Worried the Dealership instill Swirls into my new paint job?

[MP6387]

Worried the Dealership instill Swirls into my new paint job?

I recently took my "07 black Lexus to dealer for it's first regular maintenance service. When I got the car back there were several deep scratches on the hood and front fenders. I was furious and immediately brought this to the service manager's attention. The scratches were too deep and could not be buffed out. The dealer is now repainting the front. I have expressed my displeasure to both the dealer and Lexus corporate offices and have told them that I will be very careful and critical in inspecting the quality of the work done when I pick up the car.

The car is black so I don't think paint match will be an issue but I am concerned about orange peel and signs of overspray. The weather forecast for the next few days is overcast so picking up the car in sunlight might be a problem and all black cars look great when there is no bright sunlight.

If I bring my Brinkman Dual Xenon (that I use for finding swirls) will it be useful in detecting any impurities and other paint concerns? Or is that obsessing a bit? I just want to make sure the work is done right - then I will be done with this dealership.

[BlueZero]

Re: Paint match question

Or is that obsessing a bit?

Is it important to you? By the sounds of it I would say, yes it is important. So don't worry about obsessing. No mater what type of car I have, if the finish and paint isn't near perfect, I am not going to be happy. I have friends that just want a fast car and don't care what it looks like. So it's all about what is important to you.

Wish you the best of luck.

[Mike Phillips]

Re: Paint match question

I recently took my "07 black Lexus to dealer for it's first regular maintenance service. When I got the car back there were several deep scratches on the hood and front fenders. I was furious and immediately brought this to the service manager's attention. The scratches were too deep and could not be buffed out. The dealer is now repainting the front. I have expressed my displeasure to both the dealer and Lexus corporate offices and have told them that I will be very careful and critical in inspecting the quality of the work done when I pick up the car.

Incredible, but sadly not surprising.

The car is black so I don't think paint match will be an issue but I am concerned about orange peel and signs of overspray.

Just the other day ago on the forum we posted that overspray can be a problem over any area of the car, not just the repaired area because of the nature of a body shop, that is because they are spraying paint, there is overspray or dry spray in the air and because your car is going to be parked in the shop and even around the shop the potential for overspray to land on your car while it's there is very great.

For this reason you're going to want to inspect the glass, the roof, trunk lid etc. You don't want to get down the road a few months only to go to wash and clay your car and find out your paint or glass feels like sand paper.

The weather forecast for the next few days is overcast so picking up the car in sunlight might be a problem and all black cars look great when there is no bright sunlight.

If I bring my Brinkman Dual Xenon (that I use for finding swirls) will it be useful in detecting any impurities and other paint concerns? Or is that obsessing a bit? I just want to make sure the work is done right - then I will be done with this dealership.

You are completely justified to be wary and even skeptical over the ability to have quality work done at a dealership. There are many horror stories on this forum as well as most all detailing discussion forums about the quality of work done when it comes to painting and also polishing. Off-hand, we can't really think of any "Success Stories" anywhere, just stories from disappointed and frustrated car owners.

So you're well within your rights to be worried over whether you're going to get a great paint job without any swirls because historically this is not the norm.

Here's a recent horror story about a BRAND NEW CORVETTE swirled out at the dealership.

Swirls in my brand new Corvette and I haven't even picked it up yet!


This was posted just last week!


By all means take your Swirl Finder Light and some Quik Detailer and a clean Microfiber, heck print this thread out and highlight these recommendations.


First inspect the paint with the light just the way it is when you arrive, don't wipe it or anything. See if you light reveals any swirls. A brand new paint job should have ZERO swirls. A brand new paint job properly and professionally buffed out should have ZERO swirls.

If a new paint job is buffed wrong, and most are, then it will be filled with swirls and the normal practice at a body shop whether it's a body shop at a dealership or an independent shop, is to hand apply a glaze to fill in and hide the swirls to get the car out the door without any complaints.

For this reason, if you really want to be sure the paint isn't swirled out and the swirls are merely being masked with fillers from a glaze, then take a spray bottle of a mixture of Isopropyl Alcohol and water and mist this onto the painted area and wipe it dry a couple of times and then inspect the paint.


Note the below bottle of Isopropyl Alcohol is the 90% Alcohol version, not the 50% version, this way when you mix it with water you have closer to a true 50% mixture of water to alcohol and one bottle plus the water will fill up the nice Rubbermaid generic spray bottle. It's about the same price as the weaker version and can be found at most Target stores as can the Rubbermaid spray bottle.




By the way, here's the usual method of sanding and buffing fresh paint after the paint has dried at a body shop,

Sand paint with a wet/dry paper
This is usually done using of these grits, #1200 or #1500, some shops will re-sand and finish with #2000 to make the buff out easier and faster. Some shops will machine sand, you just never know unless you ask.

Step 1 - Machine Compound
This is done with a rotary buffer, usually a wool cutting pad and some type of aggressive compound. This removes most of the sanding marks (hopefully), but leaves compound and wool pad swirls in the paint.

Step 2 - Machine Polish
This is usually done with a rotary buffer and a less aggressive pad and product than the compounding step. The pad could be a wool finishing pad or a foam pad with foam pad giving better results as even the fibers of a wool finishing pad will cut the paint and instill swirls.

At this point, they have done a 2-Step process to your car's paint not including the wet-sanding. Most shops won't invest any more time, let alone supplies, into doing any more machine work to the paint.


Step 3 - Hand Apply A Glaze or Pure Polish
At this point they will hand apply a filling glaze to schmoo the paint over, filling the swirls from the last step in and making the paint look good, at least good enough to the majority of people that will pick up their car.


