Restoring the faded paint on a yellow P5, a pictorial (56k die)

I recently got myself a yellow little P5, that was cared for very well mechanically. However, it wasn't protected by wax quite as much, and so it had some typical fade from the single-stage yellow paint. The car had almost 7 years of outdoor parking, along with 160+K New England miles on it. So let's just say, with all the paint chips and other paint issues (some bubbling etc), this thing wasn't concours material.

Specific trouble areas were: dull and faded front bumper, rear bumper (except for the right side), side view mirrors, door handles, plastic strip above license plate on the rear hatch. The rear hatch was somewhat dull, but not faded.

I just wanted to get most of the color and shine back, such that people don't notice off the bat that something is faded or dull. I wanted to get it to an 85% state. There are still plenty of swirls in the paint.

So I poked around Autopia for some advice on single-stage paintwork, and one product that was often suggested was Meguiar's #80, Speed Glaze. It was said to do really well with oxidation and to contain oils that the single-stage paint likes. I also learned about Meguiar's #105, which is their latest highest-tech ultra-cut polish, for heavy-duty jobs (and this certainly looked like it).

The products used were thus:

* Meguiar's #7 Show Car Glaze (basically oil for the paint)
* Meguiar's #80 Speed Glaze
* Meguiar's #105 Ultra Cut Compound
* Blackfire Scrath-Resistant Clear Coat Finishing Polish
* Porter Cable dual action polisher
* Lake Country pads

Prep work the day before:

* Zaino Z-7 car wash & clay lube
* AutoMagic Clay Magic clay bar (the one they sell at AutoZone)

Washed & clayed, then hit up roof, hood and bumpers with Meguiar's #7 to "hydrate" the paint. It actually had a noticeable darkening effect and made the fade less apparent right there. It was a bear to buff out.

So the next day, I got to work. Unfortunately, I don't have any really good befores of the whole car.

Tools of the trade (yeah, that's yellow paint on the pad):



(A detour a year in time)

The one pic that shows the fade that the bumper has is this one, from a year ago, which also shows a dull hood:



That hood was corrected with Poorboy's SSR 2.5 back in the day (before I owned the P5) and the shine was restored. Here's a pic of that in progress:

PICTURE GALLERY here.

(Back to yesterday).

I started with the rear bumper.

The rear bumper was dull and faded on the left, but the right corner was not all that faded. I think that's the part that was perpetually parked in the shade.



Dull corner detail:



You can see some of the color fade here:



This is the right side that was still shiny. However, note how dull the reflections on the hatch are.



So I busted out the polisher, and went over the left side of the bumper with two passes of Megiuar's M80, using an orange Lake Country pad with speed 5. The first pass seemed to do a pretty good job.

This was the left side after:



You can also see the fade is gone or way less:



Another shot showing less fade:



I went on to polish the rest of the bumper. I put a piece of masking tape over a section of the bottom lip to show clearly the difference:



Oxidation removal is readily apparent. Here I used one pass of M80 and one pass of the Blackfire finishing polish (as my pad got loaded up too much with M80 and it didn't finish cleanly).

The rear hatch now.

The top sides of the rear hatch had a definite dullness to them:



More dullness:



Half and half now: left side of the hatch is polished, but the right half is not:



Half and half another: notice how faded the plastic piece above the license plate is! Especially visible to the right of the keyhole (contrast with the surrounding metal).



After: now the right side has been hit up with one pass of M80. Look at that plastic piece again:



After: Houston, we have a shine.

Front bumper and side mirrors now. A lot of these comparison shots are not that great, as the sun was setting, and so the lighting conditions started to get quite different.

I don't have very good front bumper pics. It was a pain. The bumper responded fairly well to M80 with an orange pad, except for the very front pieces. I made about 2 passes. Then I decided to try M105 with an orange pad. That seemed to cut through the oxidation faster, but not that much faster. I kept wondering whether my orange pad had too little cut for M105. Meguiar's doesn't officially suggest using a dual-action polisher with M105 (not enough pressure/heat), so it may have been worth trying some bits by hand with M105. I never tried that though.

