Weird experiences when detailing/polishing paint?

[Todd@RUPES]

It has been said that if you detail enough cars you will sometimes run into moments that make you scratch your head and wonder what is going on...

I was talking with a good friend and excellent detailer the other night was telling him the story of this Ferrari 360 that myself and Brian Brice had polished about 4 years ago.

We set up the halogen lights, the paint was trashed. So we immediately went to a moderate cut polish (Menzerna PO83/SI1500) and an orange pad on a rotary. The paint polished beautifully, and after wiping off the residue, it looked perfect. As stand operating procedure, I wipe the paint with alcohol and that is when the weirdness began.

The microfiber towel literally stuck to the paint and many of the fiber pulled out, leaving a lint like film on the paint. All of the defects (and more!) came back. There where now a lot of deep scratches left in the paint.

So I increased the cutting action (to chase the deeper scratches) switching to 3M Compound and a wool pad. Once again the paint polished beatifully, and once again an alcohol wipe-down revealed a ton of the damage with the paint literally grabbing the microfiber.

Then I used a finishing polish (I believe 3M Ultrafina/now called Ultra Fine) and a soft blue 3M waffle pad. Even lightly polishing this area make it look perfect, and again the same story after a wipe down.

We ran down the gambit of polishes and pads we had on hand, regardless of what we did or how we did it (compound, polish, finishing polish) (wool pad, cutting pad, polishing pad, foam pad) the paint would always look perfect until we wiped it down. Then it would look horrid, like we didn't do anything.

Finally the client walks into his garage as we are reaching the peak of our frustration. He looks at Brian and then me. I said to the client, "let me show you something...."

As I say this Brian sprays the door with IPA. The client walks over and I throw a microfiber at the door. The towel just sticks to the door like a wet rag.

We explain to the client what as going on.

Finally we polished the car with Klasse AIO and a finishing pad (again making it look perfect), topped with Klasse SG, and finally topped with Souveran. (This was actually the first time I had ever used Souveran).

The Ferrari looked amazing, and strangely enough, when I saw it 6 months later, it still looked amazing. To this day I have never figured out what was going on with that paint, and I hope I never run into those again.

I would love to hear some of your 'unique' detailing stories and I will share some more as well. :bigups

 

[mikeyg402]

Do you know if it was a repaint? I had a black Toyota Sequoia that was custom built from the ground up. A local car stereo shop owned it. It did the exact same thing you described, well pretty much. Except this one did it when we were wiping the polish off! It didnt matter what type of MF towel was used, it would leave scratches behind. It was a complete nightmare.

Also on this car:

I dont have any pics of it I see, but while claying. The whole car went easy but when i got to the front bumper, I sprayed the lube and hit it with the fine clay bar it immediately made the paint into a sticky mess. I tried to wipe it dry but the mf stuck to the bumper, so i rinsed with water and it remained tacky. I showed the owner and he said just to skip it and he'd have his body shop re-paint it.

This 360 was a complete PIA as well. When we used a rotary on it, it would leave behind light swirls so a PC was used on the entire car. This paint absolutely refused to like us if we got it warm at all. Thats pretty much the only way I work lol I get paint pretty darn hot to work out imperfections so this car was not a fav of mine.

 

[Concours.John]

Todd,
That sounds like some of the old glazes I have encountered in the past. They literally baked them on to the finish with the friction from the rotary. May not be the case but very similar story. They are next to impossible to remove but can be polished. Cleaning it out of the cracks after curing in the sun requires a plastic razor blade.

I think it's also where the term "burn in" the glaze came from.

 

[RootsRadical]

I was polishing a black 1989 corvette roadster about 12 years ago using a combination of Menzerna Intensive Polish and Menzerna Final Polish with LC orange and white pads. Everything was going well until it was time to hit the driver side door with the final polish. Doing so left an incredible amount of "haze" (no other way to describe it) on an extremely large area of the door.

I polished out the haze with another application of Intensive Polish and Isopropyl Alcohol wipedowns. Everything looked good again...just the normal 'not-yet-100% refined' shine left by using the intensive polish. I used Final Polish again with a different pad. The result: you guessed it - more haze!

I remember placing a call to Proper Auto Care to see if they could offer any advice. Don't recall who I spoke with but he'd never heard of such a situation and wasn't able to assist. I ended up trying the final polish again with different speeds...all to no avail. At the time, I didn't have the arsenal of various polishes like I do now or I would've tried another final polish.

For reasons which are still a mystery to me, I ended up having to just seal the paint after the intensive polish on that portion of the door. The difference wasn't very noticeable to most but it bothered me to no end.:wall

-J

 

[mikeyg402]

Well I'll post this here as well. Its not really detailing oriented but sort of. The last caddy I did-this was on the windshield, it was under the glass. It looks like the glue they used to lay a new windshield in, but it was a Cadillac windshield. This is one thing I have not seen before.

any ideas?

 

[Concours.John]

Well I'll post this here as well. Its not really detailing oriented but sort of. The last caddy I did-this was on the windshield, it was under the glass. It looks like the glue they used to lay a new windshield in, but it was a Cadillac windshield. This is one thing I have not seen before.

any ideas?

Almost 100% sure it's delamanation. It's very common on the older classics. It usually starts as a tiny bit of contamination or dust in between. Expansion and contraction make it grow from temperature swings.

 

[Orinda Auto Detail]

This happens to me any time I take a black MB 2003 on up. Happen with a GL on easter, An SL500 like a week ago. These cars never ever agree with me I dont know why everytime I end up throwing every pad and polish combo under the sun at them. I litterally put a Trizac disc on my rotary on the black sl to get defects out I took 9 million messurements while I was doing it but still sooooo annoying. I cringe everytime I see a black benz.

