E30 Zone

Looking at a load of before and after photo's of some of your cars, what does everyone use to restore the shine to the red 'uns?!

My paint is in pretty good condition, but the roof is starting to fade a little... Any tips?

T-cut, elbow-grease then Zymol. Was n wax regularly, keep it out of sunlight as much as you can.

Brilliant Red is lovely when its just that! or is it Zinnobar?

when its gone it needs respraying end of. Zinnobar red is darker and nicer imo brilliant red was popular and common on sports don't like it myself and it can end up literally pink.

i used good old t cut on mine it was fading quite bad, i used to the t-cut which is for red paint not the original t cut came up a treat, if i had got one of those electric buffers on it she wud of been gleaming.

pnd wrote:when its gone it needs respraying end of. Zinnobar red is darker and nicer imo brilliant red was popular and common on sports don't like it myself and it can end up literally pink.

No it doesn't.

This is the sort of difference that can be achieved:



I'm sure you can guess which side has been polished and which side hasn't.

How did you get such a good line between good and bad?
And once you finished the job, could you see that line?

I taped down the middle of the bonnet to take that shot - known as a 50/50 shot because it so clearly shows the before and after effects, I do the same with defect removal (such as swirls). Once the rest was done then no, you couldn't see any line.

cheers people, I'll put some pics up later so you can see the problem! Is a shame really, as the rest of the car is gorgeous (is Zinnobar) just the roof which lets her down!

My brilliant red M3 was passed the point of no return when I bought it!! I spent 10 hours machine polishing it and although the metal panels came up ok the boot, rear window surround and other plastic trim was still pink.

Only thing I could do was to give it a full respray.

Since getting it done (2 years ago) I make sure I polish it once a month (frequency since November...more in summer) using Maguiers 3 stage kit which I find, for the money, spot on.

I would love to get a Zaino kit but wouldnt know where to start with what to get and how to use (I hate reading instructions....always use trial and error)

ShineOn wrote:

pnd wrote:when its gone it needs respraying end of. Zinnobar red is darker and nicer imo brilliant red was popular and common on sports don't like it myself and it can end up literally pink.

No it doesn't.

This is the sort of difference that can be achieved:



I'm sure you can guess which side has been polished and which side hasn't.

Believe me it can get way worse than this and whilst products can improve it once its lost its laquer and gone truly pink it will only be sorted with a respray another reason I don't like red cars.

How can you not like red cars?? Most other colours other than silver are easily dated dont you think plus red cars appeal to most people (could be wrong) so will always sell.

Whenever I have looked at a car beit a radiant red RS Turbo, my M3, my XR2 (my first car), my 325 tech2 and even my dads first Jag it was the fact that they looked so good and I dont think you can get such a shine that glows from any other colour.

pnd wrote:

ShineOn wrote:

pnd wrote:when its gone it needs respraying end of. Zinnobar red is darker and nicer imo brilliant red was popular and common on sports don't like it myself and it can end up literally pink.

No it doesn't.

This is the sort of difference that can be achieved:



I'm sure you can guess which side has been polished and which side hasn't.

Believe me it can get way worse than this and whilst products can improve it once its lost its laquer and gone truly pink it will only be sorted with a respray another reason I don't like red cars.

lost its laquer???

I thought only metallic cars were laquered??

Sorry pnd, but I don't think you have quite got all the facts there mate.

The older BMW reds are single stage - they have no clearcoat or 'laquer'. The pink that you see is the top layer of paint 'cells' that have become oxidised by UV light and faded. How bad it had pentrated through will depend on how long its been left without protection, what sort of intensity its been subjected to etc.

If its really bad (and mine was bad, but not really bad) you can still get a good improvement. You can generally make good paint near perfect, and bad paint good. Well, something like that. There is a finite amount of paint to remove, so you can only go so far depending on how bad the damage is.

Once the top level of 'dead' paint is removed to reveal less affected paint underneath, its important to keep it protected through use of products with UV inhibitors (sealant and/or wax), much like sun tan cream on your skin.

Kedge, most modern paints (except for a couple like Vauxhall who still use single stage red) will have a clearcoat even if they are a flat, non-metallic colour.

ShineOn wrote:Kedge, most modern paints (except for a couple like Vauxhall who still use single stage red) will have a clearcoat even if they are a flat, non-metallic colour.

I was nearly right, don't know so much about newer cars but thought thats how it was with the older stuff.

http://www.the-corrado.net/forum/viewto ... c&start=15

Have a look here (link to a detailer on the corrado-forum) and you can see how faded red can get, and still be treated to great effect.

(pg2 - red porsche if it does automatically come up!)

I would pop my head into a paint shop or good valeting bay if i were you and give one of the fellas there a

drink to mop it up with good going over of ' Farecla G3 ' , its quality stuff when used with a mop as its a gritty

compound it will bring a good majority of the pink back to red and removes light scratches also. If you have it

done , then i would stick a wax on it to uphold the shine.

Second the Faracla G3 as a good fine cutting compound. The Meguires range of polish and wax has always worked well for me to bring up the shine.

I tend to agree with pnd on the respray. I do not doubt that you can restore a great glossy finish to a badly faded and discoloured panel, and I have done the same with my Zinnobar 318i coupe that was not in good shape. However, although they may look good to start with, even the best UV inhibitors won't stop the paint returning to its faded pinkish state in a couple of weeks if left out in the sun periodically. The respray is the best way to fix it - just make sure you park it in the shade afterwards!!

And I also agree that Zinnobar sh1ts all over brilliant red, and that a nice red car will always turn heads.

I've been watching this thread closely to see what peoples thughts were.

I'm guessing I'd fall into the catagory of 1 stage paint and no laquer, but before I go balls out with T-Cut and G3, is it going to be worth it or should I just go for the respray?

From what I've seen of the pain, its faded but not at the pink stage just yet



??

Polishing's got be worth a go first, as respraying is far more expensive, also original paint is nice to have if it can be restored!

choppa7, take a look at the thread i posted to, i would say yours is jut as bad as the porsches, and that cleaned up pretty well, and was a damn site cheaper than a respray!

I had the same problem with my touring going pink before i went mad on it, went to a specialist paint mixing firm and they told me that as the years go by, direct sunlight destroys the red pigment in the paint, polishing will prolong the life but ultimately it will turn pink, mine was too far gone and needed the respray so i did a couple of mods beforehand !.

I still need to get some pics up!!!

only thing I'm going to suffer with I think is the fact the rest of the car is lovely... it's just the bloody roof!!

As I said in my post I tried to compound it out with G3 but if the paint (and more than likely the plastics) have faded too far you will be looking for a full respray!


Let me see if I can find some before photos of my car

Check this out, I used this site to gather info before I attacked my car.

http://www.clean-image.co.uk/articles/f ... ntwork.htm

So thats basically what I already said then.