I tried to get some basic shine out of the front sections of the bumper. The very bottom was especially bad. I got something out of it, but then my patience ran low and I moved on. I got some basic shine and color back and it seemed OK to me. I may get back into it some more later, but I'm OK for now.

So, front bumper before (also passenger side fender "before", though not obvious):



Front bumper after (also passenger side fender hit once with M80, but it's hard to tell the difference):



Side view mirrors. I did two passes of M80 on them, just in case, though the first pass seemed to get it 90% of the way there.

Before: passenger side mirror:



After: passenger side mirror:



Before: driver's side mirror:



After: driver's side mirror:

Wow great turnaround, cant wait to see the rest!

i bet all your pads were nice and yellow =)

I then also polished all the door handles with one pass of M80. The paint immediately around the door handles is smoother and less swirly. I may just do the whole car with this stuff anyways.

I couldn't resist going over the hood with one pass of M80. It's the hood, you know? A very visible piece.

I went through 6 "pads", used 3 pads and had to clean all 3 once. The pads seemed to be good for about 4-5 passes before they loaded up and seemed to not break down the polish quite as well.

Finally, I topped the car off with a coat of Collinite 845, threw a coat of BlackWow on the rear bumper protector piece, shined the tires and called it a long day.

Collinite 845 is a nuba, but is supposed to last long. I wanted to use a nuba with oils to help nurture the single stage paint.

The day after I took her out of the garage and snapped some more pics:

Look ma, door handles match:



Rear hatch has shine:



She's done:



Passenger side fender has nice gloss and so does the hood:



Another angle, shows some decent shine in the bumper now (look by the grille):



One last shot:

NCZ13 said:

Wow great turnaround, cant wait to see the rest!

i bet all your pads were nice and yellow =)

Click to expand...

Thanks! Refresh the thread

The pads were yellow, but after they loaded up, I threw them in a solution of Snappy cleaning power (from Classic Motoring Accessories). I then spin-dried them along with a pad cleaning brush and that actually got almost all the color out!

Looks great. My Vivid Yellow is faded just like yours was. Looks like a lot of work, but I need to do this also. Ive seen orbital polishers at Walmart for about $30-40. Anyone know if those are decent? Im worried that it would take to much off.

Off topic, what did you do to your front headlights? I like the black look. Please tell me how you did it. Thanks.

mnkyboy said:

Looks great. My Vivid Yellow is faded just like yours was. Looks like a lot of work, but I need to do this also. Ive seen orbital polishers at Walmart for about $30-40. Anyone know if those are decent? Im worried that it would take to much off.

Off topic, what did you do to your front headlights? I like the black look. Please tell me how you did it. Thanks.

Click to expand...

you wont get that kind of correction with a buffer. you need a real dual action polisher.

And dont worry about taking off to much. Polishing removes very little.

NCZ13 said:

you wont get that kind of correction with a buffer. you need a real dual action polisher.

And dont worry about taking off to much. Polishing removes very little.

Click to expand...

How about this one?
http://www.harborfreight.com/cpi/ctaf/displayitem.taf?Itemnumber=92623

I normally dont buy power tools from Harbor Freight, but for things that I only plan on using for 1 or 2 projects, Im willing to take the risk.

thats a rotary. You definitely dont want that as a polisher to start out with.

Look into the PC7424, or the UDM. Your looking to spend b/w 2-300 for a good starter kit

NCZ13 said:

thats a rotary. You definitely dont want that as a polisher to start out with.

Look into the PC7424, or the UDM. Your looking to spend b/w 2-300 for a good starter kit

Click to expand...

Whats the difference between the 2? I see them for about $140 online. What s the starter kit you are referring to?

Rather than clutter the thread ill PM you

car looks great astral!

mnkyboy said:

Looks great. My Vivid Yellow is faded just like yours was. Looks like a lot of work, but I need to do this also. Ive seen orbital polishers at Walmart for about $30-40. Anyone know if those are decent? Im worried that it would take to much off.

Off topic, what did you do to your front headlights? I like the black look. Please tell me how you did it. Thanks.

Click to expand...

The front headlights were done by the previous owner as part of this meet. There must be some link in that thread about the headlight blackout.

