CQuartz UK applied with no prep work - how to best remove

[BadRims]

It's too painful to describe how this happened but on a new white Audi CQuartz was applied yesterday with little to no prepwork beyond a basic car wash. I can see and feel contaminants in the paint. Strong claying seems to be removing the contaminants at the expense of marring. Would it be better to polish out the CQuartz instead of trying to "clay it out"? My concern is polishing something with containments clearly in the paint will make things worse.

Option A:
Iron X
Wash
Clay
Polish
Prep paint
Recoat

Option B
Iron X
Wash
Polish
Prep paint
Recoat

[SWETM]

I would go with option A. Work with a surface as clean as possible when polishing. Then if you use a clay bar. Try claying in smaller sections and refold often. And have a great clay lube to minimize the clay marring. When you clay you would maybe see more clay marring in the coating. If you use a clay alternative. The same with working on smaller sections and rinse off the clay alternatives often. Also here make sure you use a good clay lube. And if it's the first time the clay alternative is used. Remember that it's needed to be breaked in on the glass first. So the protection film is worn off and it gets more sticky. If you don't break these in you can have a lot of clay marring before it's done if used on paint only.

The clay marring would be easy to correct when you polishing. But this is under normal use. If the contaminants is big and trapped into the coating. And you notice that's actually deeper kind of scratches than clay marring. Then I would stop and it's a little trial and error with getting the coating off. The solvents used to do this is very aggressive and to be handle with care and off the plastic trim and rubber seals. This we can take if you are haveing a big problem with the claying.

[tcope]

How will polishing with contaminants in the paint make anything worse? The coating is much softer than the clear. I'd think polishing should remove pretty much all of the coating. You could then start all over. Clay, polish and repapply the coating. If you really wanted to go slow you could clay, polish and then clay again.

[BadRims]

How will polishing with contaminants in the paint make anything worse? The coating is much softer than the clear. I'd think polishing should remove pretty much all of the coating. You could then start all over. Clay, polish and repapply the coating. If you really wanted to go slow you could clay, polish and then clay again.

I was under the impression that the contamination would get smeared around and scratch the paint? Maybe I’m crazy.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[expdetailing]

Wax & Grease Remover (a solvent in a can/bottle), will remove most coatings if applied by hand with a towel a few times, and should get rid of the coating. I think it's worth a try because it's easier to decontaminate the paint without the coating on it.

[BadRims]

Wax & Grease Remover (a solvent in a can/bottle), will remove most coatings if applied by hand with a towel a few times, and should get rid of the coating. I think it's worth a try because it's easier to decontaminate the paint without the coating on it.

I may have to try this or go straight to polishing as mentioned previously as using the clay bar is very very slow going.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[BadgerRivFan]

How will polishing with contaminants in the paint make anything worse? The coating is much softer than the clear. I'd think polishing should remove pretty much all of the coating. You could then start all over. Clay, polish and repapply the coating. If you really wanted to go slow you could clay, polish and then clay again.

Polishing will remove the coating, but why would you polish paint with bonded or embedded contaminants in it? The polishing step is intended to remove swirls and scratches in the clear coat, and due to the abrasives in the polish will also remove the coating.

Polishing is not the way to remove bonded contaminates. You will shorten the life of your pads if you are not polishing a clean contaminate free surface.

Tony’s advice is spot on, the OP should go with option “A.”

[BadRims]

Polishing is not the way to remove bonded contaminates. You will shorten the life of your pads if you are not polishing a clean contaminate free surface.

Tony’s advice is spot on, the OP should go with option “A.”

I have tons of unused new polishing pads. Are there other negatives to polishing with contamination (I can see and feel it)? Perhaps throw the pads away after one panel/section?

With regards to why I would polish first, i would only do it in the interest of time as the claying is taking a long time.

big thank you for everyone’s response. I’ve been so distraught over this I couldn’t sleep last night.

[SWETM]

What clay do you use?

There is a big difference between clays. And there are clays that are very effective to pick up contaminants. I use a clay bar not sold on AGO. But these 2 are simualar and very good. The prices is a little higher on these. But with stubborn contaminants you often needs less aggitations with a more aggressive clay bar. 3M Perfect-It III Cleaner Clay - 38070 and Meguiars Professional Detailing Clay – Aggressive - C2100. And a great clay lube is Dodo Juice Born Slippy Clay Lubricant Concentrate. If it would be me I would start with these and see how it works. Now you can have a problem with getting the contaminants that has been totaly sealed in by the coating. But those I would think is so small that they would not be a big problem when you get to polishing. And clean the pad thoroughly with a compressed air to blow off the pad with or a good pad brush. Inspect the pad after the test spot and see how it looks like with the contaminants and if you can clean them off.

