Just Make it Shiny -- Honda Fit Light Correction & Coating

**The Critic** · 03-15-2014, 03:36 AM

This car was originally in for mechanical repair, but since I had a few extra days with it, I decided to spend some time on the exterior.

The goal was to get this car looking better and protected. Throughout the entire vehicle, there was lots of oxidation, haze and paint defects. In particular, there were very heavy defects on the roof and along the lower-half of all doors.

Since this was a dark color with fairly soft paint, it would take multiple polishing steps to fully restore the gloss after any heavy correction. So in the interest of time and paint preservation, I did not chase the deeper defects.

I decided to use a medium polish with a light cutting pad to remove the oxidation and the light defects, and follow-up with a finishing polish on a finishing pad to really maximize the gloss.

Here was the process:

Wash w/ Meguiar's Hyper Wash
Iron-X spray for chemical decontamination
Nanoskin Medium Grade Mitt as a Clay Alternative
Optimum Hyper Polish w/ Lake Country Orange Pad on Rupes 21
CarPro Reflect w/ Rupes White Pad on Rupes 21
IPA wipedown
Optimum Opti-Coat as LSP
Tire Dressing was a P&S product -- probably silicone based.
Trim was dressed using BlackWow Pro

General condition of the paint - lots of oxidation and defects:

Here's a before/after of a section of the roof.

Before:

After -- Optimum Hyper Polish & Lake Country Orange Pad only:

(Note: As expected, all of the deep defects are still there. However, the oxidation, haze and lighter defects are gone -- so, it's shiny again!)

To me, the correction step left a noticeable haze on this soft paint, so I ran over the entire car with an ultra-fine finishing polish to bring out maximum gloss. But for some unknown reason, the paint began acting extremely sticky during this step.

CarPro Reflect gave me the best results for this step. Both HD Polish and Menzerna SF4000 were sticking very badly. Even CarPro Reflect began to dust horribly after the 2nd pass, which I have NEVER seen it do before.

This was how the car looked after all polishing was completed, but before the final wash and paint coating application.

Up-closer:

All done -- final pictures after Opti-Coat application, tire dressing and BlackWow Pro on the trim:

As you can tell from the different backgrounds, I worked on this car over the course of several days. In total, I spent about 8 hours. The goal was to get this car shiny and protected -- and I think I accomplished that.

I should also thank a forum member for making me more cognizant of the importance of paint preservation -- which has led me to consider avoiding heavy correction on most DDs.

Happy Detailing!