Full Paint Correction on my F430 :) Pics + Vid

[Paza3]

Well gents,

Picked up the car on Friday from James at Ti22 down in Chepstow and am delighted with the results!!

When I purchased the car in November the paint was not in great shape (am a little bit OCD with paint) and the bodyshop did a good job on the colour match etc but there ability to final polish was terrible. I had no faith in them and was a little concerned they would do more damage than good to the clearcoat and advised them not to reattempt polishing it, I decided to do the correction myself as a keen amateur detailer.

So over Xmas period I got all my tools out with my faithful Das6 Pro DA and Shinemate I got to work. After around 20 hrs of correction work I was achieving the results i wanted however, during this process I found more issues I was unhappy with. I explained to the dealer it need to be resolved which basically resulted in them respraying/Blended both sides again! at the dealers expense.

Bascically all my efforts were a waste of time! :cry3:, after picking the car up a again I could see I was looking at the same issues of heavy wool pad mopping use, pig tails and sanding marks etc.... the dealer explained there "mopped" the car for me ... i could cry :laugh:

So I took the decision that it would not be an economical use of my time to redo it again even thought I do enjoy doing it, I drafted James trusty skills to do it for me. Having seen his work before on a previous car I owned i knew the results would be good, but I was blow away how good she looks it looks and feels like a new car.

One happy owner, nice little youtube video of her as well...... i might have watched it a few times on the telly ! :laugh:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bPvq2vR6LBI&feature=youtu.be

 

[Modificato]

With all of the knowledge that is out there now regarding detailing and its emergence from the underground I find it incredible that professionals in the car dealing game are so clueless about it and 'prepping' a car for sale often makes it worse.

We ordered a new car in the fiat group collector series that came direct from the factory and my detailer performed a forensic new car detail on it and we showed it to the local dealership who were utterly stunned.

I totally understand why factories don't want to spend that 20 hours per car especially at the end of production but I couldnt wash / clean / prepare a car without at least some of the lessons learned in the last two decades...

 

[Nosevi]

Looks stunning :thumbsup:

+1 to Mod’s comments above. I’ve known detailers called in to do paint corrections on cars straight from the factory. Madness when you’re paying quarter of a million quid or so for a car!

 

[little_daz]

Looks great! now you need to make sure you take steps to keep it that way - There's a vid on my YouTube channel on how to wash your car properly to ensure that you don't bring any of the swirls or scratches back in to the paint:
https://youtu.be/1VXVrdyTOuc (although, don't EVER use the snowfoam I recommended in this vid, a few moths later it stained my engine bay and leather pink, go for a clear PH neutral foam)

The problem is that dealers and factory (even bodyshops) don't have the time or knowledge to do paint correction, and often dealers will sub the work out.
Most dealers can't even wash a car properly to minimise paint damage, but their staff are valeters not detailers and that's the difference.

I am a little obsessed with detailing, to the point where I don't let them wash my car when it's in for a service. I did once, and it took me a few days to remove the swirls and scratches in the paint. My missus raised the point last time we were at the service department, why when dealing with cars at this price point and charging what they do, they don't even just use a new wash mitt for each car.
New car prep usually involves washing the whole car with a strong cleaner like TFR to remove the pre-wax coating from the factory, then poor washing and possibly if it's lucky (or not) someone run's over it with what they call a buffer, and what we call a rotary polisher. The one tool that can cause more damage than anything else. Next time you go to a dealership on a sunny day look at a black car outside and you'll see the 'buffer' marks all over the sides. I guarantee you'll see them as I've never been to a dealership and not. They run over the panels too quickly as they're scared to burn the paint, but in doing so make everything worse as the compound doesn't break down and it doesn't do it's job at all.

Once you can see swirl marks and defects, you'll struggle not to see them. When ever I'm at dealerships or shows it's one of the first things i notice. The black LaFerrari spyder at capesthorne's 70th was covered in them! She needs to come to me for some love LOL!

 

[sssdu01]

dealers are just lazy - my car had the plastic cover ripped off the carpets , but little bits of plastic left under the seat runners/metal plate in the drivers foot well/etc, which looks just untidy

I partly unbolted to seat runners to pull off the bits of plastic, and found one sock under the seat !!!

 

[Knightwing23]

WOW, looks stunning.

 

[little_daz]

dealers are just lazy - my car had the plastic cover ripped off the carpets , but little bits of plastic left under the seat runners/metal plate in the drivers foot well/etc, which looks just untidy

I partly unbolted to seat runners to pull off the bits of plastic, and found one sock under the seat !!!

Mine still has it under the seats and behind the panels, I keep getting little bits poking out every now and again. I think I might take my seats out when the weather picks up :cry3:

 

[Paza3]

Thanks guys for the kind comments,

I agree with everyone when you have cars of this calibre and others in show rooms why on earth not prep cars correctly for the sake of a few hundred quid which there get back in the sale price.

 

[fezzaman]

That is absolutely stunning. Will have a good watch of the vid later too

 

[rivarama]

There's a vid on my YouTube channel on how to wash your car properly to ensure that you don't bring any of the swirls or scratches back in to the paint:
https://youtu.be/1VXVrdyTOuc (although, don't EVER use the snowfoam I recommended in this vid, a few moths later it stained my engine bay and leather pink, go for a clear PH neutral foam)

Thanks for that. That car still appears to have quite a bit of swirl marks though.... which shows that no techniques will prevent them completely

 

[little_daz]

Thanks for that. That car still appears to have quite a bit of swirl marks though.... which shows that no techniques will prevent them completely

That's before I did the full correction. Trust me there are none now :laugh: