(5th) Candy White Golf 6 Gti - Detailed by Lawrence

[lawrenceSA]

I've done a few of these ....and for the most part, the paint defects looked just like your typical VW swirls... unfortunately, that's not how they behaved... but more on that later.

The wheels had at some point been refurbed, and there was some sort of thick plastic-y looking film type stuff over the wheels where there'd typically be the diamond cut finish, and as you will see in the the pics below, a section was flaking off. These therefore only received a basic wash using car shampoo and the owner was advised to get the finish seen to.

There would also be no engine bay work done on this detail and so the brief was to get everything clean, decon/correct/protect the paint, clean and protect the interior, and then all the other usually...well... details :lol:

So to start I pressure rinsed the arches, sprayed some Carchem APC on and left it to dwell, agitated and pressure rinsed that off. The same process was repeated on the tyres and brake calipers. The arches were dressed with Carpro Perl, the tyres with Carchem Tyre and Trim Gel and the calipers with Gyeon Cure.

Before





After



Some pics of the paint condition





I then turned my attention to the getting everything clean and decontaminated.

Equipment - Lambswool Wash Mitts, Karcher K7, Foam cannon, 2 Buckets each with grit guards, WW Drying Towels, Electric Blower
Foam - pressure rinse, Valet Pro ANSF via foam cannon, left to dwell, pressure rinsed
TFR - Valet Pro Citrus Prewash @ 1:8 via a pump sprayer, left to dwell pressure rinsed
Wash - Carchem Luxury Shampoo, pressure rinse
Dry - Flood rinse, ONR
Tar Removal - Valet Pro Citrus Tar and Glue Remover
Iron Removal - Carchem Revolt applied liberally, allowed to dwell, agitated, pressure rinsed
Remaining contaminants - Shield Heavy Duty Clay

The only pics I snapped in the process







With everything now free of above surface contaminants, it was time to start fixing the paint. So... I had quoted on a 2 step and was expecting a FG400/Orange (maybe foamed wool) followed
by SF4000/Black....

I did a few test spots and quickly realised that the 2-step had just turned into a 3-step correction - it almost like every 'swirl' was actually what we would normally call a RID (Random Isolated Deep Scratch). Perhaps it was the car wash the previous owner took it to, that washed the wheels first, and then used that same mit/sponge/old t-shirt to drag the iron particles in the brake dust all over the paint.

Here is the paint prepped for correction



The initial cut was done with Menzerna SHC300 on blue foamed wool Lake Country hybrid pad on a Flex 3401, speed 5.5, 8 passes, leaving the paint looking like this...



Hmmm...

OK let's try that again....



Now we are getting somewhere and most (but definitely not all) of the damage is now gone, and has been replaced with a more uniform haze to the paint (the 'sanding marks' left behind) and so for a little extra bite, I chose to use Menzerna PF2300 on a orange foam Lake Country pad to finish with, leaving the paint looking like this.





Correction on the softer B-Pillars was obviously a lot less aggressive. (the same process as below was used on the tail lights)

Prepped for polishing - if you look carefully I always try to run the tape ever so slightly over all the edges to protect them, especially on areas with soft paint like this. I see so many where these edges get over polished exposing the black base coat



After Menzerna PF2300 / Orange Lake Country Hybrid pad followed by SF4000 on a Black Lake Country Hybrid pad



I then protected the paint with 2 coats of Pinnacle White Christmas - it felt befitting as I imagined the car feeling like Christmas had come early :grin:
By this point I was pretty pressed for time so didn't get any other before / after pics except for this, of the exterior window rubbers being cleaned with Shield Heavy Duty Vinyl and Rubber Cleaner (they would later be protected with 303 Aerospace Protectant)

Before



After



The rest of the detail was then completed.

Exhaust Tips
Equipment - MF Towels, dedicated Daytona Jnr wheel brush, Mothers Powerball mini, Drill
Clean - Carchem Citrus APC @1:5, left to dwell, agitated, rinsed
Polish - Meguiars NXT All Metal Polish

Exterior plastics
Equipment - Foam applicators, MF towels, Q-tips
Clean - Shield Heavy Duty Vinyl and Rubber Cleaner
Protect - 303 Aerospace Protectant

Glass
Clean - Autoglym Fast Glass, MF towels

Badges & Emblems
Equipment - Q-tips, MF towels
Clean/polish/protect - Autofinesse Tripple

Interior Plastics
Equipment- Foam applicators, MF towels, Q-tips, Various brushes
Clean - Carchem APC @ 1:20
Protect - Optimum Optiseal

Interior Carpets
Equipment- Brushes, Flex VL35C Vacuum

Leather Surfaces
Equipment- Foam applicators, Flex VL35C Vacuum, MF towels, Brushes
Clean - Carchem APC @ 1:20, various brushes, MF towels
Protect - Collinite 855

Some pictures of the completed car

























Total time spent 36 hours

Thanks for looking and as always, any questions or comments are welcome.

