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That was the question posed on the Chrysler Crossfire forum during a discussion about detailing in general, and achieving a high gloss finish in general.
Well of course it's worth doing on a white car!! And there happened to be a white Crossfire local to us here at Meguiar's so the owner was invited down for a little "buff & learn" day. Past experience says the paint on these cars is hard as nails - diamond coated nails at that! Especially when severely swirled, this paint just begs for M105 rotary applied with a W5000 Double Sided Wool pad. Aggressive? You bet, but the finish is fairly amazing as the combination on this paint leaves a virtually hologram free finish. Very surprising, but this isn't the first Crossfire we've seen react this way. Whatever paint they used on these cars in the Karmann factory in Osnabruck, Germany, it was pretty crazy stuff.
Here's the car when it rolled up to Meguiar's Garage around 9:45AM yesterday morning:
Now that doesn't look too bad at first glance, does it? But out in the sun it looked like this:
But that picture, of a rear quarter panel, doesn't tell the full tale. The hood was a disaster:
It not only looked bad, it felt fairly awful as well, so our first step was to quickly clay the car. This came off half the roof, which is a pretty small panel on a two seater!
Since past experience indicated this was most likely going to be a rotary job, and since we had very limited time to work on this car, we started taping off in anticipation of a full rotary process - the fender strakes and other areas were subsequently taped off before proceeding.
M105 was definitely going to be called to duty, but a decision still needed to made regarding pad choice. We started with the WWHC7 Wool Heavy Cutting Pad from the So1o line...
A half and half comparison showed this wasn't quite going to do it....
.... so out came the W5000 Double Sided Wool Pad.....
.... and that was much more like it. So that was our plan, with the car owner following behind with a G110, M205 Ultra Finishing Polish and W9207 Soft Buff 2.0 Finishing Pad. He worked that combination slowly for a fairly long period of time to reveal a high clarity, high gloss finish.
Along the way we discovered some scuff marks on the front bumper that we figured were going to present a real challenge, given the hardness of this paint. Fortunately the car owner mentioned that the front bumper had been repainted so we took a shot at the G110, W8207 Soft Buff 2.0 Polishing Pad and the M105 we were already using.
Scuffs....
.... no scuffs. That was easy!
Up against the clock, we busted this out in 3 hours of buffing. Yep, just 3 hours, which means we couldn't get it perfect, but the owner was thrilled and amazed at how different, and how good, his Crossfire looked in such a short period of time!
OK, so where are the "after" shots in direct sunlight to show the true difference?
Well, they're right here, of course!
This is the hood......
.... and here's that quarter panel.
No, it isn't perfect, flawless or ready for Pebble Beach. But the car is 5.5 years old, has over 60,000 miles on it, and nothing has ever been done except the rare clay and wax job. If we'd had more than 3 hours of buffing time we certainly could have done a lot more - we've got some light streaking here from a very short wax drying time prior to removal as well. Hey, when we're up against the clock, we're up against the clock!!
We might get a chance to finesse the car a bit later on, but we think this answers the question pretty well - "Is it worth doing on a white car?"
Heck yeah!
Well of course it's worth doing on a white car!! And there happened to be a white Crossfire local to us here at Meguiar's so the owner was invited down for a little "buff & learn" day. Past experience says the paint on these cars is hard as nails - diamond coated nails at that! Especially when severely swirled, this paint just begs for M105 rotary applied with a W5000 Double Sided Wool pad. Aggressive? You bet, but the finish is fairly amazing as the combination on this paint leaves a virtually hologram free finish. Very surprising, but this isn't the first Crossfire we've seen react this way. Whatever paint they used on these cars in the Karmann factory in Osnabruck, Germany, it was pretty crazy stuff.
Here's the car when it rolled up to Meguiar's Garage around 9:45AM yesterday morning:
Now that doesn't look too bad at first glance, does it? But out in the sun it looked like this:
But that picture, of a rear quarter panel, doesn't tell the full tale. The hood was a disaster:
It not only looked bad, it felt fairly awful as well, so our first step was to quickly clay the car. This came off half the roof, which is a pretty small panel on a two seater!
Since past experience indicated this was most likely going to be a rotary job, and since we had very limited time to work on this car, we started taping off in anticipation of a full rotary process - the fender strakes and other areas were subsequently taped off before proceeding.
M105 was definitely going to be called to duty, but a decision still needed to made regarding pad choice. We started with the WWHC7 Wool Heavy Cutting Pad from the So1o line...
A half and half comparison showed this wasn't quite going to do it....
.... so out came the W5000 Double Sided Wool Pad.....
.... and that was much more like it. So that was our plan, with the car owner following behind with a G110, M205 Ultra Finishing Polish and W9207 Soft Buff 2.0 Finishing Pad. He worked that combination slowly for a fairly long period of time to reveal a high clarity, high gloss finish.
Along the way we discovered some scuff marks on the front bumper that we figured were going to present a real challenge, given the hardness of this paint. Fortunately the car owner mentioned that the front bumper had been repainted so we took a shot at the G110, W8207 Soft Buff 2.0 Polishing Pad and the M105 we were already using.
Scuffs....
.... no scuffs. That was easy!
Up against the clock, we busted this out in 3 hours of buffing. Yep, just 3 hours, which means we couldn't get it perfect, but the owner was thrilled and amazed at how different, and how good, his Crossfire looked in such a short period of time!
OK, so where are the "after" shots in direct sunlight to show the true difference?
Well, they're right here, of course!
This is the hood......
.... and here's that quarter panel.
No, it isn't perfect, flawless or ready for Pebble Beach. But the car is 5.5 years old, has over 60,000 miles on it, and nothing has ever been done except the rare clay and wax job. If we'd had more than 3 hours of buffing time we certainly could have done a lot more - we've got some light streaking here from a very short wax drying time prior to removal as well. Hey, when we're up against the clock, we're up against the clock!!
We might get a chance to finesse the car a bit later on, but we think this answers the question pretty well - "Is it worth doing on a white car?"
Heck yeah!
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