Detailing and Paint & Body Questions: For the new Guys.

[Candyman]

Hey Everyone,

I just wanted to post on here for all the new Member's, as well as any of our regular Members of course, and any PT Enthusiasts lurking out their, I have a pretty extensive breakdown of basic information to walk you through the Professional Detailing Process up towards the top of the first page here in our way cool Detailing Forum, but if you ever would like more in depth information, or have any questions on anything related to Detailing that is not covered in my Guide, or anything else Detailing related, please feel free to ask me here anytime, or fell free to shoot me over a line anytime at my e-mail address at the bottom of my Signature, and I would be more than happy to help try to answer your questions anytime.

In addition, I can also offer my thoughts and opinions on Paint and Body work as well.

Go easy, and I will catch you all later.

Candyman

[wasmussen]

We had out PT hit in the back bumper. It's the Cool Vanilla color and the bumper had the imprint of the others license plate in it. The guy who fixed and painted it did a wonderful job painting it other than it didn't match in color. It looked white to the vanilla color of our car. Ours is a 2007 model and the paint fades of course but the computer color for it was what the guy sprayed. The only problem is the car looked two toned when we came to get it. He has it now and will have to do something with his paint supplier taking the car to them to see if they can mix another batch to match better.

This clear spray to bring out the color really is a pain. White is so hard to match anyway.

Any ideas?

[Candyman]

Hey their wasmussen,

Thank you for your question. I would venture to guess it is most likely a problem with not quite blending out far enough. Any time you have to repaint a small area, while you can get a really close color match to your paint, it is next to impossible to get a dead on match. The way professional Body Shops work around this problem is to blend the new paint out across a wider area to help trick the eye into not visually focusing on a small spot repair. In this case, if your painter just repainted closely around the area where the damage occurred, then your eyes will focus on that area and it will stand out quite well, however as long as the paint is very close, and the painter resprays the entire bumper, it should be almost undetectable unless you look very close for any variance in color. Then if you were to look for perfection, you would want to respray the bumper, and then fade the paint into the bottom of the trunk, as well as the sides of the bumper area where it wraps around toward the bottom of the rear quarter panels thus covering a wider area, and making it virtually impossible to see any evidence of a repair at all.

The problem with this of course is cost involved. Especially with the super high cost of the new water borne paints which are now required to reduce VOC Emissions per the EPA, which probably came into play in your case here. For me, I would re-shoot your entire bumper, but the cost involved including material and labor currently will run in the ballpark of $300.00 for a standard Base Coat Clear Coat Factory Pack.

Anyways, by blending the paint over a wider surface area, your problem should disappear, and be resolved.

A couple of things I always recommend anyone should try to look out for when picking up a vehicle after having had any new paint repair work done are,

1. Always try to inspect the repaired area inside under florescent lighting as florescent lights tend to show any and all defects in fresh paint much more vividly where as direct sunlight can hide defects. An alternative to florescent lights would be to take a high intensity flood light which will also show any defects.

2. When looking for any defects in paint, what you want to do is catch a reflection of the light itself, and move back and forth looking at the reflection for imperfections, and inconsistencies along the surface that shows up in the reflection. If you see any slight dullness, or slight bumps in the paint, it still needs more work, and you should discuss these areas with your Body Shop Tech.

Never pick up your vehicle unless you are satisfied with the repair!

If you have any more questions, please feel free to ask anytime, and I will be more than happy to help out anywhere I can.

Go easy, and I will catch you later.

Candyman

[wasmussen]

I need to clear up what I said. He took off the bumper and re-painted the whole bumper. He should have noticed the big difference in color when it was put back on. The paint job is perfect, just the color is off. He used a book with color swatches in it with cut out eye shaped holes in the center of each color swatch and pointed out the one he used. He then laid it on the bumper and the bumper color showed through in the center of the swatch matching his color swatch. He then put it on the back trunk and it looked good there too. I told him since I used to mix color to print reality signs years ago that process doesn't work unless the color swatch has a hole in it at least an inch long by half and in high. His showed no more than a half inch if that by quarter inch . This can be deceiving for sure.

