2008 Audi A4 Full Paint Correction. Well Documented. Luxury Mobile Auto Detailing

[LMAutoDetailing]

2008 Audi A4 Full Correction

Stephan (LuxuryMobile) was contacted by a client with an 2008 Audi A4 that had been delivered to Orlando by a car transportation service. During the course of transporting it down, the vehicle was exposed to some type of element that left etching in a few spots, then on top of that, the service decided to perform a "wash" on the car which left some pretty servere swirl marks in several areas, especially the hood and trunk, and several deep scratches on the vehicle. The owner himself is knowledgable about detailing and wanted us to correct the inflicted clear coat damage and then he would perform Dr. ColorChip on the severely roadrashed hood/front bumper (love bug damage) and OptiCoat the vehicle on his own. He was also kind enough to have to vehicle washed & clay barred prior to us arriving because we had had prexamined the vehicle about a month prior to estimate 8-10 of worktime (4-5 hours between 2 men) would be necessary to fully correct the vehicle, not including any prep work such as a wash or claying. All photography captured with my iPhone4.
BEFORES:
Trunk:



Hood:


Etching (difficult to capture other spots):


Scratch on the roof:


Scratches on the door:


Trunk Under Halogens:


Hood Under Halogens:



Getting the vehicle taped & prepped for polishing:



Removing old adhesive build-up behind the license plate:



Spot wet/sanding on scratches (2000/3000 grit):



There were so many "spots" to be wetsanded on the driver door we just wetsanded the entire area with a sanding block & 3000 grit paper:


Correction:
Stephan had his flex3403 rotary on hand so the first step he did was knock down the heavy swirl marks with a LC blue hybrid wool pad and M#105.


This Audi clear coat was resistant to correction to say the least. Even after the first step there were still some DEEP RIDS on some panels that M#205 on a LC white pad would not clear up. We had to get more aggressive. So each panel had to have a 2nd step of M#105 on a 5.5" Surbuff pad using a Griot's DA on speed 6. Keep in mind some panels were more severely defected than others, so defects on some panels will be more prevalent/visible that others.


Passenger quarter panel after rotary but BEFORE Surbuff:


Passenger quarter panel after AFTER Surbuff:


Some deep RIDS on passenger rear door BEFORE Surbuff:


Passenger rear door AFTER Surbuff:


Passenger rear quarter panel deep RIDS BEFORE Surbuff (look near light reflection):


Passenger rear quarter panel AFTER Surbuff:


Deeper scratch on top of passenger rear quarter panel BEFORE Surbuff:


Top passenger rear quarter panel AFTER Surbuff (some dust still there from 105):


Passenger rear door BEFORE Surbuff:


Passenger rear door AFTER Surbuff:

[LMAutoDetailing]

Lower driver rear door BEFORE Surbuff:


Lower driver rear door AFTER Surbuff:


Lower front driver door deep RIDS BEFORE Surbuff:


Lower front driver door AFTER Surbuff:


Diver door that was block wetsanded after Flex rotary and Surbuff w/Griot's DA:


Okay, now that all of the heavy compounding was complete. We could move on to M#205 with a 5.5" LC white pad on Griot's DA speed 6. This 3rd and final step really brought out the "pop" and gloss out of this black Audi paint.

Driver front door AFTER M205!:


Driver rear door AFTER M205!:


Driver front quarter panel after M205!:


Trunk AFTER M205!:



Passenger rear door AFTER M205 (1 or 2 deep scratch left, some reflections mimic RIDS here)


Roof AFTER both steps. (no befores, but to show you we did it):


Exhuast tips BEFORE:


Exhuast tips AFTER Meg's Mag & Aluminum Polish + 0000 Steel Wool:


By this time we were about 9 & 1/2 hours (4.5 hours) in, and had to wrap things up so I forgot to snap an after shot of the hood under halogens. We pulled the car outside and rinsed off the compounding dust out of the crevices/jambs, then blew the vehicle dry using an electric leaf blower. Unfortunately sunlight was also limited due to extensive cloud cover. Tires got Meg's Hyper Dressing, rubber trim got PBW Trim Restorer.

