Has anyone ever encountered this?

Brenton

aka PEI Detail
A guy called with a 98 Toyota 4-Runner, White, one owner. It is completely dull, so he took it to a local shine place, and they couldn't get it shiny. Then he took it to the Toyota dealership, and they tried stuff, but no go. They said, "your clear coat has worn off".

What the?

First, I've never heard of clear coat wearing off evenly without flaking or peeling.
Second, there is no detailing damage done in the history of the car.
Third, it can't just be base coat left or there'd be scratches everywhere.

Has anyone heard of this? Fill me in?

It's just a strange week in detail world for me.
 
GregCavi said:
sounds like oxidation. Got any pics?


Greg

No pics yet. He's coming by tomorrow.
It does sound like oxidization, but you'd think a pro shine shop would pick that up, or the detailer at least.
 
it doesnt suprise me the least to hear that a dealer would say that. I have heard dealerships say that about cars. They jsut say it needs a good coat of wax haha.

Greg
 
'98 with no history of damage? Has he had it excessively polished or had any re-paints done? If no, I would say it's not likely his clear is gone. Oxidized? Sure. Gone? No.

Two weekends ago I did my dads van which is a '92, sits outside all day on the sun, snow, whatever. Has 320km, and gets washed with a mitt that looks like a pine-cone, and he still had plenty of clear and the shine came back no problems after a few passes with OCP. It was really badly oxidized so it took some work. I think the truck you're going to look at will be similar.
 
The clear has not come off...I would get some light cut compound or PB SSR2.5 rub the hood a bit and see what that does....I bet that it will cut threw the oxidization....A good wash, clay, would be good start.....depending on what it looks like after that I would most likely use my rotary with a cutting pad and some light cut product or polish......I'd bet that will take what is on the surface and start to bring back the luster....
 
So....
The guy stopped by today.
THE CLEAR HAS NOT COME OFF.
Of course. I was hoping to see something new, but no. I cleaned a small area, clayed it, and used Farecla G6 compound on a small area. The shine for the most part returned.
So the guy left the car. It took about five hours to remove the heavy oxidization, using the Farecla G6 compound and a heavier commercial grade cut polish in a few areas. I had to use 5.5" & 7" foam pads as well as the wool bonnet on the sides. It didn't come 100%, but 98%. I was afraid to go any further or I would have.
I snapped the after pics late in the day, so I'll get better ones tomorrow. It is hard to capture a white film on a white car, but here we go.

Edit: I won't actually post pics until someone can explain to me how to do it without going as huge as my pics are.
 
You need to resize them using some sort of software, like photoshop. Then upload them to some webspace, your own or imageshak or whatever. If that's too much trouble you can email them to me and I will do it for you. kevin@kbhamill.com.

Edit - or what jaybs95 said. :)
 
PEI

I suppected that is what was wrong and glad that you could help this guy out and give him some straight answers.......Also can you send me a bag of the PEI black mussels and some malpeck oysters
 
Really nice job, Brenton.
You should ask your customer if we wants to go and show the dealership and the can't shine shop what the truck is supposed to look like.
I'm sure you have a regular customer now :biggrin:

"J"
 
the truck turned out great, nice work




GregCavi said:
it doesnt suprise me the least to hear that a dealer would say that. I have heard dealerships say that about cars. They jsut say it needs a good coat of wax haha.

Greg


greg please go easy on the dealer detailers. not all of us are mickey mouse ones. :yes:
 
Thanx for the pic helps (still a little big) and the kudos.
I think I do have a customer now. Did it for relatively cheap too.

As far as the dealership, the guy went to them to fix it. They said, "oh, clear is gone." And he said, "fix it." Then they said, "no."
What gets me is that buddy then went to the most popular shine place in town (used to be a Shine Factory). They also said it was unfixable. Man, when will some detail shops deside to do more than just cover things up.

And I used to be a dealer detailer. That's how I starter. Not a new lot though, a junker lot.
 
Wow what kinda degreasing wash did you use? Work very well for all that grime? When you compounded, was it mostly the dullness that got buffed out? I sometime deal with bad bad cars such as that and wonder how to approach without usual soap method...
 
The Woob said:
Wow what kinda degreasing wash did you use? Work very well for all that grime? When you compounded, was it mostly the dullness that got buffed out? I sometime deal with bad bad cars such as that and wonder how to approach without usual soap method...

The degreasing wash was a tip I picked up at the junker lot. We would get white cars that were full of grime because, well, people don't wash white cars. We started taking a general HD degreaser (we use Zep Formula 50) at a 1:3 ratio. Panel by panel, with the car completely wet, we spray 3-4 squirts on each panel, then wash with a brush using normal soap.

In this case, it was still dirty because the oxidization trapped in some dirt, mostly trapped in rust stains (dripping and spotting) and, on this car, the black rubber drips whenever it is when and stains.

If the white car is not overly oxidized, but has some oxidization and lots of dirt, I'd be tempted to try mixing ( :ohmy: ) some of the compound with a bit of "cleaner polish" from a popular brand. For this job I simply needed more grit than the typical cleaner polish.

In the compound, there were four things that came out:
1. Primarily, oxidization.
2. General dirt stains trapped by layers of other stuff.
3. Drip stains (see trunk pic above).
4. Other contaminants that claying didn't remove.
 
PEI

There are some detail shops that don't want the work and what I mean by that is they turn down jobs that look like to much work for them.....or they don't know how to fix it so they make up some excuse to baffle the customer.

Anyone telling this guy that the CC was gone was doing something close to that or lieing!

You did the right thing and the car came out looking great..



Does this mean that I'm not going to get my PEI mussels and oysters :gathering
 
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