So the whole bumper was painted so no blending was done. He mentioned it was better to paint the whole bumper and not the spot where the damage was. I told him the person needed to hit the car harder so the trunk would have been damaged too and fixed to BLEND it all in! LOL
He has til Tuesday to fix the problem. Then the rental is on him.

Thanks for the quick reply though.

[wasmussen]

Well we got our car back and the color looks pretty good now. It's not an exact match but it looks great now. The guy said it took him hours for the color mix and match but that is what is supposed be done.

I am glad the rental Ford Focus is gone. I had to have surgery for a kidney stone that would not pass. This cramped car put words in my that no one would want to hear!

I am now waiting for my body to heal and went in the Cruiser today what a relief and roomy car for a small car.

LOVE MY PT. CRUISER!!!

Candyman you're the best! You are Johnny on the spot to help people!

[William_F]

I can tell you from experience that Candyman's advice is great but following it can be highly addictive

When I got my Cruiser back in July I found this forum and read his detailing articles and decided to give it a shot because I couldn't afford to have my car done professionally.

Based on his suggestions, I headed down to AutoZone, and picked up a few basic Meguiar's products. I spent about 12 hours that first weekend between my Cruiser and my wife's CRV. They both looked great and I was hooked.

I now spend $50 a month on average on detailing supplies as I build up my aresonal. I have found that spending 3-4 hours fussing over the car can be very rewarding (it's nice when the neighbors notice and comment how nice your car looks) but highly addictive.

While rewarding, it can also drive you nuts if you let it. Since I have been spending so much time on my cars, I notice every little ding and chip they get and it can be maddening.

[elmeyer]

Thanks CandyMan. I downloaded them all , printed them & put them in a binder. Great advice.
Larry

Never drive faster than your Guardian Angel can fly.

[Candyman]

Hey their William_F,

I thank you big time for the pros as always! Its big time appreciated, and yep, it is way too addicting for sure! Can't wait to see some pic's of your collection one of these days! I am sure you are well on your way to having a well stocked inventory for sure! I still get people looking at me like I have completely lost it with my collection of both Meguiar's as well as all my Boutique stuff from Swissvax, Zymol, and Pinnacle, and so forth, and my home mixed stuff stocked in the back of my fridge. All together, I would hate to think of how much money I'm into for all the stuff I got, which I am sure if my Wife knew about half of what is their would kick my you know what for sure!!! Luckily I have some good friends who have donated some of the really expensive stuff or I would be up the creek without a doubt!!!

And elmeyer,

I surly thank you big time for putting all my info to good use! I am actually in the very slow and tedious process of doing some updating to the Guide as some of the information is now a bit outdated from a professional standpoint that should be brought up to more current times. Anyways, I thank you once again, and welcome to the Forum! As always, should you have any questions on anything related to Paint, Body, or Detailing, I am always more than happy to help out anytime.

Go easy Guys, and I will catch you later.

Candyman

[William_F]

Can't wait to see some pic's of your collection one of these days! I am sure you are well on your way to having a well stocked inventory for sure!

I'll have to make some time to do that just for you so you can marvel at the monster you've created.

The best thing in my collection is the G110v2 the wife got me for christmas. As far as products go, I've got some GC wash, ONR, couple bottles of QD, APC, NXT 2.0, #26, #7, #40 and a whole bunch of other stuff I can't recall ATM. Those are the ones I use the most often.

I realized I had a problem when I picked up (one of) my rental cars the other day. It's a Chevy HHR. It was the most comparable thing they had to my Cruiser. From 20 feet away I could tell it hadn't been properly detailed. I asked the guy who did their detailing because he needed to be fired.

Looks like it hadn't been washed in weeks and the last time it was there are so many swirls I think they used 3000 grit as a wash mit.

I wasn't behind on my school work right now, I think I'd detail the rental car because I'm ashamed to be seen driving it it's so dirty

[shawny]

This a great advice from U candy. I used to mix color to print reality signs years ago that process doesn't work unless the color swatch has a hole in it at least an inch long by half and in high. His showed no more than a half inch if that by quarter inch .