Reconditioning weathered finish

[alwill]

Hello,

I just purchased a 2003 Toyota Tundra pickup and brought it home to clean it up. As far as I know it has never been garaged so it's been sitting out in the weather for nearly 4 years. From a distance it looks pretty good and I believe that the underlying paint is in good shape but, when you get up close and start working on it, the finish has a few problems. To the touch the paint surface is not smooth - it has a rather rough texture and, if one looks closley, there are tiny (pin-end sized) dark spots over the entire body. I expect that this is probably some sort of pitch from sitting under a tree somewhere. I also notice that there are rather persistent water spots on the chrome surfaces (probably some sort of calcium build up from sitting outside so long) and I expect that the same as true for the paint surface (it's white paint, so it's difficult to see water spots on it). I tried rubbing it out with your #20 polymer polish but it won't touch it. I can scape off the pin-end sized dark spots with my finger nail if I push hard enough but it would be pretty tough to do this over the entire painted surface. My question is, does Meguiar's or anyone else make any product that will take off the tree sap and/or the water mark buildup and not damage the underlying original paint/clear finish? Or is there a process that you recommend to take care of this problem. If possible, I'd like to get the paint back to as close to original as I can. I'd appreciate any advice you could provide.

Thanks,

Al

[Chex]

Re: Reconditioning weathered finish

yes they do. for the rough paint problem, try a clay bar. the smooth clay kit is pretty good to remove things like the ones you mentioned above regarding paint problems.

for the chorme problems, you can try the NXT all metal polish. I've never usd it, but people do recommend it.

As for water spots, after washing and claying the whole vehicle, use scratchX to remove water spots. if they are very deep, then you'll have to use more aggressive methods to remove them (hope this is not necessary)

after that, use DC2 polish and after that use NXT tech wax to give your truck a very good finish.

hope this helps