Finally got the micro-scratches out of my baby! Read my story.
08-08-07, 02:36 PM
#1
Lexus Champion
Thread Starter
Finally got the micro-scratches out of my baby! Read my story.
Alright so let me being by saying yes I am a mad man when it comes to doing certain things. I get something under my skin and I will do anything to get it done, get it bought, or get it fixed. So Im sure some of you have read about my complaining about the ten thousand micro-scratches and swirls Ive had in my black IS many times, but those who havent let me explain.
I bought my car about 5 months ago, and when I bought it everything was perfect! Of course I had heard about owning a black car and all the complaints about taking care of one, but I thought mine would be different because Im so **** with my things and I figured that even if it wasnt able to keep it looking good it would still look nice. Well as it turned out about 2-3 car washes (2-3 weeks) I started noticing horrible micro-scratches and swirling everywhere all over the car. And when I say everywhere I MEAN EVERYWHERE! The car looked 2-3 years old! I thought there is no way I am doing this to my car, I dont even wipe in the directions they are going! So After spending hours and hours for about two weeks on the great autopia.org and my first chunk of change (about 500 bucks) on detailing equipment this is what I had to work with:
That was about 2 months ago. Since then I have purchased about twice as much, fully detailed 6 cars (for practice and to learn to use the tools, compounds, and various other things), and learned more about car detailing than I ever thought I would. In fact I have begun doing it for money on the side now for friends and family members. I actually find it enjoyable. The end results are always ten times better and its just kinda fun to do. Hard work dont get me wrong, but very rewarding in the end.
Anyway back on topic. So this weekend I finally had the chance to do my own car and man I must say, its better looking AND better feeling then the day I bought it! Heres that I started with:
You can see how horrible my scratches where. Now at this point you might ask yourself, man, how could the dealership have sold a brand new Lexus in that kind of condition??? This guy must be full of it, he had to have done that trashing himself and just not known he was doing it. Well Ill tell you... What dealerships do to save time and wash all those cars on the lot is take a pressure washer and quickly blast every car one at a time. After that they take some old rags and wipe dry all the cars with the same bunch of rags that afterwards they throw in a pile or hang to dry. Here are the two problems... Quickly pressure washing a vehicle does not mean you got all the dirt off from all the spots that were dirty and when you wipe a rag over that unclean spot or throw that rag on the ground or in a dirty drying bucket you capture a lot of dirt and grim in that rag and nicely drag it over the whole car as you wipe it dry. Then you take those same towels and dry all the other cars with them collecting more dirt and spreading it to more cars. Now youre thinking: no, they would have thought of a better way to care for brand new cars they are trying to sell! Well they (whoever you think they is) might have, but do you think the monkey that getting paid 10 bucks an hour to wash 100 cars as quickly as he can cares about doing it a proper way? Not even close. So all the these cars have swirls and micro scratches all over them from this kind of improper care. And believe I went back to the dealer several time and looked at all their black cars and they all looked like this.
So now you might ask: well how come you didnt notice these scratches when you bought the car and say something then? Okay let me shed some light on that one too. You know how anytime you try to buy a brand new car they never let you have it before they have "cleaned it up" for you? And that cleaning up takes around an hour? Why would a brand new car take that much time to clean up if they wash them daily and supposedly treat them like brand new cars they are trying to sell? Well one of the many tricks they have and use is sealants chuck full of fillers. Fillers do just that, they FILL micro-scratches so they LOOK like they arent there. The only problem is that they only last for about.... you guessed it 2-3 washes. They the wash off revealing the true condition of your paint. Alright, so after learning this why didnt I just take the car back and complain or at least as for them to do something about it.... Need I answer this? Why would I take my car, my baby back to the people (monkeys) that hurt her in the first place??? No, it was time to learn and take matters into my own hands.
This is what happened when I did it myself. Ignore the white specks of dust all over, these pics were taken as I was taking the wax off and the dust is the dry wax. These are also the same areas as the before shots.
See the difference. And no for those of you worried that I must have had to take off nearly all the clear coat to get it to look this way. No no no.. The techniques and hardware used was extremely low abrasiveness and I assure you very little is required to fix these type of injuries. Besides, polishing is not something you do but once a year tops.
