Someone messed up buddy's car. Attempt at restore.
 

So my buddy who drives a 06 Maxima calls me up yesterday looking for help. Turns out some a$$-hat threw something on his car while he was working yesterday. He took it to a car wash and unfortunately I think that just made it worse by spreading it. My best guess is some type of mineral spirits, he said it was oily, so maybe it was motor oil or who knows what.

The result was that it crazed his clear coat. It's absolutely f-ed up all over the hood, roof and trunk. It doesn't seem to have made it to the paint though luckily, and I think we can cut it all the way down and save it.

Photo Album - Imgur

Sorry pics aren't great, sun was low and I only had my phone. Will post some after pics once we do some work on it.

Anyone have any idea what could have done that?

brake fluid?

Your guess is as good if not better than mine. Not totally familiar with all of the common/popular ways to f up some dude's paint lol. Is brake fluid one of the usual suspects?

brake fluid eats paint...

Brake fluid is a great way to mess up paint, but it usually bubbles up the paint a lot worse than this appears to be unless your friend got it all off right after it happened.

Looking at the pictures it doesn't look so bad, just a hazing on the top level of clear coat.

I would suggest trying out the Mezerna FG400 with a medium/orange pad. I recently tried using that and was able to smooth out really deep scratches and it finished with a perfect gloss without having to use a white finishing pad. I use a Flex polisher on speed 5 for this. I think you'll be able to cut through this and buff it up to a showroom shine without much trouble.

Yeah he said he washed it right away, the roof is the worst part. Judging by what he said and what you guys said my guess is brake fluid. Roof is the worst part. The washing seems to have cut its strength, but also spread the damage.

I own a Griot's random orbital. I'm pretty decent at using it, but my car is already near perfect. His paint was not great to begin with, but this just short of ruined it. I like meguir's 105/205 and usually only need a mid/light polishing pad. This is going to need a heavy cutting pad.

Will try to get some better pics today, we are headed up to http://www.detailing.com/ which just so happens to be 10 minutes from my house(I buy everything there).

Attached is my car, no pro but not bad.

Get the Mezerna FG400 I'm telling you that you will not be disappointed.

take a look at the BMW 650 I did here:
http://www.the370z.com/detailing-was...storation.html

Deep scratches on the trunk and deep swirl marks throughout the entire body. Everything came out looking absolutely perfect with a high gloss shine even when using a medium cutting pad and no finishing pad. No holograms or light swirls left on the paint, just a perfectly smooth finish.

Plus if you wanted to you could switch from a heavy pad to a light pad mid process and not worry about mixing compounds.

It's totally worth the price and could save you hours working on the car.

TX for info, I always like trying new stuff-it's half the fun!

Friend is coming over today and I am going to try to get some better pics, we worked on it last night a bit and the hood is looking night and day better already. The roof is what really concerns me, that thing is messed up and I am hoping there is no real paint damage.

Keep you posted.

No problem. When you are done get some of the Sonax Polymer Netshield and put it on.

Sonax Polymer Net Shield - 210 ml

This stuff is AWESOME. Put one coat on after your polish/detail. Wait overnight and put another coat on the next morning (or about 12 hours after first coat). It goes on like a wet wax, but you have to remove it before it dries.

One coat works great but after 2 coats of this your friend won't have to worry about someone pouring anything else on his car. Any liquid beads up and runs off like magic.

I started using this 2 weeks ago. Last weekend my car was in the rain for most of the day, then driven in the rain at night. The next day the car looked 90% clean. Instead of dirt being along the entire bottom half as usually happens after rain driving (even after a fresh wax), the water had washed right off and most of the dirt went with it. All that was required was a quick light water rinse and the car looked 100% again.

Best of luck bringing that paint back from the dead and glad to hear it's been going well so far.

X2 on FG400 I love it as my go to polish for one step corrections!


You need to check out 22ple and opti-coat man ten times better than net shield.