This black Lexus ES300 is the second car from the same client. They had previously brought me a silver Mercedes and were extremely happy with the results, so they wondered if anything could be done to this car. This is an example of how you should NOT neglect your car. A save like this can only be done once. So here it is before washing it I washed the car inside my shop using 100% distilled water. After washing with Meguiar's Hyper Wash, I clayed using Meguiar's C2000 clay While inspecting the paint, it was obvious a lot of work was going to be needed What do you think, can this paint be saved??? On my lift Up close Polishing test on hood My assistant Stephanie tackled the interior while I worked the exterior Look at the trunk lid 50/50 Polish test Huge Improvement After all the paint was polished using my Flex VRG3401, I rinsed the paint with distilled water and my Kranzle pressure washer My 60 gallon water tank that holds distilled water that is generated daily at my shop using a commercial water distiller for 0ppm water. Clean now but still needs polishing with Amigo and waxing with Epic Blowing water from the crevices Wiping it down Cleaning with Pre-Wow Epic has been applied Final shots the next day The paint isn't flawless but was greatly improved. So much that I had parked the car in front of the shop and the customer drove up with his wife in their Mercedes. He walked right past the Lexus not realizing it was his. I told him that was HIS car, and he was blown away. His eyes lit up, his jaw dropped, and he was giddy. Considering the owner is a very conservative first generation Korean man, I found it quite refreshing seeing him being so expressive, lol. Products used were Meguiar's M105 compound, Prima Swirl, Slick, and Epic. Main polishing tool was the Flex, although I used the 7424XP and Makita Rotary at first before settling on the Flex as the best tool for the job. See it on FaceBook with comments
Looks great Richard. Maybe there's hope for our black 2002 4Runner. By the way, what is a Flex polishing device?
Thanks! The Flex VRG 3401 is a forced rotation dual action orbital polisher. It's like a rotary buffer and PC combined in one. It's a tool I've had for a couple years and never loved it much less liked it. It has a lot of fans, but I just wasn't one of them. I only began to appreciate it once I gained enough strength to operate it and had a real need for its best strengths. On the bad side, it fights your every move and not every pad/chemical combination works well. I much preferred my rotary over the Flex because I retained absolute control and precision while polishing. The Flex became popular because it was more powerful than a PC and less scary than a rotary, but really does require different techniques. I find that I use the PC, the Flex, and the Rotary as needed. The best part about the Flex is that you can polish paint and closely match the results of a rotary in one step without having to do finish polishing with a PC to remove buffer trails and holograms. For my Express Details, minimizing the number of polishing steps is important. For some paint types the Flex is useless though, so it's not the magic bullet that works on all cars. It's a hard tool to use on tight/curvy surfaces like on a first gen MINI's bonnet but it does have it's uses.
Wow, that paint looked awful! Richard, do you give these customers advice on how to care for their "new" rides, and more importantly, do they actually change their habits?
Yeah it was pretty bad. I include with all my details instruction as well as product recommendations from my store on how to best care for their paint. I don't like the "hard sell" approach though, so I just let them know what products are needed as well as the best techniques to maintain the paint and if they opt to buy better products, I have them available to take home, but some of them feel that after spending their money on the detail, they don't want to spend any more, so not much I can do. Sometimes I'll just give them a proper waffle weave or microfiber towel as a gift. A lot of the cars I do are second owners who want to get their new cars to them taken care of so they can properly maintain it. This Lexus had one owner only and although he told me he wouldn't take it to the local car wash anymore, I don't believe it, lol. Thanks! I got more writeups coming!
Thanks I'm glad! The previous car they gave me, a Mercedes actually had the other shoe from that pair in the exact same place, lol. Richard
Car washes and pure neglect. There were so many linear scratches that looked like objects like boxes were placed on the trunk and dragged off. Not sure about the hood though. I do know the owner liked his car, but had no clue about how to properly care for it. The first car he gave me was his wifes silver Mercedes and wanted to "test" us...I wanted his Lexus first because it needed more work, lol. But once he saw the results, we obviously passed and he was eager to drop off his car next, lol.