1993 Nissan Altima (Rough one)

0

01bluecls

New member




Sorry guys, no exotic or high end car for you today. :) The detail is of a 1993 Nissan Altima. The car is a daily driver/commuter car that was acquired not too long ago from my client. I will have to say this had to be the roughest exterior on a car I have ever worked on. You name it, it had it, swirls, dullness, deep scratches, etc. Its kind of nice to work on a car of this condition because the turnaround is usually DRAMATIC. Obviously, perfection was out of the question, but I tried my hardest to make it look its best for the time I had it. Car was dropped off on Thursday around 4:30ish in which I completed the interior in 2.5 hours. The next day I started on the exterior and worked 8.5 hours STRAIGHT (no lunch, eating, etc.) The car was far from perfect in many aspects after I was done, but the owner seemed pleased, and that is all that matters to me. :)



Process:

Wash and clay and clay and clay lol

EC via Yellow LC Cut Pad @1700rpms

EC/FPII via White Polish Pad @ 1500rpms

FPII via Green LC CSS Polish/Finish Pad @1500rpms

106FF via blue finesse pad @1500->1000rpms

Re-washed due to all the polishing dust

LSP = Collinite IW 845



Interior:

All vinyl/plastic cleaned with APC.

Carpets and cloth seats cleaned with Folex/APC with brushes and extracted.

All vinyl/plastic treated with 303.

Vacuumed



Total Time: 11 hours



Pics: I didn’t document as well as I wanted due to time restrictions I was faced. I did manage to get pretty good half/half shots. The time I finished the sun was obscured by clouds and going down. SORRY, I forgot to take interior shots :( :(





Before touching the exterior:

altima_before_all.jpg




MMMmmmm….. yummy bugs!!!

altima_bugs.jpg




Rear Passenger Quarter Panel BEFORE:

altima_pass_quarter_halo_b4.jpg






Rear Passenger Quarter Panel AFTER:

93_altima_pass_quarter_after.jpg




BEFORE

93_altima_pass_qrtr_b4_close.jpg




AFTER:

altima_quarter_after_close.jpg




BEFORE:

altima_rear_pass_door_b41.jpg




AFTER:

altima_pass_door_after.jpg




AFTER of Passenger Door:

altima_pass_frnt_door_after.jpg




AFTER of Passenger fender and door. Forgot to take before.

altima_after_pass_fender_door.jpg




Half and Half shot of Hood in Sun

altima_hood_half_sun.jpg




Another:

altima_hood_half_sun_2.jpg




TRUNK BEFORE:

altima_trunk_b4.jpg




TRUNK AFTER: (Obviously all the scratches didn’t come out):

altima_trunk_half.jpg




BEFORE:

altima_dr_quarter_b4.jpg




AFTER:

altima_dr_quarter_after.jpg




Another AFTER:

altima_dr_quarter_close_after.jpg








Completed Pics After Everything: (Sun was behind clouds and going down :( )



altima_front_close.jpg




altima_fr_pass_view.jpg




altima_dr_side.jpg




altima_rear_pass_shot.jpg




altima_hood_reflect.jpg




altima_rear_dr_side_shot.jpg
 
oh yeah,i saw gunk on the front bumper left side, if not paint chip off, you can try aggresive compound to buff that out, because i did that many of time,you might impress you coustomer if u take that out
 
guan_shine said:
oh yeah,i saw gunk on the front bumper left side, if not paint chip off, you can try aggresive compound to buff that out, because i did that many of time,you might impress you coustomer if u take that out
Click to expand...





The two marks on the front bumper are deep scratches and white primer showing. I did remove some paint transfer but buffing will do nothing for the rest of it.
 
Looks great Chris! :up

It was really rough :shocked and looks 1000X better than before. The deep scratches look like most of the cars I have been getting lately, it is just not safe to try and remove them completely :wall



Why so many polishing steps?



How do you like the Green LC pad?
 
You might not want to post the answer here, but will you tell me about how much you charged for 11 hrs of work? I know the price people charge depends upon many factors.



Cheers,
 
audicoupej said:
Looks great Chris! :up

It was really rough :shocked and looks 1000X better than before. The deep scratches look like most of the cars I have been getting lately, it is just not safe to try and remove them completely :wall



Why so many polishing steps?



