Nooooow then! :approve:
My latest installment - enjoy.
Audi TT – Major Paint Correction Detail
Take an Audi that has clocked 85k miles, been through the hands of 8 previous owners and is 9 years old. Unless it’s been properly cared for in the past, chances are, it’s ready for a bit of TLC!
Over three days my aim was to put as much life back into the paintwork as possible, tidy the engine bay and fully deep cleanse the interior with leather treatments.
Product: AMDetails. AutoSmart. BlackFire. Jeffs Werkstat. LTT. Menzerna and Scholl Concepts.
The vehicle was put through its wash stage late on a Sunday evening – “why?” Monday, first thing, I had organised a dent repair chap to pull a few of the nasty dings out. No photos unfortunately, but I must say, he did a fantastic job! (Watch this space)
Picking up where I’d left off, surface contaminants were removed by using a clay bar.
Lots of pick up to be seen:
With the car now ‘clean’, it was blown dry to remove excess water from panel gaps, trim, badges etc and then taped up in readiness for some machine polishing.
It was noted that A) the wheels had been badly refurbed (blown over the front-facing but lots of overspray and dirt stuck in the inner rim), B) the front bumper had been repainted and C) the rear bumper had been repainted (badly)
Inspection shots.
Resprayed areas:
Dull and hazy:
Wings covered in overspray and buffertrails:
Rear bumper, an area of caution this due to the poor spray work:
Lower down on rear bumper, there was NO life at all!
Other than that, general swirling and bad scratches!
Even with the nature light from the window, you can see how bad some areas were:
More nasties:
Overspray:
More buffertrails from previous machine polishing:
A few areas that really were quite tatty:
And a bird etching thrown in to complete the set:
Good. OK. Plenty to get stuck into then!!
Paint thickness readings on the bonnet: (enough to play with)
My first 50/50:
Corrected and refined.
The TT isn’t an easy straight forward shape to work with… Lots of flowing curves but also fiddly areas that require special attention and lots of tape to safely cover.
Top of the boot lid, before/after:
Side of the boot lid, before/after:
Roof, with healthy paint thickness readings, before/afters:
Refined and sharp:
A-C Pillars - before, in-action, after:
Keeping the correction as ‘tight’ as possible, the smaller flat sides to the wheel arches were hit first with a series of spot pads:
…before the rest of the area was tackled. 50/50:
Wing mirror housing before/after:
More spot pad work – before/after:
Insides of the grab handle polished with Menz 203s – before/after:
50/50 on the offside between the wing and the door:
Before/after:
The section around the fuel filler was a nightmare. Patience, overlapping tape and slow passes required here.
Before/after:
Before/after:
O/S/R wing complete:
The boot lid was in a bad way. Someone, somewhere down the line, seemed to have a habit of resting things on the paint whilst opening up…
Closer up:
Time to get aggressive.
First up, the angled leading edge was hit first – before/after:
And after some heavy hitting with wool, I was left with these results:
Most impressive!
Something you don’t often see, my own buffertrails! (Numerous ‘heavy hits’ with an aggressive polish/pad combo takes its toll)
After refining stage:
Before/after:
Spoiler before/after:
Boot lid after:
Light clusters before/after:
Final section on the boot – before/afters:
Spinning the car round, work beings on the N/S.
N/S/R wing before/after:
“hmm, overspray!”
N/S/R complete:
Correction around N/S door handle:
And front wing, before/after:
Finalising work on the bonnet:
Check out the difference in clarity in this next photo… Clarity between the top of the bumper and the bonnet itself:
Bulk of the correction now complete. Just the bumpers and sills to go.
Before/after:
The O/S/R corner had a nasty scrape on it… Treading carefully here as the paint finish wasn’t the best.
Before/after:
The only way the rear bumper will ever be perfect is if it has another (proper) respray. Much improved though for now…
Lower down, the scrape continues – before/after:
Little middle section – before/after:
And finally the lower part that had no life at all.
