Opel Astra, not so pretty in pink :)

Apollo_Auto

New member
Hi all! So this customer was a referral from another happy customer of mine and when he called me and told me the problem with the car I got excited immediately. He told me that it was severely oxidized and that he wanted to restore it to its former red color. We made an appointment and some days later he showed up to my shop for me to give an estimate. We agreed that a one-step polish would be sufficient to restore the color and surprisingly enough, he agreed to my price and we set an appointment. When the car arrived back to me on the set date, I realized that this guy really loves this car... there were no scratches on the kick panels or really anywhere on any of the plastic parts and the inside of the car was immaculate (sorry didn't take any pics :()... It was really in pristine condition aside from the paint. I love this kind of customer!



Anyway, once I started removing the oxidation (Wolf's WP-1N and a finishing pad) it looked... well, red. This step revealed the true tragedy that was covered by the years of oxidation... it was scratched beyond infinity. After polishing my test area and seeing how horrible it looked underneath, I just couldn't find the strength to let those scratches remain on the finish. Therefore, as I had no other appointments for the day, I broke out the Wooly Mammoth (8" wool pad) and some Wolf's WP-6H polish and went to town removing the scratches. I finished with Wolf's WP-1N and a finishing pad and the LSP for today was Wolf's New Moon wax.





Much to my surprise, this paint was extremely hard (I don't do many Opels so it was a surprise to me...)!! It was a single-stage paint and fairly thin so I didn't get too crazy, and furthermore, time only allowed me to remove a great deal of the scratches from the upper half of the car. So basically I did a 2-stepper on the entire upper half of the car. Here's the pics >>



astra_red_1.jpg




astra_red_2.jpg




astra_red_3.jpg




astra_red_4.jpg




astra_red_5.jpg




astra_red_6.jpg




astra_red_7.jpg




The test area, you can't really see the scratches here, but there were plenty...



astra_red_8.jpg




astra_red_9.jpg




astra_red_10.jpg




astra_red_11.jpg




The outside detox took about 3 hours...



astra_red_12.jpg




astra_red_13.jpg




astra_red_14.jpg




Fiddy fiddys...



astra_red_15.jpg




astra_red_16.jpg




astra_red_17.jpg




astra_red_18.jpg




astra_red_19.jpg




astra_red_20.jpg




astra_red_21.jpg




Ferrari or Ford, Porsche or Peugeot... bring it on I say, bring it on!! This was a very satisfying detail and I've already gotten 2 referrals from this customer... yes it was a lot more work than we'd agreed on, but the customer was over the moon and this is why I love my job :).



Thanks for reading and to all the Playboy subscribers, thanks for "reading"!



- Jesse O'Connor
 
lol Jesse - always bringing entertaining threads. Another one that looks very rewarding to have completed and another great read. Always nice getting customers that were referred!
 
From yuck to beautiful. Great work Jesse. What year is the car? I see you're still using those AM squeeze bottles. lol.
 
tdekany said:
Awesome work Jessy!



Thanks Tamas!



AndyVo said:
What a turn around. That was sure nice of you to take some extra time to make it extra special.



Thanks Andy, I really didn't mind going the extra mile for the extra smile ;)!



MuttGrunt said:
lol Jesse - always bringing entertaining threads. Another one that looks very rewarding to have completed and another great read. Always nice getting customers that were referred!



Thanks Marc! Yeah I love the kind of customers that brag about how well I've done their car! They're the best to have and seeing how much the guy loves his car I couldn't pass the chance to knock his socks off :).



tssdetailing said:
whatdaya got against pink eh?



pix aren't working...



:D



JohnKleven said:
That was quite a turn-around Jesse. Looks great.



Thank you, John!



David Fermani said:
From yuck to beautiful. Great work Jesse. What year is the car? I see you're still using those AM squeeze bottles. lol.



Cheers David! I think the car's right around 10 years old? Yeah, I do like my AM squeeze bottles :)!



gofast908z said:
Great work Jesse! I love turning around cars like that. In fact I just finished an Evo that was basically pink too.



Thanks Jeff! Make sure to post!
 
Great work stud! I love these type of details! Truely rewarding there, thats for sure. Awe it was pretty in pink though.
 
Back
Top