Car wash swirls

cantdecide

A relative has a car that had been through it's fair share of revolving (?) carwashes before he bought it. The paintwork is nicely dulled and swirled. Of bloody course it is. Cursed things:rolleyes:

Am I right in thinking a professional compound and polish will fix it up?

highlandseoghan

try going to halfords and getting a scratch remover and a colour restorer. it will take you about two - three goes of the scratch remover and then apply the restorer. that should sort out the swirls. once you do this and get rid of the swirls stay away from brush washes

Pete4779

cantdecide wrote: »

A relative has a car that had been through it's fair share of revolving (?) carwashes before he bought it. The paintwork is nicely dulled and swirled. Of bloody course it is. Cursed things:rolleyes:

Am I right in thinking a professional compound and polish will fix it up?

I recommend you visit http://www.detailingworld.co.uk/, you will definitely find what you are looking for (and a lot more when you start to polish under the wheel arches, etc., ).

cantdecide

highlandseoghan wrote: »

try going to halfords and getting a scratch remover and a colour restorer. it will take you about two - three goes of the scratch remover and then apply the restorer. that should sort out the swirls. once you do this and get rid of the swirls stay away from brush washes

I can proudly say I've never gone near one of those awful things. They should be outlawed IMO.

Last time I got a compound and polish it cost like €60. I suspect the professional job might be more effective and since I hate waxing cars anyway (since I'll be the one rolling up my sleeves)....

Neilw

I was in the same position as yourself cantdecide, the previous owner of my car had used auto washes from new and the car was covered in swirls :mad:

It's going to be very hard work to remove all the swirls from the clearcoat by hand. Most if not all the scratch and swirl removers you buy in car shops are full of fillers which hide most of the swirl marks without actually removing them.
Autoglym super resin polish is a prime example of this, full of fillers, meguiars nxt tech wax is the same. These polishes/waxes do not last too long either.

To do the job properly you need to have the car machine polished with a rotary buffer or orbital buffer like one of these.
http://www.autopia-carcare.com/son-udmsfx-kit.html using the least abrasive pad and compound combination.

I ordered most of my tools from the site above and did it myself, car has a swirl free finish now.

You will also have to use a good sealant/wax after the machine polish step and wash the car properly using a lambs wool mitt and two bucket method to stop swirls appearing again.

As you can see there is a fair bit involved.

What car is it btw as some paints are harder then others (vag paints are very hard).

Neil.

HungryJoey

Avoid them car-washes like the plague! I get the job of removing those swirls on car paintwork all the time.:rolleyes:

cantdecide

Thanks guys, I wouldn't attempt to compound it myself- I know it's not easy to avoid doing damage to the paint and get a good result so I'm happy to leave it to the pros, considering this will be most likely a once off.

I will most likely have the job of Sunday afternoon waxing in future and I don't mind too much but I think I could be trying to remove these swirls by hand forever.

HungryJoey wrote: »

Avoid them car-washes like the plague! I get the job of removing those swirls on car paintwork all the time.:rolleyes:

That's interesting, HungryJoey. There is a particularly good valeting business near me. Would they do everything or will they insist a bodyshop does the machining first??

projectgtr

http://www.dtdirl.com/forums/showthread.php?t=16113
this might be of interest to you, based in ireland, the workmanship looks amazing i think their site is detailer.ie

Sully

Detailer.ie have a few of there boys on Boards. You can see there sigs in a lot of threads here!