Will this polish out, or should I just respray the car?

F

Froggie

New member
Bonjour from France. I've been lurking here for a few months and have picked up some really good tips. A couple of days ago I picked up a 1998 RHD Mazda MX5/Miata from the UK. It is in very good mechanical order and the interior is excellent. However, in places (especially the front) the paint is very flat and tired looking.



Do you think it is worth my investing in some equipment (polisher, pads, etc.) to try to restore the paintwork, or is it beyond repair and should I be thinking of a full body respray.



The car is just for fun really and I am not looking for concours levels of tidyness. I could live with the paint as it is, but any advice would be much appreciated.



This is about as good as I could get with my camera:



redpaint.jpg
 
Those little red bumps, are they in the paint?, if so, looks like a poor repaint maybe.



Hard to tell from the photo.



You can always try a little polish or mild compound by hand first, and see if it shines up any.
 
I'd be shocked if you can't improve it a lot. Get a good Random Orbital and some polishing pads and see what happens. Wish you were closer than France!
 
Thanks for your advice. Yes, I believe the car has been partially resprayed at some point. I am a bit of a noob when it comes to serious machine polishing. Can you give me some tips on which machine to go for and what pads and polishing liquids I should be using.



Or maybe there's a How to somewhere on the forum you could point me to?



TIA
 
Froggie just do a search or check out the machine section of the forums...

more than likely, you're going to want to check out the following:DA's

Griot's Dual action polisher

Porter cable Dual action polisher

Flex 3401



The flex by far is the most expensive--but it seems to have the most umph to it so you can tackle more corrections efficiently while still being safe.



the other two are good--and they come in handy also when you need to get into tighter spots.



pad wise...I would look into the 7/8 hydro tech pads. probably the tangerines and maybe crimsons? for mx i'd probably get 3 or 4 of each
 
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