eg on the boot lid only so you can see what you are getting quicker, than if you're happy with the results work your way around the car.

oh - and post a piccy or two to show us the results

 

[mw230slk]

Thanks Will, I'm ordering the polisher now I'm not going for the circular one though as the other (very extensive) posts on polishers have warned me off since I don't have any experience...

Good idea grasmere, I'll get some pics of the damaged paintwork up asap, then you'll all be able to see how good/bad a job I did when it's all done

 

[big x]

If you already have a deeply sctatched clear coat a circular polisher is fine (and cheaper),your not going to make it worse in the 5 minutes it takes to master.

adam