What's a little stronger than the blue pad?

[Spank]

I've got an '18 Challenger I bought used last year and the previous owner did an absolutely abysmal job maintaining the paint. I don't think the dealership he traded it off to did it any favors, either. I've managed to get a lot of the damage out with Compound and blue pads, but I'm still noticing a lot of tiny flaws virtually everywhere that are more visible in certain light angles. You can really see the surface damage at sunset when you're getting that massive blast of light from the front or rear of the car as opposed to up top.

 

Short of having to wet sand anything, is there an Adams product or method that can cut just a little deeper than the blue pads to try and eliminate these flaws? Some are scratches, others looks like tiny particles (like the clearcoat was shot with a light blast of sand). Again, I've managed to correct a good portion of this, but I'm still not quite getting it all. I don't expect to get this thing absolutely flawless, but there's gotta be something I can do to take the progress I've made a little further.

 

I'll try attaching photos when the weather is better, but it's one of those situations where the conditions have to be just right to notice it (and, of course, I notice it more than others).

 

Thank you!

[mc2hill]

First off, Welcome!

 

The microfiber pads are more aggressive that foam pads, so you may want to give them a try.

 

But remember clearcoat is thin, a little more than a Post-It note, and every pass takes off some clearcoat.  It is your car, so you decide how perfect you want the paint to be, but know there is a point of no return, when you have polished thru the clear.

[shane@detailedreflections]

I’ll add to what @mc2hill said. The clear coat is thin. And while it’s “difficult” to do damage with a dual action machine, don’t think for a moment that it’s impossible to do. 
 

If you’re chasing bad damage, you can drive yourself crazy. Step back five feet and see if you can see it?  If you can’t, call it good. If you can see it and others can’t, you’re probably good. Lighting makes a huge difference. We can find imperfections all day long in our lit bay with 110,000 Lumens of light all over. Roll it out in the sunlight, and you can’t see most of what we can. Clients see even less. 
 

Keep in mind too, that the more you work the paint now...the less you have to work with in the future. Also once you take off about 1/3 of the clear coat, you impede UV protection which can accelerate clear coat failure. 
 

There’s a reason they make paint thickness gauges. And they’re precisely for situations like this when you’re not sure how far you can take it. It’s a tool most people don’t have in their box (a good one runs about $650-700). If you call around, you may find a shop willing to measure it for you (assuming they even have one) and send you on your way. If you find someone to do this, be kind and offer a few dollars for their time and tool. They most likely wouldn’t take it (I know I wouldn’t), but the gesture goes a long way to the next time you need help.

[Spank]

Thank you, mc2hill.

 

Yeah, I'm being careful not to go too crazy, but I do want to shave off just a tad extra in the more troublesome areas.

 

Overall, I haven't hit it too hard with the Compound as is; I managed to eliminate a lot of the big scratches and imperfections with just a single pass, some with just a simple polish. I'm not too worried that I've removed any significant portion of clearcoat, but there are a few areas I want to go into a little deeper.

 

I don't know what happened to the paint job beforehand, but it looks like a mechanic or service tech leaned against once of the fenders and scratched the holy hell out of it on one side and somebody drove along some bushes or something on the other. I managed to get virtually all of that damaged cleared away, but then there are these various little scratches and specks scattered across the upper portion of the body like it went through a sandstorm.

 

I'll give the microfiber pad a try, hit the areas with a pass or two, and if that does the trick, great. If not, then it's as good as it'll get.

[Spank]

20 minutes ago, shane@detailedreflections said:

 Step back five feet and see if you can see it?  If you can’t, call it good.

 

Oh, you can definitely see it beyond five feet. With the sun hitting it right, you can see it from well over 30 feet away.

 

What about going the opposite direction? Can a couple coats of wax or another topical product gently buffed onto the paint help fill in some of those areas? It obviously wouldn't be permanent, but would that help diminish the light showing it off?

[shane@detailedreflections]

1 hour ago, Spank said:

 

Oh, you can definitely see it beyond five feet. With the sun hitting it right, you can see it from well over 30 feet away.

 

What about going the opposite direction? Can a couple coats of wax or another topical product gently buffed onto the paint help fill in some of those areas? It obviously wouldn't be permanent, but would that help diminish the light showing it off?

Sure. Waxes generally have fillers in them that will help. You can get color specific waxes to help even more. 
 

My guess is it’s got damage that needs a body shop to be repaired correctly. The best you can do is minimize it safely. 

[tlbullet]

@Spankare you using the swirl killer, other machine or by hand?

[Spank]

On 2/24/2020 at 6:04 PM, shane@detailedreflections said:

Sure. Waxes generally have fillers in them that will help. You can get color specific waxes to help even more. 
 

My guess is it’s got damage that needs a body shop to be repaired correctly. The best you can do is minimize it safely. 

 

Yeah, I have no illusions of permanent clearcoat damage I won't be able to get out.

 

15 hours ago, tlbullet said:

@Spankare you using the swirl killer, other machine or by hand?

 

Yup. I'm using both the Swirl Killer and the MINI. I did wax it by hand and it gave it a nice glossy shine, but obviously that isn't going to coat the paint and its imperfections evenly and that might be part of where I'm going wrong in trying to smooth it all out.

[tlbullet]

I was thinking u were doing this by

hand and may have needed to step

up to SK..but you have that covered!