Paint Correction / Machine Polish

Retrogamer

Has anyone had this done before?

I've a black 2006 Fabia vRS.

Being black it shows up the slightest imperfections in the paint.
Sadly for me, the previous owners didn't take the best of car of the paintwork. Some scuffs, quite a few scratches and the paint has dulled in areas with marring & swirl marks.

I'm wanting to freshen it up a bit as i'll be keeping it for a good few years but a hand polish won't cut it.

I contacted a few local places to query a machine polish but i didn't realise how expensive it is! Everyone so far is north of £200.

Has anyone who's had this done got it cheaper or is this the going rate?

Has anyone bought a rotary polisher and gave it a try themself?
Half tempted to try the latter but a bit worried i'll make a mess of it.

markelock

paint correction is bloomin' expensive, but it's hours and hours of labour intensive effort. I seem to remember prices starting at £650 for a full car for places local to me.

the only feedback I've ever read on polishing machines are only use if you are either competent or happy to live with any potential damage.

what products have you used to polish? bilt hamber and autoglym get good reviews

Retrogamer

I've Bilt Hammer clay bar and Autoglym Super Resin polish.

There's too much swirl marks and scuffs to polish out by hand sadly. If it was silver or something i could live with it, but it's a lot worse looking because it's black.

markelock

https://www.flickr.com/photos/monsterwraps/sets/72157665200261016

this is stage 3 detailing and was £499

I think it was then ceramic coated.

however clearly it's a more expensive car... It would appear though that some cars have paint that is slightly softer than very warm butter, and then take a factory wash in a machine powered entirely by brillo pads

droopsnoot

Detailing is becoming quite a big thing over here now, and the cost of some of the decent materials goes a long way towards the cost of having the job done. You could always get a machine polisher and practice on something other than your car - a cheap way used to be to get an old bootlid or something from a scrapyard but that might not be cheap now. Also a decent machine polisher (with random / DA action, not just rotary) won't be cheap.


I'm just trying to get a decent finish after a home respray now, and it's very difficult to get rid of all the scratches on a dark colour - seems like whichever way I look at it, I find some more.

mcpitman

It's the labour you pay for with a full machine polish.

On a side note Auto Glym SRP is a good product but not really a polish as such, it looks good because it has "fillers" that cover some of the scratches up until next time you wash it.

Try Meguiars Utimate polish or Compound depending how deep the scratches/swirls are.

So I would (always do this when first purchasing a car);
Rinse
Snowfoam
Rinse
Handwash (2 bucket or grit guard method), wash with lambswool mitt
Rinse
Clay
Rinse
Wash again
Rinse
Megs Ultimate Compound (remove swirls and major(ish) scratches)
Megs Polish (remove any finer imperfection)
Wash
Rinse
Seal with either wax or liquid sealer

You can then dress tyres/engine bay windows and glass inside and out etc

Set aside a day or day and a half and look forward to aching arms.

I'm too frightened to use machine polishers on my car, I have seen the damage/burn paint these can cause if not used correctly.

londonTiger

if you think £200+ is expensive then you should rule out paying someone for this altogether. £200 is pretty cheap for detailing and I would be surprised if it was a top quality job.

It's a very labour intensive job, back breaking work too when you detail anywhere underneath the windows.

Best solution for you would be to head over to detailing world and learn to DIY polish, I suspect that you will be spending £200 for entry level equipment though.

Retrogamer

Thanks for all the comments & advise so far.

Being an ex grease monkey myself i've always focused on the mechanical soundness of my car rather than cosmetics so i'm quite new to it all.

I've a few spare car panels i could practise on if i bought my own stuff. In money saving fashion this might be best as means i can do future cars with it as well as family / friends as well. It's just the worry of making it worse somehow.
I'll check out the guides on detailing world for sure.

I guess after shopping around north of £200 is quite common, but being naive to it i thought it would be around £200 tops. It's an older car and a daily driver at the end of the day so hard to justify much more than that,

facade

I bought a polisher a few years ago, you need one like an angle grinder that takes a sponge disc, the different colours are different hardness of sponge, then you buy polishing compound and use plenty of water- makes a hell of a mess, but works very well, and not too difficult, as long as you keep away from the edges and any sharp curves, do these by hand as it is too easy to go through the paint when the whole pad is working on a tiny area.

Don't waste money on the £30 DA polishers with the handles on the side and a lambswool bonnet, they just stand still and you do the DAing.

However what they pass off as "paint" nowadays is a thin layer of something coloured, covered with an ultra thin layer of clear lacquer.
If you polish through the lacquer, the "paint" isn't even waterproof, and it is the lacquer that shines.

I polished the vectra a couple of times, it was solid white, and Vauxhall "paint" is well known for going chalky, the reds go pink.
The second time though I caused a couple of grey marks where I started going through the microscopic "paint" layer, and had to stop.

If your car has been machine polished before, you won't be able to do it again, they just don't put enough thickness of paint on nowadays.

s_b

its hard work buffing a car up and as said as this car has obviously already had one done badly what you need is a swirl polish which you put on then buff in
get it wrong as mentioned and the pad gets too hot and literally burns the lacquer you are trying to deswirl
personally i would hand cut each panel at a time then use a nice polish on top ,you would need quality rags made of cut up flannelette

Retrogamer

I don't think the car has had a machine polish previously, it looks more or less like someone has been washing it with cheap sponges most of it's life or through car wash machines.

On top of them there are some scratches and scuffs here and there and there's no way any hand polishing is going to get them all out. Even a DA might not get them out but would hopefully make them less visible than they are just now.