:hi:

[Aaryn NZ]

Nice one Lawrence!

I do love a GTi in white, I remember an advertisement for the Mk5 & they said it was available in "knuckle white". Quite fitting for such a great car.

Geeze, thats some serious cutting work my friend, was it factory paint Lawrence? Or were the defects just that much deeper than the normal as you kinda said? I know the paint on Dubs is normally on the hard side but wow! That being said - all your hard work has paid off in bundles! Looking very very nice with its new shine Lawrence, superb workmanship mate, first class! Shame about the wheels, my favourite style for the GTi too.

Awesome post, trademark Wicked Reflections detailed write up, stunning pictures & simply brilliant workmanship! Thanks for sharing Lawrence!

Aaryn NZ.

[emmjay]

Lovely work as always Lawrence!

So to understand a little, did the purple wool remove scratches but leave behind some? This was then cleaned up with PF2300, couldn't we have used this from the beginning? Just curious

[Aaryn NZ]

Lovely work as always Lawrence!

So to understand a little, did the purple wool remove scratches but leave behind some? This was then cleaned up with PF2300, couldn't we have used this from the beginning? Just curious

Fair question,

(Please correct me if I'm wrong Lawrence) The defects in the paint & the combination of hard VW paint required an aggressive compound/pad duo to remove but using such an aggressive combination usually leaves behind a haze or its own scratch pattern. This is common when using this approach but is an easy fix by following up with a polishing step, which I'm guessing Lawrence was likely to do anyhow.

Aaryn NZ.

[emmjay]

Fair question,

(Please correct me if I'm wrong Lawrence) The defects in the paint & the combination of hard VW paint required an aggressive compound/pad duo to remove but using such an aggressive combination usually leaves behind a haze or its own scratch pattern. This is common when using this approach but is an easy fix by following up with a polishing step, which I'm guessing Lawrence was likely to do anyhow.

Aaryn NZ.

Thanks Aaryn. I was looking at the pic after SHC300 and the scratch pattern looked similar to the before of the SHC300 (but a lot less), if you see the big semi circular scratch. But then the PF2300 cleaned that up, so I think I confused myself thinking PF2300 was a stronger cut product.

Thanks for the clarification

[WRAPT C5Z06]

Fantastic job as usual!!

So, it seems it took multiple passes on the same section with SCH300 to remove initial defects?

[lawrenceSA]

Thanks for the kind words guys.

To clarify....

Aaryn, it was OEM VW Paint (mostly around the 120µ mark) but for some reason the damage was just sooooo deep into the paint.

emmjaygti - I did an initial cut (SHC 300) which removed some of the damage. Then I had to hit it again with SHC 300 and even then there was still defects. Then I hit it again with PF2300 to finish off and only then had I cut in deep enough to remove most of the damage.

Obviously not all swirls are created equal and although most of us can get a feel for how swirled a car is by looking at the volume of swirls, I don't know how to look and see how DEEP they are... and this is what kinda caught me out on this one.... the damage just ran really deep into the paint.

[emmjay]

Thanks for the kind words guys.

To clarify....

Aaryn, it was OEM VW Paint (mostly around the 120µ mark) but for some reason the damage was just sooooo deep into the paint.

emmjaygti - I did an initial cut (SHC 300) which removed some of the damage. Then I had to hit it again with SHC 300 and even then there was still defects. Then I hit it again with PF2300 to finish off and only then had I cut in deep enough to remove most of the damage.

Obviously not all swirls are created equal and although most of us can get a feel for how swirled a car is by looking at the volume of swirls, I don't know how to look and see how DEEP they are... and this is what kinda caught me out on this one.... the damage just ran really deep into the paint.

Thanks Lawrence! That definitely makes sense!

Great turnaround nonetheless!

[Zubair]

Awesome work as always. Do you also find these G6 Candy White paints to be ridiculously hard paints? I know I do. Also after 300 I can clean up with SF4000 on an orange pad, any reason why 2300 was used instead?

[Zubair]

Aah ok just noticed you needed more cut from 2300 to not just clean up after 300 but to remove remaining defects too.