San Diego/SoCal Miata Club Pictures - 4/23/2016

[Michael Stoops]

This Miata Club has been in to our training garage several times and it's always a great session - their enthusiasm and passion is always huge!! This past weekend was no exception.


Our demo car selection for the day was Liz's limited edition, first generation Miata in a beautiful shade of burgundy, called "Merlot" by those in the know. The car is 20+ years old and is all original - this particular limited edition package actually came with these cool BBS wheels! The shot below is before we started on the car. Looks pretty good, doesn't it? Well, pictures can lie.


This is the car up close, with some light on it. Plenty of swirls, and more deeper straight line scratches than anyone wants to see. And some of these were pretty deep.


Not so pretty now, is she?


As per usual, we started off with classroom time to go over how to properly wash a car, what's involved in the various steps of cleaning the paint, compounding, polishing, etc. We dispel some myths about waxing, we help narrow down product choices, and make sure people understand which products actually do what for the finish.


Even break time is full of discussions on appearance care!


Once out in the garage we showed a couple of different washing techniques, using both Ultimate Wash & Wax Anywhere (or D115 equivalent) as a waterless wash, and D114 Rinse Free Express Wash as a rinseless wash option.





Once the loose contaminants were off the car, we inspected the finish again.


Ouch.


We clayed the car, but fortunately the level of above surface bonded contaminants was very low. After that, it was time for our first test spot on the hood. Given the amount of swirls and deeper RIDS (random, isolated deeper scratches) we opted for Ultimate Compound on a DFC5 foam cutting pad.


The obligatory "everybody feel the paint after compounding" test!!


The results from the initial test spot speak for themselves: the improvement is huge, but it needs a bit more work to make it perfect. Not a problem! If this is after the initial test spot, imagine what can happen when you spend a bit of time on it!


We did pull the car back in the garage and did a test spot with the DAMF System, but although the microfiber disc removed a slightly higher percentage of defects, it hazed the paint quite a bit whereas the foam discs left a fantastic finish right off the bat. We opted to proceed with the foam discs.


As always, when we talk about "hands on training", we really mean it!


A group shot to close the day.


Now that's a gloss you can be proud of!! Thanks to everyone for coming out and spending the better part of a beautiful Saturday with us!!

[SwedishCanadian]

Re: San Diego/SoCal Miata Club Pictures - 4/23/2016

How thick was the paint on this mazda?

I have a black mazda 6 2014. It's only 75-80 microns. A professional detailer told me that I can only correct it once and remove most swirls, 90%, that's it, no more after that because it's so thin. Is this true? I know 75-80 is thin, but that thin? It's just regular swirls.

[Michael Stoops]

Re: San Diego/SoCal Miata Club Pictures - 4/23/2016

How thick was the paint on this mazda?

I have a black mazda 6 2014. It's only 75-80 microns. A professional detailer told me that I can only correct it once and remove most swirls, 90%, that's it, no more after that because it's so thin. Is this true? I know 75-80 is thin, but that thin? It's just regular swirls.

To see factory paint that is only 75-80 microns (roughly 3 mils) thick is a bit unusual. That said, manufacturers are getting thinner and thinner with their paint all the time. We would be indeed be hesitant to get overly aggressive if the paint truly is that thin as most factory paints these days tend to be in the 4.5 mil (115 micron) range. Did this pro detailer actually measure the paint on your vehicle or is this anecdotal evidence from a posting on a Mazda forum? For the record, we did not measure the paint on this car.

[SwedishCanadian]

Re: San Diego/SoCal Miata Club Pictures - 4/23/2016

Yea he did it right in front of my eyes. I don't have a gauge myself. Some parts were as thin as 71 and some 85, but I would say 75-80 on average. I understand that it's thin and that I should be careful..but, he made it sound like I can only do 1-stage correction once and then it's over. No more removing of swirl marks. Just trying I figure out if it's actually THAT thin or if he is just trying to sell me a coating that he is offering. He also told me that most new cars these days average around 100.

[Michael Stoops]

Re: San Diego/SoCal Miata Club Pictures - 4/23/2016

Those numbers really are thin, no question about it. And they're also pretty unusual if we're talking about unmolested factory paint. He is correct that most factory OEM paint is on the order of 100 - 115 microns (that 4.5 mil spec I mentioned previously, give or take) but what's really important is not the total film thickness but that of the topcoat. Remember, the numbers he gave you are for the e-coat, primer, color coat and clear coat combined. While there is a definite trend among the OEMs to lay down less and less paint, the topcoat is usually still roughly 1.5 mils or so thick (roughly 45 microns). Further, it used to be that virtually OEMs stated that removal of more than 0.5 mil (12.5 microns) would necessitate refinishing the vehicle. Many OEMs are now dropping that number down to 0.3 mil (7.5 microns) as the clear coats are getting thinner along with the rest of the material.

What that detailer's number does NOT tell you is the most important part - how much clear do you have on the car? If he's thinking that "normal" should be 4 mils (100 microns) but you've only got 3 mils (75 microns) he's likely thinking that a lot of the original clear has already been removed through some aggressive process. But that's not necessarily the case. It could very well be that the Mazda 6 is one of those cars with thinner than typical paint from the factory, yet the amount of clear is still well within the range of what is totally safe to compound and polish using pretty standard techniques.

And, as I type this, it dawned on me that one of our Marketing guys has a Mazda 6 and, sure enough, it's also a 2014 model year. It's a metallic charcoal grey but as far as I know Mazda builds all 6s in the same plant so the paint should be very similar on them. Whether or not your car is metallic, or if the grey metallic uses some sort of a tri-coat process, it lays down differently which impacts the total film thickness, or other variables is not known. But, I went out and took some paint thickness readings on various panels after wiping it down with Quik Detailer to remove any loose debris from the surface. The paint was on the hot side so it is possible that some very slight swelling is taking place, but it shouldn't be significant.

Here's the car:


And here's the paint thickness gauge showing a reading of 90 microns:


Note that the gauge is also showing that I've taken 25 readings and the average of those is 93 microns. So, yes, it is thicker than your car but it's also definitely thin as far as generally accepted standards are concerned. Yet the paint actually looks very thick and healthy on this car.

We always recommend using the least aggressive approach to get the job done here at Meguiar's, and I will certainly recommend that technique to you. Don't be overly concerned, but if you can remove your swirls with M205 on a yellow foam polishing pad, or even a microfiber finishing pad (and M205 on microfiber is flat our amazing!) then by all means, go for it. Heck, you might even want to try White Wax on a yellow foam pad at 4800 opm on your DA polisher, with a bit of pressure and work time. That is also a stellar combination.

But you will want to be very cautious about your washing and drying techniques over time as to mitigate the creation of new defects over time. Don't stress over it, but don't go crazy with it either! I'm willing to bet that the clear is sufficiently thick that you can take care of the car with pretty normal processes for a very long time. Just use the least aggressive method to get the job done. Every time.

[Selectchoice]

Re: San Diego/SoCal Miata Club Pictures - 4/23/2016

I have a family member with a 2005 Mazda 6 and it showed around 90 microns maximum when brand new. It's been kept fairly well immaculate so it hasn't needed a 'healthy' use of compound, mainly M205 and a polishing pad before waxing.

I admit to being shocked at the reading when I first tested it though....