Buff/restore a car finish

[DaveL]

Hi, think this question came up before. might be looking at a used civic

for my kid.

How can I clean/restore a finish the way that a used car dealer does. am familiar

with meguiars for guitars (have a stew mac foam buff wheel that rocks btw) but how

do dealers do it? do they use like a turtle wax orbital type polisher or something

else? (could use my cordless drill, but honestly it seems a little unwieldly and could slip)

and also how do you get off the hazy residue that's left by the meguairs?

[RichRS6]

I'm sure You'll get as many answers as there are polish types.

What colour is it ?

Reds fade really badly and it can mean a lot of hard work to get the shine back.

You need to get some experience if you want to get good with an orbital polisher on a car or you'll leave loads of swirling/holograming which looks worse than a dull finish, worse still you can burn through the paint which is expensive to correct (respray).

Dealers/bodyshops use a random orbital buff.

If you are finding a hazy residue you're probably using too much polish or not enough elbow grease.

If you haven't got a scrap car or some old panels to practice on my advice is don't unless you're planning on making it a regular event.

Just do it by hand (1 panel at a time and not in direct sunlight) and get your kid to help, it's a good bonding exercise and will give them the experience to do it themselves if it needs doing again.

Better still pay someone else to do it, the cost of the polish etc will soon add up to not much less than it will cost to get it done.

[DaveL]

I'm sure You'll get as many answers as there are polish types.

What colour is it ?

Reds fade really badly and it can mean a lot of hard work to get the shine back.

You need to get some experience if you want to get good with an orbital polisher on a car or you'll leave loads of swirling/holograming which looks worse than a dull finish, worse still you can burn through the paint which is expensive to correct (respray).

Dealers/bodyshops use a random orbital buff.

If you are finding a hazy residue you're probably using too much polish or not enough elbow grease.

If you haven't got a scrap car or some old panels to practice on my advice is don't unless you're planning on making it a regular event.

Just do it by hand (1 panel at a time and not in direct sunlight) and get your kid to help, it's a good bonding exercise and will give them the experience to do it themselves if it needs doing again.

Better still pay someone else to do it, the cost of the polish etc will soon add up to not much less than it will cost to get it done.

Thanks for the advice. color is medium blue... I have a used car dealer down the street that makes pieces of crap look

pretty sweet, might ask for a quote.

[JES1680]

Yeah you may want to have someone else do it initially it's easier to maintain than to start from scratch.

If you do it yourself I'd also suggest staying away from powered buffers it's very easy even with a random orbital to go through or burn the paint especially on edges and corners and it's very difficult if not impossible to use a powered buffer and not get swirl marks which do look awful. You almost always have to follow up powered buffing with hand polishing.

Depending on the severity if it's just a little dull, I like to do a clay bar, and then 3M Imperial hand glaze to polish out small scratches and bring a shine to the clear coat. Then a go for your favorite polish and or wax. I usually just do the clay bar and then Mothers FX synthetic wax as I don't care for the hard waxes and the residue they leave behind and I tend to wax my cars several times per year. The FX stuff works well on dark colored cars. Some of the synthetic waxes can leave a residue that looks like oil in water on black or dark cars and its pretty hard to buff out.

[hamerhead]

I agree with taking it to a pro. Unless you like spending about a day doing the 'wax on, wax off' thing. And even then you might not get rid of all the small scuffs and scratches. A pro will do the grunt work without F'ing something up, and once he's got it looking good, maintaining it is pretty easy. Around here I think it's about $100 for a detail.

If in fact you DO like doing it yourself (most car guys do), I have a list around here somewhere of recommended pro-quality car care stuff. I'll post it if I can find it.

I had a dog once. True story.

......that tried getting into my wife's car during a thunderstorm. Unfortunately the doors and windows were closed. There were scratches top to bottom on all 4 doors. I thought for sure we were looking at a total repaint. Went to the body shop supply store and got some 3M buffing compound (about $50 a quart now I think) and a good quality buffing pad. It might have been dumb luck, but the scratches came out so well you'd never know it happened. 3M makes some pretty good sh!t.

[gtone]

1) Wash car, use clay bar* while finish is still wet, rinse, remove water droplets with soft cloth or clean chamois.

2) Apply polishing compound to surface with soft cloth to remove oxidized finish, then buff.

3) Apply glazing compound to remove swirl marks/fine scratches, then buff.

4) Apply carnauba wax to protect/shine, then buff.

Used to do this 4-step method on my old Mercedes once a year and it had a deep, lustrous and lasting shine that repelled water like crazy.

* Don't buy clay bars from auto specialty company - they're about $20 for three of them. Instead, buy yellow modelling clay from the dollar store - it's the same stuff but without the huge markup!