If you want to do this proper, do not use a polisher from Walmart. First of all, there are different kinds. One is rotary/orbital, which is what most typical "buffers" are. This one spins the pad in place. Second is a dual-action/random-orbital, which instead moves the pad around in a figure-8 kind of motion, as though a little hand buffing really quickly.

The dual-action/random-orbital polishers are much much safer. Your risk of burning paint is way way lower. With a rotary polisher, you generate a lot of heat really quickly. If you tilt the pad sideways and get a side of the pad to really dig into the paint, you can quickly burn that side. With a random-orbital, you can tilt the pad all day long, and it will just buff a little stronger on that side. (It's called dual-action because not only does it rotate the pad, but it also moves it side to side).

To do what I did yesterday, you're looking at about $200 starting budget, including the machine.

Check out autopia.org for all sorts of guides on this topic.

I use a Porter Cable 7336 (also almost same is 7424) random-orbital polisher, which I picked up for $110 at Lowe's. This is a very popular machine (and what made this whole dual-action polishing popular), and so you will see a lot of references to a "PC" (polishing with a PC).

At the minimum, you need:

Dual-Action/Random-Orbital Polisher (Porter Cable 7424, Ultimate Detailing Machine, Meguiar's G110, Griot's has their own rebrand now)
5" backing plate (holds the pad with velcro)
5.5-6" pads (at least one orange medium-cut pad)
Meguiar's M80

I'd recommend a finishing polish to correct micro-hazing, if needed:

white fine polishing pad
finishing polish, such as Poorboy's SSR 1 or the Blackfire stuff I used

On top, you should:

Clay the paint (AutoZone has Claymagic, a blue box) before polishing
Have soft microfiber towels (Target has alright towels as "vroom" brand) to buff out the polish residue

I knew I recognized those first few photos. Great job!

How long do you think this will last before you have to do it again? Im debating on whether I should try this myself or pay a detailer.

bruce won't recognize her! nice work!

(OMG) Dang dude! Thanks for the write up. I needed this. I repainted my front and rear bumper with a single stage paint and it did not come out very glossy. I will have to try this. Thanks, Dan

mnkyboy said:

How long do you think this will last before you have to do it again? Im debating on whether I should try this myself or pay a detailer.

Click to expand...

I don't know, but you should get at least 2+ years.

I polished the hood in Oct 2007 (from very dull) and it remained shiny a year later. So I think once you get the oxidation removed proper and keep her waxed well all the time, you should get at least 2 years without fading, if not more. Heck, if you hit the paint up with some light paint prep polish in the spring and fall, you can probably keep it looking good for quite a few years.

It may be worth paying a really good detailer. Research a good detailer on autopia.org forums. Do not go with a random dude or even someone who your friends recommend. If you pick someone who visits autopia.org and you see them post great work, then you know they are top notch.

For example, we have a detailer that comes out to our company and details cars in the parking lot. I asked him whether he clays the cars and he said "that's body shop stuff." WTF, claying is an essential part of a proper exterior detail. Instead, he rubs in Mother's Cleaner Wax into the gritty surfaces of whatever cars he details. (yeah and that wax doesn't last all that long)

Also there are professional detailers who will tell you that you can never get black or dark colors swirl-free, who produce cars with buffer marring all over, while covering that up with wax (that washes off in a few weeks). One example is this thread, where a guy off the street said "the detail shop that does this is the best and have been in business for 20 years and they said the buffer marks are normal for darker colors and it would be an extra $50 for a coat of filler glaze to hide them." Which is a bunch of crock... but there are 20-years-in-business shops that still think this way.

Astral said:

PICTURE GALLERY here.

(Back to yesterday).

I started with the rear bumper.

The rear bumper was dull and faded on the left, but the right corner was not all that faded. I think that's the part that was perpetually parked in the shade.

Click to expand...

Actually no. The right rear was fixed and painted by the dealer under warranty a couple of years ago due to the typical rust on the rear quarter panel just above the bumper.

Oleg the car looks awesome!! Looks like new. That's a great job. Amazing job. Can hard wait to see her in person.

And you will be happy to note I waxed my new ride on the weekend. You guys are a bad influence