Odrapnew
06-11-2020, 02:02 PM
Long time lurker, first time poster.
Lots of words below. Feel free to skip to the pictures.
I picked up a 2016 Tornado Red Golf R in early March of this year.
Certified with 20k miles on it.
It looked good, quick and is fun to drive (all maybe 1k miles since I picked it up 3 months ago). AWD should be good for the MN winters (winter wheels/tires to be used).
I noticed it had some scratches on the hood, roof, rear bumper and after some light reading on paint correction I started to look more closely at the paint.
I really looked at the paint, I realized it was a scratched and swirled mess. Looked like the previous owner washed it with shop broom with all the swirls.
In addition, it has general scratches all over it.
From 10 feet away (out of direct sun) it looked good, but once you got it in the sun or with a light source and looked close up, it was 'rough'.
So, after about 2 months of research (a lot on this forum) I decided I wanted to correct the paint myself and DIY ceramic coat it.
Wash, iron remover, clay, correct, polish, coat.
GG6 DA
Lake Country pads (MF, orange and white CCS)
Meguiars UC and UP
Gtechniq Crystal Serum Light and EXOv4.
I had to make 2 passes with MF and UC in each section to get the correction I wanted.
I did a few test spots and the orange pad with UC barely touched it. White pad was a joke.
After completing the full MF/UC correction, I went back and did another test spot to see what polish combination I wanted.
I tried both orange pad and white pad. The orange seems to give it just a touch more 'pop' so that's what I went with.
I did hit the headlights, tail lights and piano black trim lightly with the white pad and polish.
There were a few scratches that were just too deep to correct, but I'd say I got about 90-95% correction.
After all that, I went forward with the ceramic coating. This was easy, just time consuming waiting for the product to flash.
1 coat of CSL followed by 2x coats of EXO.
I did the 3 towel method as suggested in a video I saw. First towel is to remove most of the product, 2nd towel is to remove about 99% of the product and the last towel is to get any remaining product that may have been missed or pushed onto other sections. I took my time making sure I removed all the excess coating because I didn't want to deal with high spots.
I'd say it took me 20+ hours to complete. I had never picked up a DA before, so it was risky to start with my 'new to me' car, but it went well, just took longer than expected.
Overall, I'm very pleased with the results. Here are a few before/after pictures. I'm hoping the coating lasts a few years so I don't have to go through the correction for a while. :D
69875
69876
69877
69878
69879
69880
69881
:)
Lots of words below. Feel free to skip to the pictures.
I picked up a 2016 Tornado Red Golf R in early March of this year.
Certified with 20k miles on it.
It looked good, quick and is fun to drive (all maybe 1k miles since I picked it up 3 months ago). AWD should be good for the MN winters (winter wheels/tires to be used).
I noticed it had some scratches on the hood, roof, rear bumper and after some light reading on paint correction I started to look more closely at the paint.
I really looked at the paint, I realized it was a scratched and swirled mess. Looked like the previous owner washed it with shop broom with all the swirls.
In addition, it has general scratches all over it.
From 10 feet away (out of direct sun) it looked good, but once you got it in the sun or with a light source and looked close up, it was 'rough'.
So, after about 2 months of research (a lot on this forum) I decided I wanted to correct the paint myself and DIY ceramic coat it.
Wash, iron remover, clay, correct, polish, coat.
GG6 DA
Lake Country pads (MF, orange and white CCS)
Meguiars UC and UP
Gtechniq Crystal Serum Light and EXOv4.
I had to make 2 passes with MF and UC in each section to get the correction I wanted.
I did a few test spots and the orange pad with UC barely touched it. White pad was a joke.
After completing the full MF/UC correction, I went back and did another test spot to see what polish combination I wanted.
I tried both orange pad and white pad. The orange seems to give it just a touch more 'pop' so that's what I went with.
I did hit the headlights, tail lights and piano black trim lightly with the white pad and polish.
There were a few scratches that were just too deep to correct, but I'd say I got about 90-95% correction.
After all that, I went forward with the ceramic coating. This was easy, just time consuming waiting for the product to flash.
1 coat of CSL followed by 2x coats of EXO.
I did the 3 towel method as suggested in a video I saw. First towel is to remove most of the product, 2nd towel is to remove about 99% of the product and the last towel is to get any remaining product that may have been missed or pushed onto other sections. I took my time making sure I removed all the excess coating because I didn't want to deal with high spots.
I'd say it took me 20+ hours to complete. I had never picked up a DA before, so it was risky to start with my 'new to me' car, but it went well, just took longer than expected.
Overall, I'm very pleased with the results. Here are a few before/after pictures. I'm hoping the coating lasts a few years so I don't have to go through the correction for a while. :D
69875
69876
69877
69878
69879
69880
69881
:)