Its been a while since I have posted any details Click and Brags, and lately I have gotten a hold a couple of NICE cars. This customer occasionally visits autopia and linked up to me by chance. Its a 2005 Lotus Elise with about 4k on the clock. I mean it was in great condition as its in the garage a majority of the time. It did have your basic washing swirls and some random marring that seemed odd to me. Anyways what I thought was gonna be a very easy job turned to be a major PITA! I mean clear coat on this car is VERY strange. What seemed to be very minor swirls were very hard to tackle and the paint seems be unusually thin, it had VERY LITTLE OP. Some areas the owner pointed out were what appears to actually be paint defects and surprisingly I found a few fish eyes in the paint and I know it hasnt been repainted. I tired FOREVER to figure out the best polish/pad combo to tackle these slight swirls. Started with FPII with White LC pad via rotary at 1000rpms...nothing. Moved to IP with Orange LC pad via rotary at 1000 rpms...nothing except some added pad marring. Stray clear coat marring still there. Some spot I busted out the Menzerna Powergloss and orange pad via rotary still nothing except a lot of micromarring. I tired the above combo's except the PG all with the PC and nothing. Finally after bein frustrated as heck, I decided to try IP with white lc pad via rotary at 1300 rpms and worked it a little longer and it left no micro marring and got "most" of the clear coat marring and swirls out. Here is the process for the rest of the car.
Wash Z7
Clay Z clay and wash as lube.
All the above combos of polishing -- ended up doing the whole car with IP w/ white polish pad via rotary at 1300 rpms.
Zaino ZPC via PC and polish pad at 5
Z6 wipedown
2 coats of ZFXed Z2PRO per owners request.
Wheels and tires cleaned with 4:1 Meg Wheel Brightner
Tires dressed with Zaino dressing.
INterior got vacuum, woolite wipedown
Dash and vinyl got 303 Aerospace protect and leater conditioned with Zaino leather conditioner.
The owner was very pleasant gentleman about everything and one of the nicest guys I have detailed a car for. I apologized about not being able to get the paint to 100% but he understood that I tried everything possible. He even said that he is very dissappointed with the facotry paint job being its a handmade $40-50k car. I gave the owner a discount from the original price qouted but still gave me a tip. Like I said first class gentleman.
Enough talk, on to the pics!
Wash Z7
Clay Z clay and wash as lube.
All the above combos of polishing -- ended up doing the whole car with IP w/ white polish pad via rotary at 1300 rpms.
Zaino ZPC via PC and polish pad at 5
Z6 wipedown
2 coats of ZFXed Z2PRO per owners request.
Wheels and tires cleaned with 4:1 Meg Wheel Brightner
Tires dressed with Zaino dressing.
INterior got vacuum, woolite wipedown
Dash and vinyl got 303 Aerospace protect and leater conditioned with Zaino leather conditioner.
The owner was very pleasant gentleman about everything and one of the nicest guys I have detailed a car for. I apologized about not being able to get the paint to 100% but he understood that I tried everything possible. He even said that he is very dissappointed with the facotry paint job being its a handmade $40-50k car. I gave the owner a discount from the original price qouted but still gave me a tip. Like I said first class gentleman.
Enough talk, on to the pics!
