Today I had my 1st paid job (barly, only charged $20 .) It was a Wolfsburg Edition Jetta (no idea what year.)

A nice dark blue, although very marred and super swirly.





The owner has alot of touch-up paint on the car, very poorly put on, and many deeper scratches . Unfortunatly I didn't have the stuff I would have needed to fix all of the major defects to I did what I could to take care of the swirls and make the worse stuff less noticable.

I started with a quick wash and was left with this.


Then used some Meg. Clay with Meg.'s Quik Detailer. Followed by Prima Swirl on the orange pad. This did a good job of taking out many of the swirls but there was still enough left that I wasn't very happy, so I put a 2nd coat of Prima Swirl on, just to get everything that Swirl was going to get.

Here is my test spot after the Clay and Swirl.


Now that I know that 2 coats will get the job done as much as I want/need I can now move on to the whole car. La-ti-da-la-ti-da, flash forward an hour or two later, and now its time for the Prima Amigo. One nice thin coat of Amigo went on and the remaining tiny swirls that Swirl wouldn't pull out are now all filled in (shh .) After the Amigo it was time for Prima Epic, since it's a bit chilly here today, I think the highest its been up until this point was 54ºF, I gave it a nice long 1:15 to cure up. While it was cureing I did the windows, inside and out, with Prima Clarity and cleaned out my pads. I then grabbed my Monster Fluffy and buffed up the deep shine that Epic loves to leave behind. Gave it a few mins while I cleaned up all my stuff before I hit it with a coat of Prima Hydro (just for the added measure) and here is what the final pics look like (unfortunatly, the clouds came back and stayed right after I finished my before pics .)







And lastly, a picture showing off my favorite Prima Prod...no, Detailing Product ever And a few small swirls, but never the less, MUCH better then the original pictures.



And to think, it only took 6 hours (that includes my 40min break to wash my towels, I need more Monster Fluffies!)

 

So did you polish the car out for 20 bucks or just hydro the whole thing...

anyway good job. And resize those pics! haha...it loaded this up so much it wouldnt let me reply the first few times.

 

Wash, Clay, Swirl, Swirl, Amigo, Epic, Hydro

 

damn, are we looking for ants in your picts?

 

Holy cow--I feel like someone grabbed my head and thrust it into the paint of this Jetta. Resize your pix. There is absolutely no reason to post anything this large.

 

I have a map of the USA, the scale is 1' = 1' (maybe you've seen it?).
Looks much improved Jeremy must have been fun ... and to get paid even!

 

Ill resize in a bit, owner just got back from work

 

lol!

yah, i want to see resized picts.

 

resized

She actually gave me $40 too! Even though when she gave it to me I tried to give her one of the 20's back because I'm not completly satisfied with how it looked, but she insisted .

 

much better...

 

Holly crap, the Hydro even took the dog paw prints off the door! Nice.

 

good job! i think before one goes too deep into the clear,
they should get a meter to see how much clearcoat is left on there.

 

Or do like me on my crappy minivan. Just wetsand until you hit bottom. Then grab the rattle cans....

 

Are you implying that I went through the clear ? I wasn't pulling pigment off onto my pads, so if I did go through the clear, the paint was super hard.

 

Uhm, if you were pulling pigment, you'd be in deep sh*t. You've got a clear coat over the basecoat. The truth be known that whenever you buff, even with a PC, you are pulling off paint. Even on a clear coated car--the clear coat is just nonpigmented base coat. Try buffing on some of the modern Lexus' with tinted clearcoats, you will see what I mean.

Or just try buffing on a single stage paint without a clearcoat--you will pull paint.

If you could see the clear coming off, you'd realize that even with a PC, you are pulling paint.


And then input all the measure points into a computer to generate a 3D model of the paint surface so that way you know exactly what the average depth is--even though you could do it in your head!

 

And then charge an extra $300 just because I use a computer in my process, right

 

Hi Jeremy, great job on the Jetta. I also read about the horror story from SCD. Glad that everything turned out ok.

 

no no, if you went through the clear you will know.
ive seen people literally go through the clear with their buffers on older
cars.

well, that's another reason why i want someone like octaneguy take
a look at my MCS cause i polished quite a bit off the clear but there
are still minor swirls in the paint. it's to a point wax hides it well,
but it is no where as clear as my G35C's paint which was only washed
by the dealer once at delivery. i don't know how much clear i
have left.

 

yah see, that's where the pro's differs from the amatures.

 

I used to have dark blue Wolfsburg Jetta. I think they were only made in 2001. Every once in a while I'll see one in a parking lot and look enviously at those beautiful BBS wheels, and think back to the lovely leather-wrapped 3-spoke steering wheel that tilted and telescoped...And then I get in my Mini, drive away and remember once again how much more fun I have driving now!

Nice job on the detail, but you've gotta charge more than $20! Someone would have to pay at least $50 for a quickie, no-clay, one-coat-of-wax detail at the average car wash.

 

Oh! Her wheels were soooo bad! I dont know what it was, but it looks like someone splashed them with a very strong acid. From less then 10ft away they looked so messed up. I didn't know to do with them, so I just washed them and put some Wheel Sheild on, didn't even attempt to fix them. I plan on charging more, in the future, when I can actually detail good.

 

Those wheels are notorious for peeling paint, etc. It was ALL over the Vdub forums.

 

Great before and after, Jeremy!

And don't worry about the clearcoat... you've got plenty on there no doubt (and so do you, Ken). When in doubt, a meter is a useful too; however, in most cases of modern, manufacturer paint jobs there is plenty of paint for a PC to handle over and over and over and over and over and over again without going through the clear. That's the beauty of the PC! Of course, it'd be a whole different story if you were using a rotary but we all know better than that around here...

Nice work and nice writeup too!

-Heather