Biggest Goof You Made Before Autopia?

M

markmando

New member
just curious,

2 weeks before i stumpled onto this website i dowsed my entire dashboard with full strength degreaser( what a mess!). everything fogged white, even the inside front windshield.

of course i accidently found autopia will trying to find a way to fix the damage i had done. ironic.

so may maybe it was a blessing in disguise. I dunno.

anyways, needless to say the advise i received here helped me fix it.

now the car looks like i just drove it off the lot. booya!

Oh yeah, shout out big thanks to everyone who gave input.

so getting back to the topic i was just wondering if anyone has similiar experiences before they found this website?

any real horror stories out there to tell around the camp fire?
 
Applied touch up paint liberally with the "comes in the bottle" applicator. Last quote I got to fix the mess was $1800.00-ish. :shocked



Now here is my plan to fix the excesses of my pre-Autopian life



0) Use the Autopian paint touch up method to repair post blob paint dings and stone chips.



1) I have Micromesh sandpapers 1500-12000 grits. I also have various thicknesses of clear poly sheeting. Starting with 6 mil, cut out a home in it just a little wider than the area to be sanded then tape the poly to the vehicle.



2) Sand until the paint lump is down to the level of the poly - I figure since the poly is so slick, the sand paper won't start grabbing it much until the paints blob is nealy to that level.



3) Repeat steps 1 and 2 until poly is about 1 mil, each time the poly gets changed, go down a grit level with the micromesh.



4) Hit what is left after 1 mil poly-sanding and Autopian touchups with Langka



5) Finish with hard rubber block and say 4000 grit.



6) Add a couple of thin coats of clearcoat, perhaps out to 12 inches on either side of the original blemishs.



7) after a couple of weeks, wash & clay entire vehicle



8) Fianlly DACP, Menzerna IP & FP all paint



Should only take about a month of weekends to do it.... By then my wife will probably divorce me .... But at least I'll have saved $1800 and my ride will be beautiful again:D
 
I confess to you , my brothers and sisters that I have ...

Went to Meg's web ( on que from golfing buddy) and saw all their cool stuff and paid $225 for $110 DA polisher!
 
This was a long time before Autopia. My very first car was a '69 Cutlass that my Dad got for me from somebody he knew in 1974. We lived in a neighborhood with a lot of big old Oak trees and about a month later, the car had quite a few tree stains all over the paint. I got them off with an SOS pad! The car had to be repainted. Even though I had treated it like crap, that car was very, very good to me. Then, my first year in college, my younger brother totalled it.
 
meguiars 3 step process "you have to feed the paint"

used the yellow sponge to wash car

used only one bucket with that yellow sponge
 
the biggest thing was improper wash technique. my new car has no new swirls from washing. while my older one required hours of buffing to repair the damage i did prior to finding this place.
 
I did not make any mistake. I already knew everything. LOL.



Going to coin car wash and use the big brush they have.



I bought a big brush the kind u use for wash RV's to wash my Avalanche. (1,000,000 swirls so far)



:nono
 
I guess mine was just that I didn't care as much as I do today. I didn't do anything too terribly wrong, crappy cotten towels- but everyone did this at one point. Now, if it doesn't look perfect, I have to make it look perfect, doesn't matter what else is going on.
 
tomciob said:
meguiars 3 step process "you have to feed the paint"
Click to expand...



^^you mean that's not true?? Can someone explain that?



Biggest mistake I've ever made...Asked the dealer to buff away some scratches and my brand new car ended up covered in swirls :angry
 
I found Autopia within a month of buying my present car. (The last cars I owned were beaters - 20 years ago.) So, I hadn't done anything. Well, I guess going a month before washing it would be my mistake ;). I asked on the Volvo board what the manual meant by "Wax and polish your vehicle regularly." Someone pointed me here and I learned everything I know about automotive detailing.
 
Okay, people. Get ready to pick up yourselves off the floor.



Before becoming Autopia-ized, I once, used an SOS pad to remove bug splatters off the front of my '89 Ford F150. Talk about some scratches! :o



That one I'm not too proud of. The wife won't let me live it down.
 
Heh, I have too many to choose from, but the 2 that stand out in my mind is I washed the bosses sc430 with glass cleaner. (he was a jerk anyway) And about a month after I bought my Olds Bravada I took it in for tiny rust specs in the paint. They then washed the thing in Acetone.
 
Mi biggest mistake BEFORE finding Autopia... waiting almost 2 weeks to wash a day's worth of Kansas highway moths off the front of a Grand Cherokee. Major etching.



My biggest mistake AFTER finding Autopia... leaving my windows cracked while parked at work in a dust storm. I didn't realize that my ventshades would act like a mini-vacuum. Took me 6 hours to clean the interior out, but luckily I was "armed". ;)
 
Using the old turtle wax...took forever to apply and take off. And using cheap cloth to take off the wax...luckily it was on a car i didn't car too much about...
 
Well, since everyone's bringing out their dirty laundry..............



1. Used [insert the "A-word" here (Armor-All)] on the dash and LEATHER!



2. Always washed with Dawn.



3. Used a brush on the body.



4. Pressure washed engine bay



5. BUT THE WORST OFFENSE! Rinsed car, then dried with a towel, without washing the car first. (please forgive me, this was decades ago..........I'm so ashamed! I can't believe I'm confessing this!......but I do feel better now...)...:nono
 
In 1992 I use to take off my front windshield wiper to dry the car. The mentality was "I'm not paying for one of those stupid Cali Blades !!". Then I'd put it back on the car. I'd also only replace the driver side blade and moved the existing driverside blade to the passenger side.....I mean what the heck....what on earth does the passenger need to see :p
 
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