Black CTS-V paint correction

RaskyR1

Rasky's Auto Detailing
2005 Cadillac CTS-V, exterior correction only.



The owner recently purchased this car used and wanted to give her a new lease on life. He had contacted me via email about my services and mentioned he was getting the hood painted under warranty, and that he would then bring the car over for me to inspect. Upon inspection the car really didn’t look too bad; especially considering it was black and 4 years old. We had decided that a 2-step correction was they way to go for this daily driver, and I was confident it would remove 90-95% of the defects…. HOWEVER, the body shop somehow happened to get overspray all over the ENTIRE car when they painted the hood!!! The owner brought the car back to the dealership/body shop to have them remove the overspray via clay bar prior having me do the work. I had also done a test spot with some OTC Meguiars clay, and the overspray came off with very little effort…





The car was dropped off late on Friday night in the rain so I really had no idea what I was in for until after I washed the car and pulled out the Brinkmann…





Before pics





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P21S Gel dwelling

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After an ONR bath the damage was sadly revealed with the Brinkmann and Halogens lamps. You can clearly see the deep marring and RIDS inflicted by the body shop, who apparently was using a very aggressive and dirty clay bar….so much for the 2-step process.

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Very deep scratch in the newly painted hood…apparently done during the claying at the dealer/body shop. This was definitely not coming out but I did try to make it less noticeable.

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The car also had those ugly door edge moldings that not only take away from the look of the car, but they also make buffing a PITA. I asked the owner what he though of them and he agreed that they should be removed if possible.

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Some glue left behind…

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3M adhesive remove to the rescue

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It was late Friday night after washing the car and I wanted to have my process dialed in for Saturday morning. My original plan of attack was M105 on the rotary with Solo wool pad, followed by M105 on the PCXP with an orange LC pad, finishing off with M205 on a black LC pad. It may be hard to see in the 50/50 shots but M205 left some very faint micro marring. Because of this I decided to finish with Menzerna 106ff as it finished down perfectly.



50/50 test spot (Note that these were taken after finishing with M205, not 106ff)

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The next morning I first wanted to address the scratch on the hood and the headlights which were in pretty bad shape.



Light sanding of the scratch….the body shop did a good job with the initial sanding and even though I got paint readings in the 170 micron range, I had no real idea of how much clear was left. The rest of the car had very healthy readings in the 130-140 micron range.

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It appeared that the UV coating on the tops of the lamps had deteriorated and they had a very weird texture to them. I normally would not sand them this aggressively as it will surely remove the UV coating, but at this point we had nothing to loose.

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The top portion of the lamps received 800, 1500, 3000 grit sanding, and the face of the lamps got 2000, 3000 as they were not that bad.

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Headlamps after polishing with M105/M205

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Rear lamps only had light marring.

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After M105/M205

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I also happened to notice some yellow road paint behind the left rear tire which I wanted to address.

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Removed with lacquer thinner

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I pulled the car out Sunday morning and got some sun shots after the final buffing step and an IPA wipe down. No LSP here yet. This time of the year it’s hard to get good sun shots by my shop as the sun is low in the sky and it gets blocked by the trees and my house. There was also very light overcast too, but you can still see how nice the finish came out.

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After shots! LSP was Blackfire Wet-Diamond

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Corsa exhaust sounds good. Tips cleaned with ZAIO.

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Sun was just about to go down behind the house when I pulled the car out.

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The money shot!

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About 17 hours were invested in this job.







Thanks for looking,

Rasky
 
Great work as always!:clap: I've always loved the CTS-V.



Too bad about the bodyshop screwing up the paint. The owner must have loved that. At least he had you to fix it though.



So they plan on driving a 400hp rear wheel drive black beast in the snow? At least they know a good detailer. :)
 
ctrent86 said:
Great Job!



I really love the newer body style CTS Vspec but they need to tone down the chrome.



Thanks!



I'd actually like to pick up a 2009 when my current lease is up...hopefully the will drop in price like they have in the past. ;)







cjcorrea said:
Very Nice work



Thank you!



mshu7 said:
Helluva turn-around Rasky, especially considering the number the body shop did to the paint! Great work!



Thanks Mike!



audicoupej said:
Great work as always!:clap: I've always loved the CTS-V.



Too bad about the bodyshop screwing up the paint. The owner must have loved that. At least he had you to fix it though.



So they plan on driving a 400hp rear wheel drive black beast in the snow? At least they know a good detailer. :)



Thanks John!