3M Perfect-It III Cleaner Clay, 3m 38070, a paint-cleaning detailing clay that grabs foreign particles as it glides across the paint. (https://www.autogeek.net/cleaner-clay.html)

Meguiars Professional Detailing Clay Aggressive - C2100 (https://www.autogeek.net/meprdeclag.html)

Dodo Juice Born Slippy Clay Lubricant Concentrate, born slippy clay lube, detailing clay lubricant, clay lube concentrate (https://www.autogeek.net/born-slippy-clay-lube.html)

[SWETM]

YouTube (https://youtu.be/fkeS_GrCRp8)

Here is a thorough video about some ways to go. The last option that will be getting the coating off you do it on your own risk. As this will also impact on the clearcoat. So do as he do and step up in aggressiveness. And maybe with several applications of a wax and grease remover could be takeing off your coating as it's newly applyied. Last resort is the paint thinner. A 15 minutes video that is the basics on how you remove protection from your paint.

[BadgerRivFan]

I have tons of unused new polishing pads. Are there other negatives to polishing with contamination (I can see and feel it)? Perhaps throw the pads away after one panel/section?

With regards to why I would polish first, i would only do it in the interest of time as the claying is taking a long time.

big thank you for everyone’s response. I’ve been so distraught over this I couldn’t sleep last night.

First of all, take a deep breath and don’t worry so much about this... it’s not the end of the world. Nothing to lose sleep over. It’s going to be just fine.

My advice would be not to compound your initial “mistake” by continuing to do things improperly. It may be more time efficient to pound a nail with a sledge hammer, but does that mean you should do it?

The point is using the right tool for the job it is intended to do is the best way to go.

Foam, wool, and microfiber polishing pads are not contaminate removal tools. If you want to be more efficient by using your machine polisher, consider something like the Nanoskin Autoscrub system products for mechanically decontaminating paint:

Nanoskin Car Care Products, nanoskin autoscrub system (https://www.autogeek.net/nanoskin-car-care-products.html)

I have not personally used them, but it could be an option.

If it takes you some time to correct your mistake then that’s the price you will have to pay for rushing the process (IMHO [emoji6]).

[BadRims]

What clay do you use?



Mother's is the only one I've tried. I'll order the Meguiars. Thank you for the tip.

[BadRims]

First of all, take a deep breath and don’t worry so much about this... it’s not the end of the world. Nothing to lose sleep over. It’s going to be just fine.

My advice would be not to compound your initial “mistake” by continuing to do things improperly. It may be more time efficient to pound a nail with a sledge hammer, but does that mean you should do it?

The point is using the right tool for the job it is intended to do is the best way to go.

Foam, wool, and microfiber polishing pads are not contaminate removal tools. If you want to be more efficient by using your machine polisher, consider something like the Nanoskin Autoscrub system products for mechanically decontaminating paint:

Nanoskin Car Care Products, nanoskin autoscrub system (https://www.autogeek.net/nanoskin-car-care-products.html)

I have not personally used them, but it could be an option.

If it takes you some time to correct your mistake then that’s the price you will have to pay for rushing the process (IMHO [emoji6]).

You're right on all counts. I'll purchase part of the nanoskin system (looks like they have a few good products). What makes all of this really bad is I paid someone a lot of money to do this.... It would be easier to stomach if I had done it (in fact, I have done it before).

[Paul A.]

I wonder how defensive the coating is in protecting any contaminants underneath. What I mean by that is, will claying now (and/or iron x'ing) without removing the coating be less than fully effective because the coating is "blocking" access to all the contaminants underneath?

That was an interesting video Tony shared above. Based on how robust coatings are to remove, I might be inclined to use a strong solvent to remove as much of the coating first and then go with Option A. That is, remove the coating and then start from scratch with wash, iron x, clay, polish, prep paint and recoat.

I do understand some are suggesting an aggressive claying will remove both the coating AND underlying contaminants. I'm just coming from the "remove coating" first angle, then start over with the normal process of steps.

Just my thoughts and great discussion here.

[expdetailing]

I wonder how defensive the coating is in protecting any contaminants underneath. What I mean by that is, will claying now (and/or iron x'ing) without removing the coating be less than fully effective because the coating is "blocking" access to all the contaminants underneath?

That was an interesting video Tony shared above. Based on how robust coatings are to remove, I might be inclined to use a strong solvent to remove as much of the coating first and then go with Option A. That is, remove the coating and then start from scratch with wash, iron x, clay, polish, prep paint and recoat.

I do understand some are suggesting an aggressive claying will remove both the coating AND underlying contaminants. I'm just coming from the "remove coating" first angle, then start over with the normal process of steps.

Just my thoughts and great discussion here.

Your reasoning here is exactly why I recommended the Wax & Grease Remover first. I would think IronX wouldn't dwell very long on a coated surface.
Wax & Grease Remover is also cheaper than a quality synthetic clay substitute.