So for those that are curious, the process:
I bought my car about 5 months ago, and when I bought it everything was perfect! Of course I had heard about owning a black car and all the complaints about taking care of one, but I thought mine would be different because Im so **** with my things and I figured that even if it wasnt able to keep it looking good it would still look nice. Well as it turned out about 2-3 car washes (2-3 weeks) I started noticing horrible micro-scratches and swirling everywhere all over the car. And when I say everywhere I MEAN EVERYWHERE! The car looked 2-3 years old! I thought there is no way I am doing this to my car, I dont even wipe in the directions they are going! So After spending hours and hours for about two weeks on the great autopia.org and my first chunk of change (about 500 bucks) on detailing equipment this is what I had to work with:
That was about 2 months ago. Since then I have purchased about twice as much, fully detailed 6 cars (for practice and to learn to use the tools, compounds, and various other things), and learned more about car detailing than I ever thought I would. In fact I have begun doing it for money on the side now for friends and family members. I actually find it enjoyable. The end results are always ten times better and its just kinda fun to do. Hard work dont get me wrong, but very rewarding in the end.
Anyway back on topic. So this weekend I finally had the chance to do my own car and man I must say, its better looking AND better feeling then the day I bought it! Heres that I started with:
You can see how horrible my scratches where. Now at this point you might ask yourself, man, how could the dealership have sold a brand new Lexus in that kind of condition??? This guy must be full of it, he had to have done that trashing himself and just not known he was doing it. Well Ill tell you... What dealerships do to save time and wash all those cars on the lot is take a pressure washer and quickly blast every car one at a time. After that they take some old rags and wipe dry all the cars with the same bunch of rags that afterwards they throw in a pile or hang to dry. Here are the two problems... Quickly pressure washing a vehicle does not mean you got all the dirt off from all the spots that were dirty and when you wipe a rag over that unclean spot or throw that rag on the ground or in a dirty drying bucket you capture a lot of dirt and grim in that rag and nicely drag it over the whole car as you wipe it dry. Then you take those same towels and dry all the other cars with them collecting more dirt and spreading it to more cars. Now youre thinking: no, they would have thought of a better way to care for brand new cars they are trying to sell! Well they (whoever you think they is) might have, but do you think the monkey that getting paid 10 bucks an hour to wash 100 cars as quickly as he can cares about doing it a proper way? Not even close. So all the these cars have swirls and micro scratches all over them from this kind of improper care. And believe I went back to the dealer several time and looked at all their black cars and they all looked like this.
So now you might ask: well how come you didnt notice these scratches when you bought the car and say something then? Okay let me shed some light on that one too. You know how anytime you try to buy a brand new car they never let you have it before they have "cleaned it up" for you? And that cleaning up takes around an hour? Why would a brand new car take that much time to clean up if they wash them daily and supposedly treat them like brand new cars they are trying to sell? Well one of the many tricks they have and use is sealants chuck full of fillers. Fillers do just that, they FILL micro-scratches so they LOOK like they arent there. The only problem is that they only last for about.... you guessed it 2-3 washes. They the wash off revealing the true condition of your paint. Alright, so after learning this why didnt I just take the car back and complain or at least as for them to do something about it.... Need I answer this? Why would I take my car, my baby back to the people (monkeys) that hurt her in the first place??? No, it was time to learn and take matters into my own hands.
This is what happened when I did it myself. Ignore the white specks of dust all over, these pics were taken as I was taking the wax off and the dust is the dry wax. These are also the same areas as the before shots.
See the difference. And no for those of you worried that I must have had to take off nearly all the clear coat to get it to look this way. No no no.. The techniques and hardware used was extremely low abrasiveness and I assure you very little is required to fix these type of injuries. Besides, polishing is not something you do but once a year tops.
So for those that are curious, the process:
- Wash with Meguiar's NXT Car Wash and Meguiar's Micro Fiber Wash Mitt
- Clay with Meguiar's Clay Bar and Meguiar's Quick Detail as a lubricant
- Mask off all parts of the car where I didnt want polish getting
- Polish with Porter Cable 7424, Meguiar's 6" Yellow Pad, and Meguiar's #80 Polish (realized this wasnt enough as I didnt get the results I wanted so I came back and hit it again with a slightly more abrasive polish)
- Polish with Porter Cable 7424, Meguiar's 6" Yellow Pad, and Meguiar's #83 Polish
- Wash with Meguiar's NXT Car Wash and Meguiar's Micro Fiber Wash Mitt
- Wax by hand with Meguiar's NXT Wax (prefer to wax by hand as I feel I get better coverage and waste less product then when done with the Porter Cable).
Last edited by ben_r_; 08-08-07 at 03:20 PM.
08-08-07, 02:52 PM
#3
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Nice post. Your car looks good. I have the same problem with my Blue Onyx Pearl '06 IS. It's like no matter how careful you are, micro-scratches pop up here and there. My hood and roof are real bad for some reason. It's time for a detailing job myself.
You buy all your stuff online or local? What stores do you prefer the most?