[LMAutoDetailing]

AFTERS NO LSP APPLIED:

































Thanks for viewing!! If you liked the work, please leave a reply.

[kemefk]

Excellent Work! Quick question, though. There was one picture where you showed the results for the passenger quarter panel after the rotary but before the surbuff on the DA. Couldn't the rotary take those deep RIDS out? I would think the rotary would be more effective than using a DA with a Surbuff?

[Fast Eddie]

That is how a black A4 is supposed to look, great job!

[Quattro3.2]

As the owner of the car, I couldn’t be happier with the results. The company who shipped the car thought they were doing me a favor by giving the car an "executive wash". I am not sure what on god green earth they used for the wash, but they screwed up the paint royally. The car actually had been polished about two months prior to shipping. The damage you see was all from the car wash. Like Brett said, I know enough to be dangerous, but the extent of damage was above my level.
Steven and Brett did an amazing job. They answered all my questions, let me try some new tools, and were above and beyond professional when it came to completing the project. There were some challenges that popped up, and the Audi did not make it easy, but they did amazing work

That is how a black A4 is supposed to look, great job!

I agree 100%. It isn't perfect, but I buy a car to drive it. I ate up the front end with some rock chips from a few track days and some rough roads, but the Dr. Colorchip worked wonders. The OC 2.0 also helped.

The car looks great and I would recommend their work to anyone.

[DaveT435]

It looks fantastic. Great work

[LuxuryMobile]

Was a nice car to work on and in the end it turned out great. Was one of the trickier cars we have worked on to date.

End results were stunning. Brett did a great job with the write up. Always a pleasure working with you.

[ShineTimeDetail]

You should teach us all how to use a surbuff because I used one recently and it gave zero results...I'm sure is was user error lol

Excellent work!!

[LMAutoDetailing]

Excellent Work! Quick question, though. There was one picture where you showed the results for the passenger quarter panel after the rotary but before the surbuff on the DA. Couldn't the rotary take those deep RIDS out? I would think the rotary would be more effective than using a DA with a Surbuff?

You are correct in that the rotary could have taken out those deep RIDS. We weren't being aggressive enough with the rotary. Instead of being more aggressive with the rotary (which opens the risk of accidentally burning the paint) we chose to try an aggressive DA method to minimize our risk, before attempting to buff @ a higher RPM with the rotary. Thanks though, I understand the reasoning behind the question.

That is how a black A4 is supposed to look, great job!

Thanks so much!!

As the owner of the car, I couldn’t be happier with the results. The company who shipped the car thought they were doing me a favor by giving the car an "executive wash". I am not sure what on god green earth they used for the wash, but they screwed up the paint royally. The car actually had been polished about two months prior to shipping. The damage you see was all from the car wash. Like Brett said, I know enough to be dangerous, but the extent of damage was above my level.
Steven and Brett did an amazing job. They answered all my questions, let me try some new tools, and were above and beyond professional when it came to completing the project. There were some challenges that popped up, and the Audi did not make it easy, but they did amazing work





I agree 100%. It isn't perfect, but I buy a car to drive it. I ate up the front end with some rock chips from a few track days and some rough roads, but the Dr. Colorchip worked wonders. The OC 2.0 also helped.

The car looks great and I would recommend their work to anyone.

Thanks Brad. It was great to be able to demo our work and knowledge for you. We appreciate all of your accomodations, a more than gracious client. Pleasure working for you.

It looks fantastic. Great work

Thank you very much for viewing and commenting!

Was a nice car to work on and in the end it turned out great. Was one of the trickier cars we have worked on to date.

End results were stunning. Brett did a great job with the write up. Always a pleasure working with you.

Definitely was a little tricky, end results speak for themselves. Absolute pleasure everytime.

You should teach us all how to use a surbuff because I used one recently and it gave zero results...I'm sure is was user error lol

Excellent work!!

What product/compound were you trying to use with the Surbuff system and what machine? Also what size pad & backing plate? I typically will only use Surbuff when I need to be super aggrressive with my Griot's DA. 5.5" Pad. 5" backing plate. Meguiar's #105 Ultra Cut Compound on speed 6. I brush the pad between sections with a nylon pad brush. Thanks for commenting!!