I just found out that even if you do not want your car detailed at the dealer, it is detailed at the port inspection place often times anyways.

might not be new info, but was to me. I just made it official to not have the dealer work the car for me today before I receive it. They were fine with that and said that it might get some "wheel" work done at the port inspection place though.

 

Not surprised. For all you know it gets repainted too. They have a whole paint shop there to repair any damage from shipping.
Are you biting your nails yet?

 

Yeah, I was very surprised to see all the swirl marks in our brand new MCS HB/W when we picked it up at the dealership 3 weeks ago. But I waxed it with some Zaino Z5 and now they're gone.

 

Damn You Jwardell !!

Damn You All !!

 

How hard is it to see swirls in a PW? Eeks...

 

I wish I had the funds to get a PC and the setup. I hope I dont see swirls and spiderweb on a new car.

 

I wonder how the airline employees are going to act when they see my pcda in my luggage... lol

 

Luckily, PW hides swirls fairly well.

I remember seeing some stat that 5-10% of all cars coming in to the VPC see some sort of refinishing work. I don't know if that means respray or just some polishing. They do a hot water bath there to remove (mostly) the cosmoline that coats the car for protection during shipping.

One would hope that the employees at the VPC have good equipment and are trained to recognize paintwork imperfections... in a way, that's their job, so I would like to think that they have more training than the minimum-wage 'detailers' in the dealer's back lot.

 

How hard?? Take a look at this PW I worked on last Sunday. I removed the bonnet stripes and polished out the paint. Judging from these pics, I'd say Pepper White's swirls are still readily visible.





The clean area at the sharp line was polished out while performing the test spot to determine the efficacy of my process.
They won't even bother. I took my PC and my rotary buffer and assortment of pads, extension cords, etc.. with me to the Dragon last year. I maxed out the 50 pound per baggage weight limit--got to 49pounds in each bag. The chemicals like polishes and waxes might be a different matter though. Some stuff is also just better sent by UPS to your destination.

Richard

 

Sure... you can see 'em, but how would that car look in Jet Black?

 

Well taking the same car, the roof & spoiler is Jet Black.


Here is a different Pepper White, a Cooper this time.



Here's a 2002 Jet Black Cooper, I think the swirls look equally as bad regardless of the paint!

 

Swirls are easily visible to the camera, but what is visible to the EYE is completely different. Silver and white should be tougher to see. It depends on available light as well..
Put a white car black car next to each other that are equally swirled. You'll notice the swirls in the black care at 5 feet, but only 1 foot on the white. Etc.

 

To a certain degree, I agree that swirls are less visible on lighter cars like PS and PW. However I don't need a camera to see swirls in any paint. You just need bright sunlight, or even overhead lights in a parking lot at night will easily show the condition of the paint.

As for your example, there's also a reason why a polished out black or dark color car will look wet while a polished out white or PS will never have the same depth, gloss, or richness from the finish.

IMO, a light colored swirl free car will never look as gorgeous as a gleaming polished darker car. I'll choose the darker color paint for my MINI any day even at the risk of more visible swirls.

Richard

 

I agree completely with OctaneGuy all the way. Even though it's more work to keep 'em gorgeous, I'd rather have the potential of a dark color. Then again, if I owned a beater/utility vehicle I'd probably go for the easier light colors!

-Heather

 

I didn't mean you need a camera to see it, just that they are less visible to the eye.

Amen, Amen, Amen!