 

[RaskyR1]

Taken from one of my old threads was this 1980 Vette....


There are always going to be those cars or paints that come along which really pose a challenge or require some thinking to correct…well, this was definitely one of them! As I worked my way around the car M105/Surbuf was working amazingly well, right up to where I started on the rear bumper! The second I started hitting the bumpers, everything I tried dried up right away and it dulled the paint big time! See pic below

After trying about 6 different polishes (M105, D300, M205, M83, M80, and even M07), various pads, rotary, DA and hand, I began to be concerned. I gave my good buddy Kevin Brown (aka – Buff Daddy) a call to discuss some possibilities to the problem. Kevin suggested a few options and it was finally decided to try a few other polishes, possibly some which were water based. In the mean time I figured I’d get the rest of the car done first and worry about the bumpers last as I was pressed for time. While I was working my fellow detailing buddy Justin stopped by looking for some product samples. I showed him the issue I was having and he volunteered to help try some things out while I continued working on the rest of the car. He immediately asked if I had any Sonax Paint Cleaner on hand, having read Todd Cooperiders review on it recently, he thought that would be a good place to start. Of course I had some and he went to town applying it by hand first. Almost immediately we saw signs of improvement! Whew! Dodged a bullet on that one! Here is Justin helping me out… thanks for the free labor Justin!

 

[glfahlc1]

i seem to have a similar problem with the wife's jet black bimmer. i can get it to perfect with compound and polish but after i'm done with the final step i.e. sealant, the swirls are back. even if i use new applicators and mf towels i still end up with swirls... frustrating indeed.

 

[Nth Degree]

My moment of bewilderment was with 85rd on a '93 ZR-1. Some may remember this post:

Had a very frustrating incident today. Polishing a '93 Black Corvette ZR-1 with only 8K miles on it.:drool: Typical swirling.:inspector: After about 10 hours washing, claying, compounding I was ready to move on to 85rd. It was a 1 hour commute so I wanted to finish in one day. I came prepared for a 16 hour day.

Problem was the 85rd was being difficult to remove. I was creating marring with just removal. Using heavy dose of IPA didn't help. The paint was on the hard side and took quite a while to correct. (105 & D300 on yellow LC pad, PC) At first I thought it was just streaking, but it was actually marring. Obvious thought was towel. I had a bundle of brand new towels, same problem. Tried po203 and had no marring, but was a little more difficult than normal to remove. D301 didn't give a problem, but didn't cut enough. Tried following the po203 with 85rd on black pad, same problem.:wall

More good info in the thread here.

 

[ca.detailchick]

I have many weird experiences when detailing but by far the worst WTF moment was when I was detailing the interior of an airplane.

The seat were upholstery and off white color and I used oxi-clean like I awlays have and when I got done with the second seat I noticed the color had changed to a very noticible yellow!Luckily I hadnt done all 6 seats yet!

I cant remember what I did to try to fix it other then just rinse with water and blot and hoped when they were dry they would get back to original color but no such luck and to make matters worse one of the other owners saw the seats and became very concerned and upset.

I just tried to remain confident,told him not to worry and I would take care of it and figure out the solution and come back in the morning .

When I got home I frantically searched the internet for a solution and one of the recomendations I found that sometimes works was to spray with vinegar solution and then let the fabric dry in the sun.

I didnt sleep very well and am sure I prayed to the Detail Gods that night!

Luckily it worked like a charm! It didnt work right away but as the seats air dried in the sun they magically turned back to the original color!

The reason for this was oxi-clean has a very high PH and can cause yellowing , vinegar a low PH and can sometimes fix the problem.

 

[CH.Detailing]

I was working on a black 996 turbo, completed a full correction and locked it in with wet ice over fire, really looked stunning! I come back the left day to wrap up the interior and the owner had mowed the lawn with the garage open. Grr, the car had dust and bits of dry grass all over it! It was very light, but on a black car everything shows. I wiped the car down with ONR and it looked great again. Shortly thereafter I noticed some condensation on the hood! I would wipe it off and it would immediately reappear. I tried wiping the hood with M34, BF spray, Mothers QD, Megs QD, Griots Speedshine, and topping with a variety of waxes. Nothing worked! I even stripped the hood with IPA and it STILL happened. Explained it to the owner and told him to call me if it didn't go away on its own. He never called!

 

[PGA2B]

Well I'll post this here as well. Its not really detailing oriented but sort of. The last caddy I did-this was on the windshield, it was under the glass. It looks like the glue they used to lay a new windshield in, but it was a Cadillac windshield. This is one thing I have not seen before.

any ideas?

I have a 2006 Cadillac STS-V and it looks just like that. The dealer said that was normal!! I am waiting on a rock to kill the thing and see if the new one does that.

 

[opie_7afe]

^that looks like glass delamination. seems like the plastic middle of the glass has messed up. on my sun roof i have a round dot that looks about the same. have no clue what it is but im just guessing its something to do with the plastic center of the glass. it could also be where air bubbles were trapped between the glass and adhesive they use to attach windshield.

 

[GearHead_1]

^that looks like glass delamination. seems like the plastic middle of the glass has messed up. on my sun roof i have a round dot that looks about the same. have no clue what it is but im just guessing its something to do with the plastic center of the glass. it could also be where air bubbles were trapped between the glass and adhesive they use to attach windshield.

I'm thinkin' Opie called this one correctly. I've seen other windshields de-laminate in the "sun band" before. It always looked like this.