He has snow shoes on it now so I'm sure it will be fine....just need a light foot! :D



He is a firefighter too and has access to washing the car inside...nice little perk! Now that he has it nice I know it will stay in great shape. :2thumbs:





Sludge said:
Nice save. I always enjoy your posts. Looks great now.





Thanks Sludge! :wavey
 
wonderful restoration! Did you anticipate it would take 17 hours for the exterior alone?!?!?!



I'm a GM guy and couldn't look past the amount of orange peel-in the doors (typical GM finish) Did you or the client ever discuss wetsanding that off?
 
RaskyR1 said:
Thanks John!



He has snow shoes on it now so I'm sure it will be fine....just need a light foot! :D



He is a firefighter too and has access to washing the car inside...nice little perk! Now that he has it nice I know it will stay in great shape. :2thumbs:





Lucky! Glad to hear he will be able to keep it maintained.
 
great work rasky! The tips, wheels, headlight / taillight housings really are beautiful work and complement the quality job on the paint perfectly. She now looks brand spankin' new and i hope the owner is thankful to find such a quality guy to do this work
 
tssdetailing said:
wonderful restoration! Did you anticipate it would take 17 hours for the exterior alone?!?!?!I'm a GM guy and couldn't look past the amount of orange peel-in the doors (typical GM finish) Did you or the client ever discuss wetsanding that off?



Definitely not, no big deal though as I enjoy working on nice cars like this. Waiting for the 106ff do break down using the PC definietly added some time though. ;)



Even though I had healthy paint readings, I would never do a full wet sand on a factory finish...just not worth the risk. I do agree with you on the GM paint though. :(



MuttGrunt said:
great work rasky! The tips, wheels, headlight / taillight housings really are beautiful work and complement the quality job on the paint perfectly. She now looks brand spankin' new and i hope the owner is thankful to find such a quality guy to do this work



Thanks for the kind works Marc! :2thumbs:



He is indeed, gave me a nice plug on a local Corvette forum too, which was very nice of him!
 
VERY nice work, Chad!!



I knew from the first paragraph that there would be some sort of issue caused by the body shop!



Great job whipping that paint back into shape! These aren't known for having the best paint, that's for sure! I did a 2009 not too long ago and was amazed how poor the fit & finish was on the car. I'll see if I can dig up a couple pics..



I will say that the car was an absolute BEAST! It is actually at Lingenfelter as we speak getting a bigger supercharger installed, so I should be detailing it again within the next couple weeks.:)



The paint looks perfect, as well as the front headlights! Awesome job!! :2thumbs:
 
RickRack said:
VERY nice work, Chad!!



I knew from the first paragraph that there would be some sort of issue caused by the body shop!



Great job whipping that paint back into shape! These aren't known for having the best paint, that's for sure! I did a 2009 not too long ago and was amazed how poor the fit & finish was on the car. I'll see if I can dig up a couple pics..



I will say that the car was an absolute BEAST! It is actually at Lingenfelter as we speak getting a bigger supercharger installed, so I should be detailing it again within the next couple weeks.:)



The paint looks perfect, as well as the front headlights! Awesome job!! :2thumbs:



Thanks Rick! They are definielty a beast! 700+ HP with that Lingenfelter! :woohoo:



My firend sold a 2009 to a local kid who also had the Lingenfelter installed. He came back to the dealer a few weeks later and the rear tires were down to the wire cords....with only 2000 miles on the car!!! :LOLOL



If the '09's drop in price like the previous years, I may look at picking one up in 2011. ;)



artikxscout said:
wow beautiful! the OP on that thing is almost like the BMW that was just posted up.



Thanks Sam!
 
RaskyR1 said:
Thanks Rick! They are definielty a beast! 700+ HP with that Lingenfelter! :woohoo:



My firend sold a 2009 to a local kid who also had the Lingenfelter installed. He came back to the dealer a few weeks later and the rear tires were down to the wire cords....with only 2000 miles on the car!!! :LOLOL



If the '09's drop in price like the previous years, I may look at picking one up in 2011. ;)





Haha..That's awesome! :)



It would definitely be a fun car to have. Looks good, handles good, it's comfortable, fits four people and GOES LIKE HELL!!!!



I'm sure they will drop like a rock like all of the past years. Definitely better off letting someone else take the hit.



Below are a few pics of the one I did a little while ago.. I think GM forgot to cover some of the panels with paint :think:



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