[DaveL]

Thanks for the replies everyone... great information...

thought I had a good deal but the guy cancelled, probably sold... will keep looking.

[Toadroller]

1) Wash car, use clay bar* while finish is still wet, rinse, remove water droplets with soft cloth or clean chamois.

2) Apply polishing compound to surface with soft cloth to remove oxidized finish, then buff.

3) Apply glazing compound to remove swirl marks/fine scratches, then buff.

4) Apply carnauba wax to protect/shine, then buff.

Used to do this 4-step method on my old Mercedes once a year and it had a deep, lustrous and lasting shine that repelled water like crazy.

* Don't buy clay bars from auto specialty company - they're about $20 for three of them. Instead, buy yellow modelling clay from the dollar store - it's the same stuff but without the huge markup!

+1 on the whole process. I do it once a year on my old Audi. Amazing what you learn with practice.

Thanks for the helpful hint on the modeling clay!

[Hamerica]

1) Wash car, use clay bar* while finish is still wet, rinse, remove water droplets with soft cloth or clean chamois.

2) Apply polishing compound to surface with soft cloth to remove oxidized finish, then buff.

3) Apply glazing compound to remove swirl marks/fine scratches, then buff.

4) Apply carnauba wax to protect/shine, then buff.

Used to do this 4-step method on my old Mercedes once a year and it had a deep, lustrous and lasting shine that repelled water like crazy.

* Don't buy clay bars from auto specialty company - they're about $20 for three of them. Instead, buy yellow modelling clay from the dollar store - it's the same stuff but without the huge markup!

This plus the 3M products as mentioned by Hamerhead.

My wife's Altima had overspray droplets from somewhere (white) on the front of the car; hood, air dam, front panel. The Nissan Dealer gave her an estimate close to $2,000 told her the finish was "ruined" She called me and I replied "not only no but hell no". I knew this could be buffed out. I took it to the guy that paints my Mustangs. A new gallon of lacquer thinner (only do this on clear coat base coat), soft towels and elbow grease. Clay bar and waxed.

He did most of the work with the lacquer thinner. Showed me how to do it and we knocked it out in 3 hours tops. I drove it back to the idiots at the Nissan dealership the following week and the shop manager looked at the car and wanted to know who we used.

Most modern body shops only know R/R (remove and replace), paint new parts and sell yours quadrupling their profit.

Hamerica

[Steve Haynie]

On the remove and replace thing, sometimes the saving is in labor time.

My hood was damaged when someone backed into my car. It was cheaper to buy a new aftermarket hood than to get one from a junkyard then have it stripped and repainted.

[hamerhead]

The thing with that, Steve, is some of the aftermarket stuff is poorly-made Chinese garbage. Does it look better than a dent? Probably. But typically it fits for sh!t and will rust at the thought of rain.

Anyhow - found the list. Haven't personally tried all of this stuff, so it may be complete horsesh!t (it came highly recommended by someone in the business):

Engine Degreaser: Detailer's Pride Engine Degreaser
Engine Dressing: Griot's Garage Engine Bay Dressing

Bug & Tar Remover: Auto Finesse Citrus Power

Car Soap: Griot's Garage Car Wash

Tire Cleaner: 303 Aerospace Protectant
Rim Cleaner: Bilt-Hamber Auto-Wheel

Surface Rust Remover: Bilt-Hamber Korrosol
Clay Bar: Bilt-Hamber Auto Clay

Polisher: Rupes Bigfoot 5''
Polish: Menzerna SF4000
Compound: Menzerna FG400

Wax: CarPro Hydr02 Touchless Silica Wax/Sealant
Sealant: Bilt-Hamber Auto-Balm

Trim: Black Wow Trim Restorer

Window Cleaner: Stoner Invisible Glass
Window Polish: Zaino Z12 Clear-view Glass Polish
Window Sealant: Nanotol Windshield Sealant

Vacuum: Shop-vac 6.5HP Vacs

Interior Plastic & Vinyl: 303 Aerospace Protectant

Leather Cleaner: Pinnacle Leather & Vinyl Cleaner
Leather Conditioner: Pinnacle Leather Conditioner

Carpet & Upholstery Shampoo: 303 Fabric Cleaner

Convertible Cleaner: Raggtopp Convertible Cleaner

[Armitage]

I used Nu Finish on an ex girlfriends red car that had gone all dry looking and hazy. It was quick and effortless. While nothing will compete with the recommendations above, I'm talking $8 and half an hour.

I was just reading some reviews of Nu Finish, it's funny, there are a million people saying it can't work and another million saying they use it and are really happy. It's not going to shine like a 3 hour struggle, but it's not 3 hours...