Honda Civic - orange peel and paint color

[yas]

Hi



I'm following a very simple routine to take care of my Civic. Just washing it every couple of weeks with Griots car wash, and also I usually put in an ounce or so of OCW for every 2 gallons solution. Have done nothing beyond that yet, except using mild clay on a few spots with stuff that wouldn't come off with the wash. I have mobility problems, so this is what I felt comfortable doing.



Anyways, the more the OCW builds up, the paint has looked more a bit more reflective and a bit deeper too. However, now the orange peel stands out a more I think.



Another problem, is the bumper color is different from other areas. This seems to stand out more as well now. I took some pics, these are a couple of days after washing.



Orange peel (in hindsight not the best picture to show the orange peel, the garage door window reflection shows it hopefully).

Is it just me, I think this looks like really bad orange peel?



The rear bumper ... to me the color from the bumper is quite different from the other areas

I have a porter cable DA, and lake country orange, white, black pads. Actually don't have any polishes right now, but willing to get some if there is anyway to reduce it with just a DA polisher? Also I could probably get more aggressive pads if needed. I honestly dread having to polish the vehicle, my knees will be sure to let me know afterward. But if I do a little at a time, I can probably manage to complete it over a few weekends.



Also, this is more of a hobby for me, I just take care of my own vehicle. I wouldn't be comfortable doing things like wetstanding.



The rear bumper, it didn't bother me so much before, but looking at it again, not too happy with it. Not sure what could be done.

 

[RaskyR1]

Having owned an 8th gen Si I can agree the orange peel is pretty bad on them. The color match on the bumper is pretty much the norm on all new cars as they are painted separately from the metal body. There is not a lot of clear on these cars so I would advise against trying to remove it as you will be left with very little clear for future corrections. If you're still determined to reduce the amount of orange peel I would look at trying out the CarPro Denim Orange Peel Removal pads. These will remove less clear than sanding while still reducing the amount of orange peel. They should be used with a rotary polisher and with care!

 

[jlb85]

The orange peel looks typical for factory paint. Look at BMW for much worse orange peel. Removing orange peel carries a lot of risk, and even with the fantastic denim pads should probably not be use by a green novice. Expect to spend dozens of hours working on reducing the orange peel. It will not be eliminated as there is "peel" in the base coat too. Further, with a white car the difference with and without peel is minimal. Your paint will suffer more as you sand/abrade down the clear coat. Further, if you have limited mobility you might need to struggle too much to reduce orange peel. IMO, not worth the DIY. Do you have a pro detailer in your area? If orange peel reduction is still a concern you could see if your local pro has access to the denim pads (and a rtg), maybe do a section... I would not wetsand the factory honda paint as they are too thin, imo.



The rear bumper looks like a repaint to me. Getting that fixed would make more of a difference than orange peel reduction to the casual observer.



Going over the paint with a simple polish and pad will liven it up significantly, an might get you to where you are satisfied with the looks.

 

[jlb85]

I posted this on the Vortex as an answer to someone asking about their silver car. I tried to make a point that even with all this work nobody notices the reduction in orange peel on a light colored car. To me it was worth it, but I would not advise this to anyone



From the Vortex thread:

My A8 got its orange peel reduced drastically, still hardly noticeable and hard to capture on the camera, ie 99 out of 100 people cannot see a difference. Oh well, at least I know what the paint has endured and how good it looks (more because I trust the process, lol).



The car got iron-x twice, tarminator, clay, wash in prep stage. Correcting stage consisted of CarPro Denim orange peel reducing pad treatment, about 5 hard passes, followed by 5 to 10 hard passes of Surbuf with M101/M105, then 2 hard passes with D300 and mf pad, then one to two passes pf M205 on black llc pad under Makita rotary, then one final pass of Menzerna 85rd under Makita rotary. Took off about 5 tp 12 micrometers of clear (some areas much more due to spot correcring deep scratches), which is pretty low for all those steps. This paint was rock hard. Final wash, then two coats of 22ple.



As purchased with 150k miles

Denim stage. Prep for polishing:

Factory orange peel on driver's side rear door:

After 2 passes with denim and M101:

rear quarter after 5 passes of denim, rear door with factory orange peel:

All done and coated, in the cloudy MI weather:

Beading of the 22ple after 3 washes and 3 weeks (beading has subdued significantly on the horizontal sections after 2 more weeks parked outside and no washing)

As you can probably tell, the pictures make more of a difference than ALL that work. Silver is just silver. Revel in its ease of care and it "always looking good"!



[\quote]

 

[David Fermani]

Nice work Jacob. The A8 looks great!!!!

 

[yas]

Yeah, the A8 looks really sharp! Great work!

 

[jlb85]

Thank you, gentlemen!