Anyways we did a 1999.5 Jetta and a EVO IX MR... I don't have the pics of the Jetta up yet... but here's the EVO...

I'll warn you now, there are quite a bit of pictures!

Process:
Menzerna PowerGloss - yellow - front end
Menzerna PowerFinish - Orange
Menzerna SuperFinish - Green
Blackfire Wet Diamond Sealant - Blue
Collinites Wax - Red

Vehicle as it arrived, did say he was bringing it dirty haha

Wheels Before

Wheels After

After a full wash/degrease and clay bar, once dry, inspected the paint under the spotlights to find similar paint damage as the previous Tarmac Black Evo with 609hp.

As you can see, the paint was in desperate need of correction. The following photos are some progress shots, 50/50s, like night and day.

A quick shot of me in action - looking terrible I'll add

Blackfire Wet Diamond paint sealant applied via LC Blue pads

Some paint shots after the correction, spotlight pics followed by sunlight pics

Reflection shots, I took a little extra effort in the final pics this time around

Finished vehicle shots

Please enjoy and comment! A lot of hard work went into this car

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You're going to find it on 99.9% of cars produced and sold today.

Quote, originally posted by i_baked_cookies »

The 288 GTO is the best looking thing ever created by humans.

As far as the orange peel goes... it's common on many cars not to mention the fact that Mitsu paint isn't that great to begin with.
Orange peel isn't something that a polisher will fix, you need to wet-sand it.

However, there are other ways to ask

Was all of that done with a PC? 5.5" pads?

That's an understatement...

Great work though, that thing looked like ****.

What kind of clay did you use? It looks like the clay did a good bit of marring.

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If you can ignore the scratches in the "ready to polish" pictures you'll notice what looks like minor, as if you only took a couple passes, wet sanding marks in the paint. That is from the clay. Basically it is scuffing the tops of the orange peel and leaving the valleys alone.

Those are from the owner's neglect.

*Edit*

I can't just dicredit someone without giving a reason.

First off, there is NO clay I know of that will even come close to making the paint look like it was even lightly wetsanded. Even crappy Mitsu or Honda paint.

Second, IF the clay managed to somehow "wetsand" the surface a little, it would have visibly knocked down some of the swirls on the paint. As it looks in those pictures, the swirls are "sitting on top" of the "wetsand" the clay did. What you are looking at is nothing more than owner neglect and horrible washing techniques.

A claybar will not scratch a surface like that unless you drop it in sand before you work it.

Modified by 67Customs at 5:30 PM 9-23-2009

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I'm not implying that the clay sanded the paint at all. The marring that I see merely reminds me of what mildly wetsanded paint looks like, minus the scratching. I think pics will be the only way to get my point across so i'll take some tomorrow to better illustrate my point but to hold you over you can look at this picture of the Jetta Seven also detailed which has the same markings.

Also to hold you over I found this link which also shows what I am describing: http://www.cleanyourcar.co.uk/....html

Modified by MikeBlaze at 6:58 PM 9-23-2009

Very nice job. I'm surprised the clear coat wasn't peeling off the spoiler.

So, you can't infer from that that clay messed the panel up.

Clay just isn't going to mar a panel like that.

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Clay is a product that removes contaminants from dirty paint/glass/etc. By that definition you contaminate clay as you use it and with each swipe you run the risk or marring the paint with what was picked up by the clay. Contaminants do not simply disappear into the clay, you have to fold and knead the clay over to do that yourself. There are a million pictures on the internet to prove that fact.

More then likely the marring that I see on Seven's cars are caused from contamination pick-up more so then the clay itself.

Quote, originally posted by 67Customs »

Clay just isn't going to mar a panel like that.

I don't know how you can be so naive to the fact that rubbing something such as clay on the paint will leave damage. Lube helps prevent this but only to a certain degree.

Here are some pics of a car I have in my shop, a black Lexus with nice soft paint.

Pic #1 is a before picture of the paint after is has been prepped but not clayed:

Pic #2 shows what the paint looks like after it was clayed with an aggressive clay. I used Meguiar's red clay here for effect. I used lube but was rough just to show the damage better.

Pic #3 shows a 50/50 split of before on the left and clayed on the right. If you look towards the middle of the pic in between the clayed and non-clayed portions you will see the "wet-sanding look alike" markings that I pointed out earlier in this thread.

But don't take my word for it, try it for yourself. Polish a panel out, then clay it. See what is left behind.

Mike, it seems to me that one of 3 things is happening with your experiences...

You might be using too aggressive clay for the application

You might be mistaking 'marring' for the paint being uneven from contaminants being removed after the clay does it's job

You might be applying clay and never kneading it to expose a clean surface on the clay... then if all the contaminants are being slid across the paint... yeah you can definitely mar paint then. I'm going to assume this is not the case tho.

However the first 2 points...

1- There are different grades of clay (mild, agressive, etc) - Thats just for the detailer to decide what to use as far as how contaminated the paint is and how SOFT/hard the clear/paint is... like the Jetta I posted... we used aggressive clay on that car because it had been stored outside and only drive-thru auto-washed for the last 10 years so the clay being aggressive is just better to remove the MANY more contaminants in the paint and because VWs have a hard clear coat. We used mild clay on the Evo because it has softer clear/paint and was definitely dirty but not too bad in the grand scheme of things.
In the case of your 50/50 shots you posted... Yea the paint is marred because well - you said it yourself... it's soft paint with agreessive clay... not the right combo in my opinion.

2- The other case could be you mistaking the 'marring' for peaks and valleys in the paint after the contaminants are removed...

What Clay is supposed to do is to take contaminants and foreign particles OUT and AWAY from the paint and they get into the clay itself... what this does is leaves spots in the paint after the clay because if a contaminant fills a spot where paint SHOULD be but isn't... and then the clay removes it... you have empty space.

That is why the paint looks WORSE after a clay bar... It's supposed to show whats missing... You use a polish (such as Meg 105 or Menzerna Power Gloss) with a polisher the paint's even again. The clay is an intergral part however because it makes the paint CLEAN so you aren't just swishing contaminants around with a polisher.


Modified by Seven1.8T at 5:34 PM 9-28-2009