SL500 mercedes clean up Upon first arrival, I could tell this car was in need of some help. There were tons of scratches, a grey-ish hue to the paint, and it was rough to the touch. All those indicators tells me its not going to be a quick and easy job. Adding in the fact the owner wants me to re-sand and polish the drivers door from a poor repaint to make it match better, yet not look so much better than the rest of the car (don’t do too good of a job), I had my work cut out for me. (how in the world was I supposed to do that?) After waterless washing the car in the garage (dusty, not dirty), I was able to inspect the paint with the LED lights. Every single panel looked the same… I talked to the owner about some options for the paint, and he wanted to just “clean it up”…a one step process was agreed upon, price was agreed upon, and I was left alone in the garage to do my thing for the next 4 hours…or so I thought. As I started working on the paint, I could tell I wasn’t going to be happy with the results from a one step polishing. This car had TONS of scratches, RIDS, swirl marks, slight oxidation…It needed a two step at least to make it much better IMO, so I did it. We called this the “friend hookup” as it was my good friends’ boss. Here are some of the befores: Claying after just half the trunk lid, “its been a while” Wax and junk in the cracks… At this point in time, it was time to sand the door to make it blend and match more. I wasn’t going for a completely flat reflection as the rest of the car had moderate orange peel, I was going for “better”. I took some 2000 and 3000 paper to the car, then followed it up with 105 and two passes on the rotary to level the defects, and then a MF pad and D300, then a polishing pad and 85rd to finish things off. Through the sanding, I ended up going through 2 microns of clear and was left with more even orange peel to match the rest of the car. After I was all done with the whole car 6 hours later I was finally driving away and the owner was left with a car “that looks so much better now”.
You did that really quick. I'd just be getting done prepping the car to start polishing at the 4 hr mark.
Someone forgot to dress the fender wells! paint looks a lot better though. Must be a Mercedes owner thing, they just want their destroyed paint to look shiny again but don't want to shell out the cash to get it done right....
I was thinking the same thing about the wells, but the car came out great. Nice work for only 6 hours.
