E30 Zone

Got me a brilliant red e30 now, parts of it are brilliant pink! Its not disastrous but at certain angles you can see the difference. Can i get the colour back by the wash, polish/wax method?, iv got Autogylm products and would get T-cut aswell.

My mate suggested getting it mopped and re-laquered at a cost. Whats involved in mopping, is it polished by a machine??

Paint correction via Machine Polishing is easy enough to do yourself provided you have a polisher of course.

You can get the colour back by hand yourself, with AG Super Resin Polish, then use Extra Gloss Protection and HD Wax, (don't forget to clay bar). for someone to come out with a polisher will cost you about £200+ depends on how cheap you can get it done.

I do paint correction and detailing part time and it is time consuming even with a rotary polisher. Set youself a day to do it by hand and work your "ahem" off and you should be ok.

Mopping is what you do to a kitchen floor. The process you require is machine polishing, this is done with either a rotary or a DA polisher and various different grades of polish and pad combinations. T cut will get you a result but it's hard graft by hand and not really the best product in the world, nothing wrong with Autoglym, again though it's not exactly the height of sophistication when it comes to products. With all due respect your mate is wrong, you don't just polish a car then lacquer it, it will look horrible, you'll have lots of defects in your old paint, the shiny lacquer will highlight these, it will probably flake off a polished finish pretty quickly to, lacquer is designed to be used with a base coat (colour), the only time you would put lacquer over the factory finish would be blending a repair in to old paint and then the old paint would be keyed with scotch brite first. A solid coloured E30 never had a clear coated finish, it would have been a factory applied high baked single stage acrylic most likeley.
My advice would be to get someone who knows what they are doing to machine polish the car and protect it with a sealant, something like Zaino Z3 would be my choice.

Personally i would recomend what i use (similar to what a lot of other pro's use) 3M Polishes, choose the most appropriate one, then use use a CG Wet Mirror Finish, followed by either CG Pete's 53 paste wax, Zymol or Swissvax (ideally Paul Daltons very own Crystal Rock Wax) couple of coats and your motor is shining, and also protected.

i have had 5 red brilliant red e30s and every 1 was faded.
All i did was buff the car with farecla G3 cutting compound, then polished the car with Auto glym super resin and finally used auto glym HD wax. it works every time.

So far i have used the 'old skool' T-cut, not the newer one, i done the back wing the other day along with auto glym super resin and its come up 10x better but alot of elbow grease. Heard horror stories with G3 but i guess the trick is plenty of water, im gettin 2 doors relaced tommorow and will decide after weather to pay someone with a machine or work my biceps some more.

sunny

speak to dips, he'll tell you what i did on a few peoples cars

here is a 50/50 shot of a car i did recently

the paint was fucked, swirls galore no depth or shine.

Kos

My mate has mentioned dips but said his workload is pretty heavy to work on his own car (mechanical work), He live 10mins from me but iv never met him.

Care to share?

sunnyr83 wrote:Kos

My mate has mentioned dips but said his workload is pretty heavy to work on his own car (mechanical work), He live 10mins from me but iv never met him.

Care to share?

ahh i thought you knew him, got you confused with a different sunny

anyhow, yes he is busy, but i do some detailing for his customers cars. if you want me to look at it an price you up i'm free tomorrow.

pm me if you wish

Ok sounds good im at a wedding tomm, once i get the doors fitted, collecting them from pete today and fitted sunday all being well, I will pm you and can arrange a day for you to have a look, im local to you anyway.

Facela G3 is very out dated now and must be used in the correct way or it causes more problems.

A good quality polish suitable for what needs to be achieved (recomend 3M) will get the paint defects sorted. Then need to seal followed by protection (glaze or wax) I have personally used Zymol glazes as they are fantastic although the Paul Dalton Crystal Rock is the best glaze/wax i have ever used (mindfull that it is not cheap) but very very durable.

while G3 is dated it still is good to a point.

i've used 3m and Menzerna, both are good but i prefer the 3M stuff especialyly for heavy cutting/correction work

as for a glaze, its all down top personal preference and colour/paint finish you have same applies to waxes. i've use 3 different types on one of my cars and the the one i love is the cheaper one. it gives a soft warm glow to the car, real depth and shine with a wet look


when ever you are ready sunny, give me a shout

sunnyr83 wrote:Kos

My mate has mentioned dips but said his workload is pretty heavy to work on his own car (mechanical work), He live 10mins from me but iv never met him.

Care to share?

lol sunny bell me if you need ,kos is very good with the stuff as he does it for me as well

who was your mate ?

polish, glaze, sealant and wax is a minefield for people who do not know what they are doing.

I am going to try CG Butter wet wax, some good reports about it, can me rotary applied as opposed to hand applied (literally) like zymol and swissvax, see what results i get from it. Changing all my polishes etc been doing comparrisons.

Sticking with 3M Polish, CG Mirror Wet Gloss Enhancer, and Butter Wet Wax and probably pete's 53 paste wax, along with a new rotary, and still not decided on pads, can't decide between the CG Hex-Logic and Lake Country. decisions, decisions. lol

Dips

It's Gursh from round the corner from you, with a recently rebuilt black 320i cab. Once the new doors are fitted I will contact kos/yourself.

sunnyr83 wrote:Dips

It's Gursh from round the corner from you, with a recently rebuilt black 320i cab. Once the new doors are fitted I will contact kos/yourself.

ah ok ,he was around the other day

sunnyr83 wrote:My mate suggested getting it mopped and re-laquered at a cost. Whats involved in mopping, is it polished by a machine??

Your mate may be right about the buffer, but 're-lacquering' doesnt exist... well it does but... its just not good practise! If you do re laquer it all you do is give the whole car a fresh clear coat meaning every chip and scratch is left untouched. If you go down that route you should just hit the full car with fresh red... It may cost a bit more but your car would be mint!

Right, machine polishing...

firstly i would lightly go over the full car with 3m trizact 3000 grit to cut it slightly more than cutting compounds. Usually you would do this with a D.A and a soft backing pad. Then the compounds, I used g3 for around 4 years day in day out and its good when its used properly. If I were you i would go for 3m fastcut (greentop) and use a hard mop (farecla velcro) then go over the car twice. After that use the black soft mop (farecla polishing foam ) once. Then theres a 'bluetop' 3m (but i cant remember its proper name! And its waxiness goes on for ages! only a drop the size of a pea should manage a full panel. Then the hand polish after that is up to you. I use autosmart stuff from our local autosmart rep.

I've done this method now since i was nearly 16 and now i've been doing it 8 years. I'm a fully skilled painter (car sprayer) so just like kos and dips its my territory.

We had a customer at work who paid a whopping £350 to get is beloved mg b gt done. It did look mint and we chucked in a silverseal kit on his car in the deal. Our place would usually charge in and around £200 inc vat to do a mop. By the time you have bought the gear you will be paying around the same figure. (But you can charge your mates £50 a go and make money yourself!)

Sunny - gimmie a shout (no. 5) - i got some stuff you can use as well!

Once youve perfected yours, you can start on my touring - lol!

Kaz