marquez93

Are you sure those were scratches? Not to take away from the nice work you did, but to show up that heavy in a picture and come out so nice seems almost unbelievable. I've seen fairly often where something off the road gets flung up off the tire in a line like that, whether it be tar or something else. That's what it looks like to me, especially at the very bottom in the first picture where it's in a very irregular pattern.

I think Xpel rates them based on difficulty level on their website. I hear that some can be pretty challenging based on the bumper shape. I haven't done it, but I always thought about giving it a try. I agree that it seems fairly easy if you just keep it wet and pay attention and try to get all of the bubbles out. I know that some bubbles will even come out on their own as it dries, but I don't know how to tell what will and what won't.

I agree, nothing to be harsh about. Nice work.

Yes, you can layer those products. But you can also use Paint Sealant without starting from scratch. Sure it's ideal to use it on fresh, clean paint but you can still use it whenever you like just like all of the other products you mentioned.

Yes, you have an older formula. At most, it could have lost a bit of it's effectiveness. But if you're happy with results still, might as well use it up. Correcting polish should be more effective, but all that matters is what works for you and if you're happy with the results.

If you can't polish them out, you'll have to replace the film. I had the same problem years ago on another car and was able to get 90% of them out with a heavy grade polish. The 3M films are the worst for this type of problem. It's a pain, but you have to keep on top of the bug smashes and small chips after driving a while. You can't let them sit for more than a day or two.

I had to go back and double check that I didn't miss it, but no, OP didn't mention anything about PPF.

It's probably either etched into the clear or tiny nicks in the clear like rock chips. Very common and can't really do anything about it. You can certainly try polishing it though, in case it is something else.

I would do an Alcohol wipe down in the area you are going to touch up and then wait at least a few days before polishing.

Touch up paint dries pretty quickly, so that's a bit excessive. I would wait like 30 minutes to an hour and if the paint is still there after polishing then you're good to go.

It's not unusual, especially if you've never detailed it before. And if you say it was worth it, then it was clearly time well spent. If you had rushed it, you wouldn't feel the same way.

Dual action and orbital is the same thing. Unless of course there are machines that orbit but don't rotate that I'm not aware of. Rotaries are the other type of polisher you are thinking of.

Nice work! I'm sure they'll be glad that they let you borrow their car.

Good info. What did you use to decon along with the 50/50 DWC? Clay? Towels?

I let it soak for a few minutes and then just used my wash mitt to agitate and then rinsed with the hose. I hadn't dried the car off yet anyway. It's not perfect, but it's good enough for now.

I hear you on that, I work at a dealer and even after removing the vinyl protective wrap, I can still see crap on the paint. Sometimes the wrap isnt sitting perfect and water and dirt get under it.

 

Oh, and I like your screen name.

Thank you. And yeah, this was so bad I could feel the roughness through the wash mitt just gliding over it. These are shipped in like a bag that covers the whole car. I think Audi's are shipped like that also. It might actually be worse because it's not actually stuck to the paint and crap would definitely get under there.

 

Here are 4 options. My wife says the first one works.

• Spray the ink spot with hairspray. Let it sit for about a minute, but do not let it dry. ...
• Remove the stain with rubbing alcohol if hairspray does not work. ...
• Lift deeper-set ink stains with nail polish remover. ...
• Apply aerosol brake parts cleaner to deep ink stains.

How many of these remove all of the color from the dash at the same time? The last 2 especially seem pretty harsh.

Since there seems to be a lot of questions about whether to clay or decontaminate new paint, I wanted to share my experience with a new car.

Yesterday I picked up a white 2017 Land Rover Discovery Sport for my wife. It had just come off the truck the day before and these are shipped with pretty much the entire vehicle covered. So I thought the paint would be in pretty good shape despite the fact that it had to make the journey all the way from the UK.

I was going to do the baggie test after I washed it just to be sure that it was okay, but I could tell while washing that the roof especially felt very rough. Since I only had about 2 hours of daylight left, I tried to do a quick clay before applying PS. While claying, there were a lot of black specks on the paint that were not removed by the clay. So I got out my 50/50 Deep Wheel Cleaner and started to decontaminate as well. The worst areas were the roof, tailgate and fenders. I had to do multiple applications in those areas.

My goal today was just to get some protection on it before we drive from Ohio to Florida for vacation next weekend. So I still kind of rushed through it and will do a more thorough job next spring. But the lesson here is that new cars will most likely need to be decontaminated and clayed. Just because the paint is new does not mean that it is in good shape.

Awesome! That is a nice red.

I also love the tire and rubber cleaner. Great flat black look.

Yeah, I also did notice that the tires still look great after sitting in the rain all week. Using the tire and rubber cleaner must have allowed the tire shine to soak in better.

You can now buy up to 5000 grit sanding discs that I believe you can put on a DA polisher and it helps remove orange peel without taking off too much clear and causing damage.

If it sheds dry "dust" like it does water I'm asking Adam if I can buy an equity interest in his company!

It did rain yesterday morning and then I drove it home and put it in the garage last night. It isn't dusty but the rain would have washed it off, so hard to tell. I did go out and look at it under the lights in the garage and there is no sign of water spots at all though, so that's great considering it rained and dried up on the car several times. I'll have to look at the next time it rains and see what the water does.

I just posted in your other thread about how my car sat outside all week (without being driven) after using Way and Wax and got rained on at least 3 times and it still looks incredibly clean, much more than I would expect after a week outside.

I can also attest to it still looking great after being rained on. I washed with the Wash and Wax last weekend and then my car sat outside at work from Monday morning through Friday evening and got rained on at least 3 of those days. I should have gone out and looked at the beading but I never did. Anyway, I was out and about today and noticed that the car still looked pretty clean and shiny and definitely didn't look like it had been outside for a week. And there were no noticeable water spots from rain drying on it.

Interesting to hear so many people point to the glass cleaner being the problem when I've never heard that on the forum before. I started using Adam's right before they switched and I think I only ever used one 16oz bottle of the old glass cleaner so I don't remember if it was better. I haven't had too many issues with streaking but I have had issues with grabby towels.

Wow! Nice job. I like how you even made a special spot for the GS.

So I went back at it and got pretty good results. I went with a speed 5 and applied more pressure. I also worked the polish much longer. the scratches that remain almost look like they are floating on water or something. They don't look like they are on the surface.

Not sure if this is what you are seeing but scratches on a microscopic level have sharp edges down into the clear. When you polish them, it smoothes out those edges and looks like the clear is melting back down into the scratch. They get much finer even if you don't get them all the way out.

These used to AutoCorrect once posted to the full product name... What happened to that?

It still has that feature but you have to use the correct abbreviation, which those are not.