Mike Phillips
01-14-2011, 11:15 AM
Audi Soft Paint - Making Generalizations about Hardness and Softness (http://www.autogeekonline.net/forum/auto-detailing-101/31888-audi-soft-paint-making-generalizations-about-hardness-softness.html)
I would have to say that any Audis I've worked on trend towards clears on the hard side but I ran across an exception to the trend and this is why I think it's generally a bad idea to generalize about the hardness of a specific manufacture or model because paint technology is always changing and manufactures can and do change paint systems.
Anyway, sometime back in approximately 2006 I was holding a TNOG, which is a Thursday Night Open Garage at the Training Garage at Meguiar's Corporate Offices and a couple of guys brought down two similar Audis both with the same problem and that was soft paint.
Both of these cars had the factory paint on them, at the time they were brand new cars owned by Audi Enthusiasts. The problem they were having was finishing out without micro-marring the paint, this was before SMAT products like M105, UC, SwirlX or M205 were introduced.
I've never been able to locate pictures of the cars when purposefully searching the MOL forum but found them today by happenstance while looking for some articles I wrote on fresh paint.
Without further ado... below is one of the Audis, I've yet to find a picture of the other one but it would have been the same year and color but I think it was more of a stationwagon looking vehicle, but I could be wrong. (I'm not an Audi expert).
Here's the thread,
M09 & M80 Equivalent? (http://meguiarsonline.com/forums/showthread.php?t=12213)
Here's the conversation from pages 2 and 3 and I kid you not, the paint on both of the new Audis was so soft it would scratch if you simply looked at it the wrong way... :D
Mike, given my fairly extensive experience with Audis I found this very surprising.
What year was it and was it (to the best of your knowledge) OE paint or a repaint?
My general experience has been that with a D/A type machine even #80 is, if anything too mild for the factory Spies-Hecker paint used by Audi during the model years with which I'm familiar.
I'm wondering if there's been a change of some kind; this sounds like the way some of their "corporate cousins" from Porsche and VW have been lately.
Don't mean to put anybody on the spot, just curious...this is the other end of the scale from the '00 and '01 Audis I currently have; even their repainted areas (baked Spies-Hecker paint, but of course it's different stuff than they use at the factory) are hard enough that #80 barely corrects anything by D/A and leaves no micro-marring even with an 8006 pad.
Factory paint, I don't remember the make and year, I do remember spending a lot of time dialing in a system for the owner to use to achieve a flawless finish, his expectations are very high and the finish on his car was actually very, very nice, but not perfect. We ended up finding the combination of M09 with a W-9006 finishing pad on a rotary buffer followed by M66 on the G100 with a finishing pad to produce optimum results.
Here's the car...
Photos Courtesy of MeguiarsOnline.com
http://archive.meguiarsonline.com/gallery/data/500/2BlueAudiSenstivePaint01.jpg
http://archive.meguiarsonline.com/gallery/data/500/2BlueAudiSenstivePaint02.jpg
I think these are Alcantara Seats, the look is cool but they are hard to work on if you ever get stains or ground in dirt from wear-n-tear via normal use.
http://archive.meguiarsonline.com/gallery/data/500/2BlueAudiSenstivePaint03.jpg
I always name my photos and back in 2006 I named these,
2BlueAudiSensitivePaint01.jpg
2BlueAudiSensitivePaint02.jpg
2BlueAudiSensitivePaint03.jpg
:)
I would have to say that any Audis I've worked on trend towards clears on the hard side but I ran across an exception to the trend and this is why I think it's generally a bad idea to generalize about the hardness of a specific manufacture or model because paint technology is always changing and manufactures can and do change paint systems.
Anyway, sometime back in approximately 2006 I was holding a TNOG, which is a Thursday Night Open Garage at the Training Garage at Meguiar's Corporate Offices and a couple of guys brought down two similar Audis both with the same problem and that was soft paint.
Both of these cars had the factory paint on them, at the time they were brand new cars owned by Audi Enthusiasts. The problem they were having was finishing out without micro-marring the paint, this was before SMAT products like M105, UC, SwirlX or M205 were introduced.
I've never been able to locate pictures of the cars when purposefully searching the MOL forum but found them today by happenstance while looking for some articles I wrote on fresh paint.
Without further ado... below is one of the Audis, I've yet to find a picture of the other one but it would have been the same year and color but I think it was more of a stationwagon looking vehicle, but I could be wrong. (I'm not an Audi expert).
Here's the thread,
M09 & M80 Equivalent? (http://meguiarsonline.com/forums/showthread.php?t=12213)
Here's the conversation from pages 2 and 3 and I kid you not, the paint on both of the new Audis was so soft it would scratch if you simply looked at it the wrong way... :D
Mike, given my fairly extensive experience with Audis I found this very surprising.
What year was it and was it (to the best of your knowledge) OE paint or a repaint?
My general experience has been that with a D/A type machine even #80 is, if anything too mild for the factory Spies-Hecker paint used by Audi during the model years with which I'm familiar.
I'm wondering if there's been a change of some kind; this sounds like the way some of their "corporate cousins" from Porsche and VW have been lately.
Don't mean to put anybody on the spot, just curious...this is the other end of the scale from the '00 and '01 Audis I currently have; even their repainted areas (baked Spies-Hecker paint, but of course it's different stuff than they use at the factory) are hard enough that #80 barely corrects anything by D/A and leaves no micro-marring even with an 8006 pad.
Factory paint, I don't remember the make and year, I do remember spending a lot of time dialing in a system for the owner to use to achieve a flawless finish, his expectations are very high and the finish on his car was actually very, very nice, but not perfect. We ended up finding the combination of M09 with a W-9006 finishing pad on a rotary buffer followed by M66 on the G100 with a finishing pad to produce optimum results.
Here's the car...
Photos Courtesy of MeguiarsOnline.com
http://archive.meguiarsonline.com/gallery/data/500/2BlueAudiSenstivePaint01.jpg
http://archive.meguiarsonline.com/gallery/data/500/2BlueAudiSenstivePaint02.jpg
I think these are Alcantara Seats, the look is cool but they are hard to work on if you ever get stains or ground in dirt from wear-n-tear via normal use.
http://archive.meguiarsonline.com/gallery/data/500/2BlueAudiSenstivePaint03.jpg
I always name my photos and back in 2006 I named these,
2BlueAudiSensitivePaint01.jpg
2BlueAudiSensitivePaint02.jpg
2BlueAudiSensitivePaint03.jpg
:)