How do you like the Green LC pad?
Click to expand...





Well EC with Yellow pad, especially the yellow pad, leaves tons of marring of its own. EC/FPII cleaned up the deep left over marring from the previous combo and FPII with green LC cleaned up the holograms and remaing marring. I was getting very faint and slight holograms with FPII and green pad so I went with blue pad and 106FF. I could have saved time if I had skipped the green pad and FPII.



The green pad isnt bad but I will prefer always using the blue pad as the last step. What I dont like about the CSS pads is the "pockets" extend all the way to the edge of the pad and cut off leaving half circles in the pad's edges. I think this is causing more chances of holograms or slight micromarring the finish.
 
Greg Nichols said:
You might not want to post the answer here, but will you tell me about how much you charged for 11 hrs of work? I know the price people charge depends upon many factors.



Cheers,
Click to expand...



I charge a flat rate of $50 an hour (starting June 10th Im going to $60 an hour)



Instead of $550 i only asked the owner for $500. He ended up giving me $550. He was very generous and kind gentleman. He actually stuck around for a hour as I was rinsing the car and applying wax on it.
 
Job well done! I have done so many of those in the past and the paint on those suck to work with. It also seems like everyone of those older altimas I have done, always have body damage also. But for the year it is not that bad overall. It is 15 years old.



Great job on the transformation and it came out perfect for what it is. It's cars like this that give you the real training and workout. Don't you miss the exotics now?
 
klnyc said:
Is that car up for sale or what?

Man thats was some transformation..11hrs :2thumbs:
Click to expand...



Nope, the owner uses it as his daily commuter. I believe he recently acquired it from a relative that never had the car detailed. At one point the entire front end had been repainted which he was unaware of and I pointed it out. I pretty much guarantee the value of the car raised to compensate for a $550 detail. I dont know how long he plans on keeping it. It has about 125,xxx miles on it now.
 
Nice, really good turn around on the vehicle. I agree that vehicle is looking really good for it's age, it looks like it had some deep scratches in areas did you do any wet sanding?



Very nice turn around. The pictures were good.



Thank you for sharing.
 
rydawg said:
Job well done! I have done so many of those in the past and the paint on those suck to work with. It also seems like everyone of those older altimas I have done, always have body damage also. But for the year it is not that bad overall. It is 15 years old.



Great job on the transformation and it came out perfect for what it is. It's cars like this that give you the real training and workout. Don't you miss the exotics now?
Click to expand...





The customer saw the exotics that I have done and was worried I wouldnt touch his Altima. I defintely dont discriminate against any car. I will do pretty any car willing to pay my rates. Dont worry, more exotics are scheduled for everyone viewing pleasure! :) I at times miss doing cars like this Altima since the before and after can be VERY DRAMATIC! These are the type of cars I was doing when I first started this.
 
Nica said:
Nice, really good turn around on the vehicle. I agree that vehicle is looking really good for it's age, it looks like it had some deep scratches in areas did you do any wet sanding?



Very nice turn around. The pictures were good.



Thank you for sharing.
Click to expand...



No wet sanding, I figured if Yellow cut pad and EC wasnt going to get a defect out then wetsanding would take too much clear off. I took readings and the non-repainted panels were reading around 115ish and the repainted areas were 120-150. The owner knew that car was in terrible shape and simply told me do the best you can in the time you have the car.
 
01bluecls said:
Well EC with Yellow pad, especially the yellow pad, leaves tons of marring of its own. EC/FPII cleaned up the deep left over marring from the previous combo and FPII with green LC cleaned up the holograms and remaing marring. I was getting very faint and slight holograms with FPII and green pad so I went with blue pad and 106FF. I could have saved time if I had skipped the green pad and FPII.



The green pad isnt bad but I will prefer always using the blue pad as the last step. What I dont like about the CSS pads is the "pockets" extend all the way to the edge of the pad and cut off leaving half circles in the pad's edges. I think this is causing more chances of holograms or slight micromarring the finish.
Click to expand...



Thanks Chris. I'm looking into other pads as lately I have had cars with really deep RIDS and I spend way too much time trying to remove them, only to have them laugh at me. EC with a yellow won't touch them so I am thinking of going with wool.



Edit:After reading your above posts perhaps I should just forget about trying to remove what EC won't touch.
 
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