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The first TNOG of 2014 was a huge success! We had a lot of new folks come out, many of whom are professional detailers looking to gain some knowledge and enhance their skill set. Ernie brought in his 2009 Nissan GTR for some help, and it definitely needed it!
After removing the loose dirt we gave it a thorough examination.
Plenty of swirls, but also some straight line scratches. Other areas, as you'll see further down, were much worse than this. Now, in all fairness to Ernie, he's only owned the car for a couple of months so it's not like he's the one who inflicted all this damage.
We then addressed the bonded contaminants, even though they were pretty light. A quick clay treatment and we were ready to start correcting the below surface defects.
Our initial test spot was done with Ultimate Compound on a W8207 foam polishing pad. It went pretty well, actually, removing the swirls quickly and leaving a nice finish, but the deeper scratches required a second pass.
Time to put the buffer in Ernie's hands...... look at how much fun he's having!
Tommy wanted to join the fun so we put a buffer in his hands. Not sure why, but apparently this surprised some people!
OK, we mentioned the presence of some deeper scratches, right? Well, check this out. It seems the previous owner did a bit of vigorous scrubbing on the hood with something far more abrasive than he should have.
These proved too deep for UC and foam to properly address, so we stepped up to the DAMF System. We tried first with D300 and a DMC5 cutting disc before jumping in with a DMX5 Xtra Cut Disc. As it turned out, we did not need that new microfiber disc so we skipped it completely
The DAMF System did a great job of removing those nasty scratches, but it did leave a fair amount of haze in the paint. What you see below is the same area that had all those horrible scratches in the image above, but the finish is now hazy. Those are NOT swirls, it's haze in the finish.
Staying within the DAMF System we pulled out the new D302 Polish, primed a DMF5 microfiber finishing disc, and gave the area a once over. Beautifully clear and glossy paint was the end result, and Ernie was blown away, as was most everyone else in attendance! At the end of it all, this GTR is going to be pretty straightforward to correct, and we expect the end result result to be nothing short of a transformation.
Of course we had to then make sure Ernie had the specifics of the DAMF System down, and Tommy kept a watchful eye on his progress.
The paint on this car begs some additional discussion. With the introduction of the GTR here in the US in 2009, Nissan had their so called "self healing paint" on all examples. Back then it was common for detailers to complain about how incredibly soft and scratch sensitive this paint was. Comments ranged from the paint getting sticky if it got hot, to it being extremely easy to scratch even with a very soft microfiber towel when wiping off the hazed wax. In short, everyone who worked on one of these cars when new sort of hated the experience. This car, however, exhibited fairly hard paint that was actually quite easy to work on, even if it did like to hold on to some compounds and polishes, making wipe off a bit more difficult than what we normally expect.
So, why is this 2009 GTR so different from others of the same year? Some additional research into this brought something very interesting to light: this paint changes with time. When new, it was as described above, and not a lot of fun to work on. But we've since heard numerous comments from highly trusted sources that time makes this paint much easier to work on (and it also appears to lose its self healing abilities). With this car being 5 years old, it seems to confirm what we've been hearing. It's an unusual situation to be sure, but just further proves what we've always said about working on paint: regardless what you may read online, do yourself a favor and do a test spot the first time you touch any given car. Things are not always what you might think they are.
After removing the loose dirt we gave it a thorough examination.
Plenty of swirls, but also some straight line scratches. Other areas, as you'll see further down, were much worse than this. Now, in all fairness to Ernie, he's only owned the car for a couple of months so it's not like he's the one who inflicted all this damage.
We then addressed the bonded contaminants, even though they were pretty light. A quick clay treatment and we were ready to start correcting the below surface defects.
Our initial test spot was done with Ultimate Compound on a W8207 foam polishing pad. It went pretty well, actually, removing the swirls quickly and leaving a nice finish, but the deeper scratches required a second pass.
Time to put the buffer in Ernie's hands...... look at how much fun he's having!
Tommy wanted to join the fun so we put a buffer in his hands. Not sure why, but apparently this surprised some people!
OK, we mentioned the presence of some deeper scratches, right? Well, check this out. It seems the previous owner did a bit of vigorous scrubbing on the hood with something far more abrasive than he should have.
These proved too deep for UC and foam to properly address, so we stepped up to the DAMF System. We tried first with D300 and a DMC5 cutting disc before jumping in with a DMX5 Xtra Cut Disc. As it turned out, we did not need that new microfiber disc so we skipped it completely
The DAMF System did a great job of removing those nasty scratches, but it did leave a fair amount of haze in the paint. What you see below is the same area that had all those horrible scratches in the image above, but the finish is now hazy. Those are NOT swirls, it's haze in the finish.
Staying within the DAMF System we pulled out the new D302 Polish, primed a DMF5 microfiber finishing disc, and gave the area a once over. Beautifully clear and glossy paint was the end result, and Ernie was blown away, as was most everyone else in attendance! At the end of it all, this GTR is going to be pretty straightforward to correct, and we expect the end result result to be nothing short of a transformation.
Of course we had to then make sure Ernie had the specifics of the DAMF System down, and Tommy kept a watchful eye on his progress.
The paint on this car begs some additional discussion. With the introduction of the GTR here in the US in 2009, Nissan had their so called "self healing paint" on all examples. Back then it was common for detailers to complain about how incredibly soft and scratch sensitive this paint was. Comments ranged from the paint getting sticky if it got hot, to it being extremely easy to scratch even with a very soft microfiber towel when wiping off the hazed wax. In short, everyone who worked on one of these cars when new sort of hated the experience. This car, however, exhibited fairly hard paint that was actually quite easy to work on, even if it did like to hold on to some compounds and polishes, making wipe off a bit more difficult than what we normally expect.
So, why is this 2009 GTR so different from others of the same year? Some additional research into this brought something very interesting to light: this paint changes with time. When new, it was as described above, and not a lot of fun to work on. But we've since heard numerous comments from highly trusted sources that time makes this paint much easier to work on (and it also appears to lose its self healing abilities). With this car being 5 years old, it seems to confirm what we've been hearing. It's an unusual situation to be sure, but just further proves what we've always said about working on paint: regardless what you may read online, do yourself a favor and do a test spot the first time you touch any given car. Things are not always what you might think they are.
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