Better:
Sill work – before/after:
The leading edges were a bit rough; 9 years of people clobbering them with their shoes.
Attempted befores and afters:
and the O/S:
Before/after:
With heavy paint correction comes heavy dusting! Before we can think about wax, protection, glass etc, we need to rid all surface debris.
After a quick foam, a thorough pressure wash was given; concentrating on trim, panel gaps, crevices, sills and shuts etc…
Rinsed with an open hose to sheet the water off of the panels (far easier to dry afterwards!)
With the car back inside, fully dried down, engine bay dressed and paintwork wiped with IPA, I looked towards the protectional stages.
Product of choice? Had to be BlackFire.
BlackFire ‘Wet Diamond’ All Finish Paint Protection.
Allowed to cure for 15 minutes before buffing.
Although out of focus, these next shots are before/afters on the exhaust tips. Belgom Alu and 00 grade wire wool. Came up quite good in the end!
Glass cleaned, exterior ‘toothpickery’ (removal of remaining trapped residues etc) and wheels sealed. Time to check out that interior…
Doesn’t show too well on the photos, but, lots of room for improvement. Shiny, dirty leather. A dirt encrusted gear knob, tacky indicator stalks and grubby plastics all round.
Leather ‘brushed’ to remove trapped dirt from sides of bolsters. Hoovered. Plastics wiped with weak AS G101 mix. Toothpick used to lift engrained dirt in gear knob numbering and finally the Leather was deep cleansed with LTT’s Auto Ultra Foam. (Re-hoovered!)
After:
Boom. Three days later, we have an Audi TT fit for ANY showroom!
Correction levels:
Enjoyed this one! Both physically working on the car and documenting it! An awesome ‘save’ and a mega turnaround.
My ‘Pamper-Pack’ kit (essential DIY products) was passed on to the new (delighted) owner and they hope to revisit in 3-4 months for a top up.
As always, thanks for reading and thanks for the continuous support!
Jim
My latest installment - enjoy.
Audi TT – Major Paint Correction Detail
Take an Audi that has clocked 85k miles, been through the hands of 8 previous owners and is 9 years old. Unless it’s been properly cared for in the past, chances are, it’s ready for a bit of TLC!
Over three days my aim was to put as much life back into the paintwork as possible, tidy the engine bay and fully deep cleanse the interior with leather treatments.
Product: AMDetails. AutoSmart. BlackFire. Jeffs Werkstat. LTT. Menzerna and Scholl Concepts.
The vehicle was put through its wash stage late on a Sunday evening – “why?” Monday, first thing, I had organised a dent repair chap to pull a few of the nasty dings out. No photos unfortunately, but I must say, he did a fantastic job! (Watch this space)
Picking up where I’d left off, surface contaminants were removed by using a clay bar.
Lots of pick up to be seen:
With the car now ‘clean’, it was blown dry to remove excess water from panel gaps, trim, badges etc and then taped up in readiness for some machine polishing.
It was noted that A) the wheels had been badly refurbed (blown over the front-facing but lots of overspray and dirt stuck in the inner rim), B) the front bumper had been repainted and C) the rear bumper had been repainted (badly)
Inspection shots.
Resprayed areas:
Dull and hazy:
Wings covered in overspray and buffertrails:
Rear bumper, an area of caution this due to the poor spray work:
Lower down on rear bumper, there was NO life at all!
Other than that, general swirling and bad scratches!
Even with the nature light from the window, you can see how bad some areas were:
More nasties:
Overspray:
More buffertrails from previous machine polishing:
A few areas that really were quite tatty:
And a bird etching thrown in to complete the set:
Good. OK. Plenty to get stuck into then!!
Paint thickness readings on the bonnet: (enough to play with)
My first 50/50:
Corrected and refined.
The TT isn’t an easy straight forward shape to work with… Lots of flowing curves but also fiddly areas that require special attention and lots of tape to safely cover.
