Rescued RX8 from iron contamination. SF Bay Area

**DetailedByPrecision** · 07-10-2015, 01:51 AM

Background story:

This customer contacted me on a forum about almost 2 months ago to talk about some "rust" looking damage on his trunk lid. We exchanged information briefly and I set up an appointment with him to drop the car off so I can go over the car and his concerns for the car in person.

Upon arrival the car was clean since he mentioned he didn't drive it for a long time and he just garaged it and drove his daily beater. He went over the problematic areas and I noted them down in my mind as we were going over the car. The areas of his concerns were headlights, iron particles all over the car, but mostly concentrated on trunk lid, improving neglected muffler tips, and improving rear diffuser since it's faded.

I explained to him what caused each defect and what my process was to correct each problem. He felt very confident in my approach, knowledge, and expertise. We set up an appointment to drop off the car for me to work on. Before he took off I quoted him a 6-7 hr job. I underestimated the muffler tips, and the design of the headlights which required more time to get it presentable so total time came to 8 hr 30mins.

Car: 05 Mazda RX8

Started off correcting and restoring the headlights first. Taped off ready to go

Ran into a minor circumstance that I did not factor in for the quote. My 3 inch sanding disks were not able to reach the corner of the headlight design. I sanded by hand and polished by hand

Dry sanded 800, wet sanded 1500 and 3000

Before and afters

Other side

Moving onto the beat up exhaust tips. Used 0000 steel wool and metal polish. Both the customer and I were extremely happy with the outcome

Just to show how nasty it was inside the tips

Cleaned up the textured, porous plastic trim with Opti Power Clean to prepare for Carpro DLUX trim coating

Washed

Decontaminated the paintwork using Iron X and clay sponge

The problematic spot on the trunk lid turned out spotless

Applied Opti Lense Coating on the headlights

After shots. Will add a couple more in the future. Some shots did not turn out good

The owner was extremely happy with the results during pick up. He was glad to trust me with his baby and have opted for future maintenance washes to upkeep the condition. Thanks for viewing. Any input or comments are welcomed.