1970 El Camino 63,000 original miles

Brad B

Brad B

New member
My wife called me from work today, she had to park the S4 in a "foreign" spot since someone grabbed her favorite location in a downtown parking garage. Upon coming out later she found large chunks of concrete and handfulls of smaller debris, dust, etc all over the roof of the car! It seems to have crashed from the ceiling. She called me in near tears. She carefully picked off all the larger debris and did what she could to "lift" all the remaining pebbles without scratching the finish. The rock dust was also in the window rubber area. She did not move the window up or down. Smart girl. Looks like it caused one slight ding and several abrasions. I will start first aid tonight and get a better look at the damage. <strong class='bbc'>Grrr![/b] Wish me luck. I'll report my findings later.:mad:
 
Sorry to hear that Brad. Quite unusual I must say. At least you're working with a forgiving color. Good luck and may THE Force be with you.



Brian
 
:( did you guys report it to the garage people....i know they have signs all over that ...prettty much their not responsible for anything under the sun.....but a piece of garage falling.........:eek:.................i can hear the car now...."get me to sanctuary.....please hurry......Brad help me......."...;) it couldnt be in better hands.........
 
What in the world could have caused that? Man 'o man I sorry to hear about this one. Did your wife report it to the garage management company?
 
That is bizzare for something like that to happen. Those parking garages are EVIL. I parked the last car I owned in one downtown and it had been raining and the rain collected on an exposed piece of rusted rebar (is that how you spell that?) above my car and was dripping all over my car. I didn't make anything of it at the time, but when I looked the next morning, it left a strange discoloration on the finish. It took several passes with a light abrasive to remove it, but I vowed then to never park in another one again.



Sorry to hear about that Brad...it is a real bummer. Thank god your wife knew what to do to minimize any further damage from happening! Sounds like you got a keeper there ;) I know it has taken me several years to teach my wife the proper ways to park the car and what to do to minimize door dings. She is a pro at it now....



Post some pics in the morning if you can, would like to see what happened. I would definitely call the owner of the garage and see what you can do.
 
Driving a nice car in the real world is perilous. Your wife made it thru the day without anyone dinging the car, nicking the bumpers and vandalism. Who would think that the ceiling would crumble.

She should report this incident to the garage management in order to to save future car nuts from this unnecessary misfortune.

Good luck with the repair. Sometimes life is not fair to well detailed cars. :mad:
 
From a fellow S4 owner to another, I feel for you. I know you'll get it fixed right, and I have no doubt it will be back the beautiful silver shine that it has always been!
 
Sorry Brad! Of all the people it could have happened to, it just had to be to the most anal and most knowledgeable detailer here. I would say good luck but you won't need luck. And to be honest, I'm not even worried one bit either. If there is ANYONE, ANYONE, who will restore something to its original condition, it is you Brad. I know part of you is enjoying the challenge. Laters
 
Bummer Brad.



Take some before and after shots and maybe write an article for the mayor to post on the carport. I bet it would be awesome reading for us all.
 
After some deep breathing exercises I decided to tackle the damage to the roof and door. Sorry for the bad pics, it's hard to photograph scratches and chips on a reflective surface. The damage was worse than it appears in the pics. A couple of the deepest scratches were "feelable" with the fingernail. Luckily this corner of the roof (near the A-post at the top of the windshield) has a LOT of clearcoat on it. Due to the convergence of the angles of the roof panel it seems that the corner got a heavy shot of clear from the factory. Thank goodness...nothing went through to the base coat. Audi paint quality comes through!



First I hand polished the area with Finesse It. 4-5 applications. This removed most of the mars and scratches from the concrete damage. Then I used various backing pads (art erasors and 3M pads) behind 1500 grit and finally 2000 grit sandpaper. I removed the remaining sanding scratches with 3M Fine Cut Rubbing Compound and followed up with more FI. Finally I used Pinnacle Paint Cleaning Lotion to bring it up to a high gloss. The Audi is protected with Zaino so I used two coats of Z5 and two of ZFX (Z2). I used several foam applicators and microfiber towels along the way.



100% of the scratches and mars have been removed. Unfortunately there was still a VERY shallow ding about the size of my thumbprint. I was able to reduce it substantially by heating the surface with a heat gun then icing it with cubes from the freezer. I repeated this for about 20 minutes. (It's an old trick that sometimes works, sometimes doesn't.) It reduced in size to about 1/3 of my thumprint in size. I am probably the only one that notices the remaining ding in the roof. (I had to point it out to my wife.) I will either live with it or take it to Dent Wizard.



It took about 6 hours start to finish. Considering how bad it looked, I am happy that it turned out well. I can at least sleep tonight.



Thanks, everybody, for your support! It really helps to share your pain with others!!!



<img src=http://albums.photopoint.com/j/View?u=781637&a=13475236&p=57242801>

<img src=http://albums.photopoint.com/j/View?u=781637&a=13475236&p=57242802>
 
Looks great Brad. Rubbing compound and its derivatives are just amazing products.



About the ice trick....a modification of that same trick is to use a little piece of dry ice wrapped in paper napkin on the surface of the paint. I've had some success using this technique, and have not had any problems with dry ice negatively effecting the paint.
 
That is pretty incredible Brad. I am glad that the results were so good. I could only hope for results that good if that happened to any of us. I know this had to just about make you sick to your stomach when this happened, because it almost made me sick when I first read the post, but now you can sleep without worry.



GREAT JOB! :up
 
Thanks for all the comments, folks! Everyone here could have done the same repair. Just takes proper products, a little bravery, and a lot of patience.;)
 
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