Top of the boot lid, before/after:
Side of the boot lid, before/after:
Roof, with healthy paint thickness readings, before/afters:
Refined and sharp:
A-C Pillars - before, in-action, after:
Keeping the correction as ‘tight’ as possible, the smaller flat sides to the wheel arches were hit first with a series of spot pads:
…before the rest of the area was tackled. 50/50:
Wing mirror housing before/after:
More spot pad work – before/after:
Insides of the grab handle polished with Menz 203s – before/after:
50/50 on the offside between the wing and the door:
Before/after:
The section around the fuel filler was a nightmare. Patience, overlapping tape and slow passes required here.
Before/after:
Before/after:
O/S/R wing complete:
The boot lid was in a bad way. Someone, somewhere down the line, seemed to have a habit of resting things on the paint whilst opening up…
Closer up:
Time to get aggressive.
First up, the angled leading edge was hit first – before/after:
And after some heavy hitting with wool, I was left with these results:
Most impressive!
Something you don’t often see, my own buffertrails! (Numerous ‘heavy hits’ with an aggressive polish/pad combo takes its toll)
After refining stage:
Before/after:
Spoiler before/after:
Boot lid after:
Light clusters before/after:
Final section on the boot – before/afters:
Spinning the car round, work beings on the N/S.
N/S/R wing before/after:
“hmm, overspray!”
N/S/R complete:
Correction around N/S door handle:
And front wing, before/after:
Finalising work on the bonnet:
Check out the difference in clarity in this next photo… Clarity between the top of the bumper and the bonnet itself:
Bulk of the correction now complete. Just the bumpers and sills to go.
Before/after:
The O/S/R corner had a nasty scrape on it… Treading carefully here as the paint finish wasn’t the best.
Before/after:
The only way the rear bumper will ever be perfect is if it has another (proper) respray. Much improved though for now…
Lower down, the scrape continues – before/after:
Little middle section – before/after:
And finally the lower part that had no life at all.
Better:
Sill work – before/after:
The leading edges were a bit rough; 9 years of people clobbering them with their shoes.
Attempted befores and afters:
and the O/S:
Before/after:
With heavy paint correction comes heavy dusting! Before we can think about wax, protection, glass etc, we need to rid all surface debris.
After a quick foam, a thorough pressure wash was given; concentrating on trim, panel gaps, crevices, sills and shuts etc…
Rinsed with an open hose to sheet the water off of the panels (far easier to dry afterwards!)
With the car back inside, fully dried down, engine bay dressed and paintwork wiped with IPA, I looked towards the protectional stages.
Product of choice? Had to be BlackFire.
BlackFire ‘Wet Diamond’ All Finish Paint Protection.
Allowed to cure for 15 minutes before buffing.
Although out of focus, these next shots are before/afters on the exhaust tips. Belgom Alu and 00 grade wire wool. Came up quite good in the end!
Glass cleaned, exterior ‘toothpickery’ (removal of remaining trapped residues etc) and wheels sealed. Time to check out that interior…
Doesn’t show too well on the photos, but, lots of room for improvement. Shiny, dirty leather. A dirt encrusted gear knob, tacky indicator stalks and grubby plastics all round.
Leather ‘brushed’ to remove trapped dirt from sides of bolsters. Hoovered. Plastics wiped with weak AS G101 mix. Toothpick used to lift engrained dirt in gear knob numbering and finally the Leather was deep cleansed with LTT’s Auto Ultra Foam. (Re-hoovered!)
After:
Boom. Three days later, we have an Audi TT fit for ANY showroom!
Correction levels:
Enjoyed this one! Both physically working on the car and documenting it! An awesome ‘save’ and a mega turnaround.
My ‘Pamper-Pack’ kit (essential DIY products) was passed on to the new (delighted) owner and they hope to revisit in 3-4 months for a top up.
As always, thanks for reading and thanks for the continuous support!
Jim
