It is a very common misconception that detailing is simple, just throw a pad on a rotary and go crazy, and everything will look good when you’re done. Many times, the vehicle will look good in the shade or low lighting, however once in direct lighting or sunlight the true value of a bargain “buff job” will show. This was a project I just worked on recently, a black 2003 Toyota Tundra Limited. They had a spray in bed liner installed and the installer gave them a complementary buff job after the liner was applied.
Here are a few pictures of the vehicle prior to starting any work on the vehicle.
At this point the vehicle was thoroughly washed, chemically decon’d and washed one last time with a Nanoskin Wash Mitt.
With the vehicle fully cleaned and dried it was pulled into the direct sunlight for a quick before video to show the extent of the damage on the exterior of the vehicle.
Source: YouTube
It’s not hard to see the truck was covered in holograms (buffer trails), heavy swirling along with a fair amount of random intermittent deep scratches (RIDS). The holograms are caused from improper use of a rotary resulting in burns in the clear coat. These are typically only visible on sunny days or under strong lighting. A rotary, such as the Flex PE-14-2 or Makita 9237C-X3 can be very useful and produce excellent results quickly and efficiently, however in the wrong hands they can also result in extensive damage to the exterior of a vehicle.
Once the truck was fully cleaned it was pulled in the garage and taped off to begin the multi-step paint correction.
On this vehicle, we were not striving for perfection, merely looking to greatly improve gloss, and restore clarity back to the finish.
The compounding process did an excellent job removing a majority of the flaws and imperfections, however due to the use of an aggressive compound there was quite a bit of marring left on the finish. This is very common on softer finishes along with darker color vehicles.
Once the entire truck was compounded I moved on to the polishing process. Carpro’s Essence was used with my various Rupes machine and their yellow foam polishing pads. This left a nice deep black finish with lots of clarity and gloss.
With the paint completed we moved on to taking care of the faded trim. For this we decided to use Solution Finish to bring some color back to the weathered looking pieces.
At this point we were ready to move onto coating the painted surfaces of the truck. The exterior was wiped down with Carpro Eraser prior to applying 22ple VX3 Signature Glass Coating. This is a great coating that will produce amazing looks and protection while being quite easy to apply.
Unfortunately, we were not able to get any good sunlight shots on the vehicle once it was finished as the weather was ugly for the next few days and the owner needed the vehicle back. We were able to restore a large amount of gloss and depth back into the finish, while also making it much easier for the owner to keep after.
Do not forget to check out Detailing Gone Bad (Part 2): 2013 Audi Q7 S-line, for another car detail detailing horror story, from the same owner as the car in this article!