New Car Shine

cjbigcog

New member
While waxing my new WRX today, I noticed how glossy and (almost) perfect the surface was. I have been polishing cars for 2-3 years now (Flex3401) but never have had results that looked like the new car shine.

How can a car be polished to look like new?
 
Two passes with UNO on a white pad and then a pass with PO85RD on black and your paint will look better than any new car. What is your current polishing process?
 
I can answer that question.....LEARN AUTO PAINT REJUVENATION AND CORRECTION. After you do that the rest is easy. "Paintxpert" Shine Since 1969. You can learn on you tube or right here.
 
Heh heh, yeah, as Dan said, when you get the polishing approach just right you can often *improve* upon the showroom new finish. First step is to fix all the clearly visible marring, then you refine the "already perfect" paint with some burnishing/jeweling.



Then you try to avoid taking it back to square-one with the next wash ;)
 
I'm surprised you're pleased with the WRX's paint. I'm a 2011 STI owner and the paint has the worst orange peel I think I've ever seen on a new car. Even polished up, the reflection is awful.
 
Thanks for the responses!



Dan: Most of the cars I have polished needed a lot of work. I pretty much two stepped them...compound with orange pad, finish with white. People were happy with the results and didn't want to spend more $$$'s to really refine it any more.

I'll give the black pad a try.



Scooby24: I didn't look closly at the paint until after waxing. Yeah...bad orange peel. Are they all like this? Makes me think about wet sanding, but have no idea how thick the clear coat is.



Accumulator: Looks like I have to step up my game. But as Scooby24 mentioned, with the orange peel issue, perhaps I can't expect too much.
 
cjbigcog said:
Thanks for the responses!



Dan: Most of the cars I have polished needed a lot of work. I pretty much two stepped them...compound with orange pad, finish with white. People were happy with the results and didn't want to spend more $$$'s to really refine it any more.

I'll give the black pad a try.



Scooby24: I didn't look closly at the paint until after waxing. Yeah...bad orange peel. Are they all like this? Makes me think about wet sanding, but have no idea how thick the clear coat is.



Accumulator: Looks like I have to step up my game. But as Scooby24 mentioned, with the orange peel issue, perhaps I can't expect too much.



I think they are all like this, and I'm in the same boat. Most of the Subaru paints are 3 stage. Mine's Satin White and in my experience, the clear on a 3 stage is less than that of a 2 stage. With how much orange peel there is, to get it really looking right, I'd be very concerned that I'd be wet sanding the high spots way too thin for comfort.
 
Many modern new mass production cars are really only working with around 100 +/- 15 mics of total coating thickness - I would try your darndest to live with it, because its basically suicide to try to flatten that back and have room to play afterwards.



E9X bimmers are terribly peely as well.
 
cjbigcog said:
Scooby24: I didn't look closly at the paint until after waxing. Yeah...bad orange peel. Are they all like this? Makes me think about wet sanding, but have no idea how thick the clear coat is.



No way I'd wetsand it. Subie paint is thin enough as it is.



Accumulator: Looks like I have to step up my game. But as Scooby24 mentioned, with the orange peel issue, perhaps I can't expect too much.



While orangepeel is...well...what it is, I don't worry about it. My Tahoe has *HORRIBLE* orangepeel but I still polished out everything that was shallow enough for safe removal and I'm satisfied with how it looks. Seen beside other similar vehicles of its type that are *not* corrected to the same extent there's simply no comparison. I wouldn't let the orangepeel be a factor when deciding how nice to aim for.



If orangepeel *really* bothered me that much I'd have to ask myself how much I'd pay to not have it. Ten or twelve grand for a really good repaint? And how durable would that be compared to factory-baked paint? Eh, I just don't care about orangepeel and I'm reminded of the old joke that "if you don't want orangepeel, buy a Rolls Royce" :chuckle:
 
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