That's it, that's the normal procedure across the land. The goal is to get the car out of the shop and to do this the average person has to look at the paint and think it looks good and in most cases after the hand glaze is applied it is going to look good. However, once the car is washed a few times and the fillers are washed out, the swirls will re-appear.

At this point the body shop can claim it's not their fault because when it left the shop it was swirl free, and it was. Blame is shifted to the owner who in most cases doesn't know enough about all the things we just described above to know how to challenge the body shop and they give up.

That is until now. Now that the Internet is here and specifically discussion forums like this one, people are becoming better informed and when they get educated on what's really going on, well then they have the ammo to defend themselves against the people swirling out their cars thinking they can get away with it.

Make sure you charge your Brinkman the night before.

Good luck.

[Mike Phillips]

Re: Worried the Dealership instill Swirls into my new paint job?

Moved to Hot Topics because the problem of swirls instilled at dealerships and body shops is sadly something that happens all the time and people come to Meguair's looking for help and answers.

[TrufflePig]

Re: Worried the Dealership instill Swirls into my new paint job?

Worried the Dealership instill Swirls into my new paint job?

I recently took my "07 black Lexus to dealer for it's first regular maintenance service. When I got the car back there were several deep scratches on the hood and front fenders. I was furious and immediately brought this to the service manager's attention. The scratches were too deep and could not be buffed out. The dealer is now repainting the front. I have expressed my displeasure to both the dealer and Lexus corporate offices and have told them that I will be very careful and critical in inspecting the quality of the work done when I pick up the car.

just another reason why i won't let my dealer touch my car.

those guys clean cars in mass volumes. the guys they hire don't care about your car as much as you do. they drop rags, pick them up and keep cleaning.

its simple. make a sign on a piece of paper on your computer. tape it to your windshield.

ALTHOUGH I APPRECIATE THE OFFER, PLEASE DO NOT CLEAN THE EXTERIOR OF THIS CAR.

THANK YOU IN ADVANCE!!!

and then just put a picture of someone cleaning a car with a big x through it.

does the trick over here.

[MP6387]

Re: Worried the Dealership instill Swirls into my new paint job?

Thank you all. Your responses are greatly appreciated. I will update when I finally get the car back and maybe even post a picture or two.

Mike,
In your reponse you stated:

Step 3 - Hand Apply A Glaze or Pure Polish
At this point they will hand apply a filling glaze to schmoo the paint over, filling the swirls from the last step in and making the paint look good, at least good enough to the majority of people that will pick up their car.


That's it, that's the normal procedure across the land. The goal is to get the car out of the shop and to do this the average person has to look at the paint and think it looks good and in most cases after the hand glaze is applied it is going to look good. However, once the car is washed a few times and the fillers are washed out, the swirls will re-appear.

I was always under the impression that a pure polish does nothing for hiding swirls since it is essentially clear. Is there a product in the Meguiar's line that can be used to also hide swirls?

Mel

[Mike Phillips]

Re: Worried the Dealership instill Swirls into my new paint job?

Thank you all. Your responses are greatly appreciated. I will update when I finally get the car back and maybe even post a picture or two.

Mike,
In your reponse you stated:

Step 3 - Hand Apply A Glaze or Pure Polish
At this point they will hand apply a filling glaze to schmoo the paint over, filling the swirls from the last step in and making the paint look good, at least good enough to the majority of people that will pick up their car.
That's it, that's the normal procedure across the land. The goal is to get the car out of the shop and to do this the average person has to look at the paint and think it looks good and in most cases after the hand glaze is applied it is going to look good. However, once the car is washed a few times and the fillers are washed out, the swirls will re-appear.



I was always under the impression that a pure polish does nothing for hiding swirls since it is essentially clear. Is there a product in the Meguiar's line that can be used to also hide swirls?

Mel

Hang on while I do some typing....

[Mike Phillips]

Re: Worried the Dealership instill Swirls into my new paint job?

Hang on while I do some typing....

Argh!

Everything I typed up got lost when my browser froze!


Argh!

[Mike Phillips]

Re: Worried the Dealership instill Swirls into my new paint job?

I was always under the impression that a pure polish does nothing for hiding swirls since it is essentially clear.

Mel

No, this is wrong. First all of our pure polishes have a color, they are not clear, most are kind of a khaki color, M05 is kind of a blue-green color and M10 Plastic Polish is a little on the clear side, kind of a whitish clear color.

Our pure polishes are very rich in Meguiar's trade secret polishing oils and it is these oils that do a lot of things for your car's paint, things like create beauty, add gloss, depth, reflectivity, etc. They are also used to help lubricate the surface to help prevent scouring when you're working on your paint with some of our other products like compounds, paint cleaners, cleaner/polishes etc.

That said, these oils will also fill in and temporarily hide or mask fine swirls and scratches. Meguiar's history since 1901 is a history of creating product that remove defects not instill them. We also have a long history of educating people to enable them to produce professional results with our products while showcasing their talent and passion.

So yes, our pure polishes can be used to fill in swirls but Meguiar's philosophy is to show people how to remove swirls and scratches and not fill them in. That said, a lot of body shops use products like our #7 Show Car Glaze, or a 3M product by the name of Imperial Hand Glaze to fill in and mask fine swirls and this could include buffer swirls or holograms.

Also just for fun, M07 Show Car Glaze has been around a long time, since the 1930's as near as I've been able to find out. Here's some pictures of the bottles over the years and also not the name change in the early 90's from Sealer and Reseal Glaze to Show Car Glaze.














Hope this helps and good luck with your car...

[Mike Phillips]

Re: Worried the Dealership instill Swirls into my new paint job?

***Bump***