You buy all your stuff online or local? What stores do you prefer the most?
08-08-07, 02:56 PM
#4
Lexus Champion
Thread Starter
Nice post. You car looks good. I have the same problem with my Blue Onyx Pearl '06 IS. It's like no matter how careful you are, micro-scratches pop up here and there. My hood and roof are real bad for some reason. It's time for a detailing job myself.
You buy all your stuff online or local? What stores do you prefer the most?
You buy all your stuff online or local? What stores do you prefer the most?
08-08-07, 03:05 PM
#5
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Very nice job, and impressive detailing equipment and supplies investment. 
Did you consider the Porter Cable 7424? If you did, and rejected it, why?
Have you read about using a Porter Cable for the claying step? I've got a friend doing it with a PC-7424, but I'm not sure I want to go there.
Finally, what happened to all those cars you experimented on, before detailed your IS? Hopefully, none of them required repainting.
I'm very impressed with your results....well done!
Did you consider the Porter Cable 7424? If you did, and rejected it, why?
Have you read about using a Porter Cable for the claying step? I've got a friend doing it with a PC-7424, but I'm not sure I want to go there.
Finally, what happened to all those cars you experimented on, before detailed your IS? Hopefully, none of them required repainting.
I'm very impressed with your results....well done!
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08-08-07, 03:16 PM
#8
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Long read, but very interesting.
Good work on the car too.
One fix action is to do a special order and have someone back it off the truck and leave all the film and protective coating on it, that's what I did. I peeled every bit of it off myself and drove the car away as it was straight off the truck, inside and out. That way I could remove all the crap the car was exposed to and I could only be mad at myself if it ended up looking like crap.
My .02
Good work on the car too.
One fix action is to do a special order and have someone back it off the truck and leave all the film and protective coating on it, that's what I did. I peeled every bit of it off myself and drove the car away as it was straight off the truck, inside and out. That way I could remove all the crap the car was exposed to and I could only be mad at myself if it ended up looking like crap.
My .02
08-08-07, 03:23 PM
#9
Lexus Champion
Thread Starter
Very nice job, and impressive detailing equipment and supplies investment.
Did you consider the Porter Cable 7424? If you did, and rejected it, why?
Have you read about using a Porter Cable for the claying step? I've got a friend doing it with a PC-7424, but I'm not sure I want to go there.
Finally, what happened to all those cars you experimented on, before detailed your IS? Hopefully, none of them required repainting.
I'm very impressed with your results....well done!
Did you consider the Porter Cable 7424? If you did, and rejected it, why?
Have you read about using a Porter Cable for the claying step? I've got a friend doing it with a PC-7424, but I'm not sure I want to go there.
Finally, what happened to all those cars you experimented on, before detailed your IS? Hopefully, none of them required repainting.
I'm very impressed with your results....well done!
About the other cars I did before, ALL of them turned out beautifully. It pretty hard to damage anything with a porter cable. That and I studied detailing extremely extensively and I am a fast learner.
08-08-07, 03:24 PM
#10
Lexus Champion
Thread Starter
Long read, but very interesting.
Good work on the car too.
One fix action is to do a special order and have someone back it off the truck and leave all the film and protective coating on it, that's what I did. I peeled every bit of it off myself and drove the car away as it was straight off the truck, inside and out. That way I could remove all the crap the car was exposed to and I could only be mad at myself if it ended up looking like crap.
My .02
Good work on the car too.
One fix action is to do a special order and have someone back it off the truck and leave all the film and protective coating on it, that's what I did. I peeled every bit of it off myself and drove the car away as it was straight off the truck, inside and out. That way I could remove all the crap the car was exposed to and I could only be mad at myself if it ended up looking like crap.
My .02
08-08-07, 04:00 PM
#12
Instructor
Meguiers #9
You might want to try Meguiers #9 swirl remover.
I've been using since I had a similar problem with a dark red '92 Camry.
Been using with great results for 15 years.
I've been using since I had a similar problem with a dark red '92 Camry.
Been using with great results for 15 years.
08-08-07, 04:16 PM
#13
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Join Date: Feb 2007
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Congrats! She looks better than new. There's nothing more satisfying than detailing a car especially when you know you've done an outstanding job. I noticed you used all meg pads. Did you feel that using a harsher abrasive like maybe 3m compound to at least cut the process down at least one run w/ the PC? I can't wait till i get my PC 7424 im gonna just polish random cars in the neighborhood.
08-08-07, 04:29 PM
#14
Lexus Champion
Thread Starter
A lot of the cost was from the PC and pads. All the products were purchased online much lower than stores sell them and mostly I bought so much to experiment with the different options out there.
