My First Black Car - Epic post! 72 pics!

damon@tirerack · #1 (**permalink**) 08-28-2008

My buddy has a 2006 A4 black he asked me to shine up for him. In the lot here at work it was always nice and clean and looked pretty good. I've never done all black so I agreed to give it a go. Here she is before I started to clay:

So off I go. First a good Dawn bath.......

....and then clayed. I was a bit surprised at the amount of contaminants in the paint:

That should have been a warning for what I was about to encounter when I got it dried and put some bright light on it. Oh boy, what did I get myself into.....

As you can see the paint was absolutely trashed. He bought it off lease from someone who obviosly never washed it correctly (brush car washes) and never gave it any real care. I was scratching my head as I didn't know where to even start. It's hard to believe that from 20 feet it always looked so good, only for it to look like this under spots. After crying to my mommy, I turned my hat around and dug in.

damon@tirerack · #2 (**permalink**) 08-28-2008

I started by taping off the joints. I knew that nothing but orange pads on the Cyclo and Extreme Cut was in order to start with. I have heard that Audi clearcoat was very hard and I believe it now. I thought the Extreme Cut would tackle the scratches as aggressively as it did on my truck, but was dismayed to find this paint was much harder on this car. Some of these would take nothing less than sanding with 2000 grit to start with. I've never wet sanded paint before but I had no choice. I just went REEEAAAALLLL slow......

These two were particularly bad:

I figured as long as the water wasn't turning black I was still OK!

After sanding and before I started polishing.

I did the hood and front driver fender with the Extreme/ogange pad combo and was surprised to see after an IPA wipedown that many didn't come out. Here's a few 50/50 shots.

They were definitely better, but only by about 50%. I decided at this point that for what he was giving me to do the job my goal was to win the battle with this car, but I wasn't going to win the war. It would have taken a rotary and wool pads to get this car right. I just don't think the Cyclo had the guts to get it done inside of it being a 20 hour job. Fine by me, I'm never doing a car like this again unless I get paid MUCH more to do it. The Extreme cut works great but due to the hardness of the clear it took awhile. For most of the panels I decided to first use a much more aggressive compound I had from Safety-Kleen by hand and PUSH to get some of these out. It was basically liquid sandpaper and very abrasive, but it was all I had that was stronger than Extreme Cut.

Here's what the fenders looked like with a hand application of the SK cutting compound:

Before, you can see the scratches:

After:

Here's the hood after rubbing on some of the deeper scratches out. Getting rid of them CREATED them....Oh boy.....

After doing that to the hood I decided to call it a day. I was up at 6 that day, started this at 7:30pm, and I was starting to make dumb decisions.

damon@tirerack · #3 (**permalink**) 08-28-2008

I was back up at 6 the next morning to get what I could done before my twins woke up. They were up at 7:30...but LOVED how soft the microfibers were, so I put em to work!

They got in my way so I threw drying towels at them and set em loose on the other car. Beat it rodents, you're bugging me.....

Once the sun came up I could tell the rubbing I did the night before was going to pay off once I used the Cyclo again. All be darned, it's starting to shine....

I called it off at 8am, spent the day with my kids, and was back at it after PJ's and a good round of Cinderella books, Simon Says and goodnight kisses....

8pm. Back to it with the Cyclo and Extreme Cut with orange pads. I redid the entire car this way.

And now a word from our sponsor:

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And now back to our regurally scheduled detail......

After cutting with Extreme Cut on orange pads I moved to Evolution cut on yellow pads. I noticed only a bit of difference for the effort so I decided to just go to Evolution Polish on the Green pad and spend a little more time with that. What he got after that was the best I was going to get it. By this point in the project my wife wasn't talking to me anymore.....and I had hours left. I just HAD to draw the line.

Here's what the car looked like at the end of Evolution polish before Gloss Activator and Gloss Finish ....

Remember, win the battle, not the war.....

Finally it was off to Gloss Activator by hand and then Gloss Finish with the white pad.

By this time it was 1 am again. I called it another night. Back to it tomorrow night after more Simon Says......

Sunday evening, 8pm, brought the car's first trip out of the garage since the clay barring. Not 100% by a long shot, but not bad....

damon@tirerack · #4 (**permalink**) 08-28-2008

There was no Gloss Enhancer on it yet so I pulled her back in to keep working on it.

After a quick coat of Gloss Enhancer It was back to the rear end to rub the wax out of the vinyl and to polish the tips.

Before, they had BAD carbon build up on them. I started with Scotch-Brite pads but the tips laughed at that, so I went to 600, then 800 grit paper. I finished with going back to the Scotch-Brite and then to rubbing compound. I think he liked the tips being clean again as much as the rest of the car! I should have spent more time on them.

From this:

To this:

For the time I had this was the best I could do. All said I would say the car went from 40% to about 75%, but I just didn't have the time, and possibly the equipment, to take it to 100%. It would have taken me (being the novice I am) probably 3-4 more hours to get the paint better. All told it was about a 13 hour job over 3 nights.

You can see here even after all that work the scratches are still there, but ya gotta be close to see them. There were scratches on every panel that could have been sanded first.

But all-in-all, it was looking MUCH better in the sun......

What I am most proud of was the deep gouges that I was able to blend and hide as well as I could on the back. The Extreme Cut allowed me to work until they were the best they could be.

Back bumper corner. Form this:

To this:

Back wheel well:

From this:

To this:

Center of the bumper cover:

From This:

To this:

Rear quarter. From this:

To this:

Pretty dramatic!

A surprise shower showed how well the Gloss Finish beads water. I did this car 6 weeks ago......

I'm done overheating my Photobucket account. This kit and this polisher is truly wonderful. I wish it had a bit more guts for the deeper stuff, but I can't blame it for what it had to accomplish. This is a user-friendly kit, but this wasn't a user freindly job. Thanks again Rich for great products.

Mrgloss · #5 (**permalink**) 08-28-2008

Awesome Awesome Awesome JOB!!... Damon. I'm very impressed with the final outcome. I do agree this vehicle needed a much more aggressive paint correction plan for a true 100% paint correction outcome.

We will be offering 4 inch double-sided wool pads shortly for the Cyclo. This will help step up the bite required to cut those deeper scratches.

At the gloss-it Corp detail facility we would use 1500 to 2500 set paper to remove the deeper clearcoat scratches followed with an hi-speed and extreme cut and Lambs wool pad at 1600rpm jeweling down to 1000 rpm to remove the heavier paint impefections.

For just learning and with very little experience and only polishing with an orbital, not hi-speed you have accomplished what some professionals cannot achieve! I think you we have a position open for you with Gloss-it!! Again my hat off to you and your efforts!

Smoke · #6 (**permalink**) 08-28-2008

It took some balls to go to town on that Audi and I give you a ton of credit . Most people would have said screw it but you did everything you could to improve the finish and from where it started this car looks much better now! It takes a lot of time and practice to really perfect the process of full paint correction but I believe you are well on your way Damon

BTW Rich, double sided wool pads for the cyclo is a must, LMK when there available I'd love to test them out.

DetailWerkz · #7 (**permalink**) 08-28-2008

Awesome work! You are doing great! That was a tough vehicle to take on and you did great! I see a new career in your future if you keep up this great work!!