This is a 3 year old, neglected, mostly parked outdoor, next to no maintenance Mini Countryman. It looks pretty glossy at first glance but you will be shocked to find out how severely damage the car is. Read on.
Upon arrival, we did the routine walk around to spot extremely visible damages. The paint looks surprisingly glossy but we know its fake!
We spotted the typical scratches as we investigate closer.
Aged dirt and road grime.
Faded rubber lining that had been collecting dirt from Day 1.
Extremely clustered watermark issues.
100% faded racing stripes decal.
A closer look on the oxidation build up.
A very dirty and neglected area.
Deep swirls on the paint.
Or should we say, deep swirls with a combination of watermark stains.
More extremely visible swirls.
So, we conclude the paint is “F**ked Up”.
And when we thought that is the last of the damage? There is more.
We gave the car a detailed wash, cleaning all the window rubber lining, giving the entire car the clay treatment. Here is the clay before.
After claying 1 panel. You can obviously see dirt spots.
And finally a tar removal step.
Remember the faded black racing stripe?
After restoration.
Before
Fancy a cool 50/50?
Here is general view of the restored decal.
We proceed to correcting half the hood. Check out the difference.
The door pillars before restoration.
Door pillar after restoration.
Because the paint was quite bad in shape, we only manage to restore this much.
If you didn’t get what we meant, the paint had some leftover damages that could not be restored.
After losing count of how many hours we worked on this car, we finally came to the finale of protecting the final finishing with Opti-Coat ™Pro. Check it out.
This is a huge a** mother f***ing car. That was what we thought of when we first got the job in, that was what we thought of when we saw the car for the first time, and that was what we could only think of when working on the car. It is huge. Picture a Toyota Alphard and a Perodua Kenari side by side, it would have the same kind of feeling when a Toyota Alphard is parked beside this ride. Not wasting further time, check our how insane was it to work on it.
Upon arrival, we did our routine inspection to check the paintwork. The owner did notify us that it was brand new with less than 100KM clocked.
Our came our special LED to check on the paint.
Swirls and watermark spotted.
Pillars were severely swirled.
Some areas were just poor attempts of polishing.
Holograms + Swirls + a shitty PDI
More swirls.
Basically, its a brand new car, covered in washing swirls and the dealer definately knew about it. They did some sad attempts to recover the paint but failed miserably.
This is how the paint reflects under the natural 9am sunlight.
Well, That’s what we are here for. The washing begins.
But unfortunately it started to drizzle. So we had to wash in the rain and start on the front.
We started on the hood. This is a illustration of Before.
After paint correction and restoration.
A closer look, there is still some very light swirls.
Before paint correction on another area.
After paint correction.
The paint was not at its best state but we were pretty sure about our restoration.
A 50/50 of the paint. (left: After ; Right: Before)
Some side panels before paint restoration.
The same panel after paint restoration.
This is a 50/50 of the sliding doors and the front driver door. (Left: Before ; Right: After)
A closer look on the damage.
The door pillars were also a victim of these washing damage. (Left: Before ; Right: After)
Looks, can be really deceiving. Most shops in Malaysia uses this deception to tempt you into polishing your ride and coming out looking shiny.
The same photo on a different angle. Purely sunlight.
Halfway corrected.
Fully correction. Like we said, shops deceive, we don’t. Every single panels is not neglected.
After much polishing, we finally restored the entire car. Time for a wash to clean up all polish residue.
The polish black wheels were in a dirty state when we first looked at them.
Rather common when it comes to cars like this.
Take a look at how thick the brake dust build up was.
After much cleaning, we bling the wheels up.
After Opti-Coat™Pro.
The entire process took us around 12hours of non-stop working. We even skipped lunch for this, but it was worth every second. For those that didn’t know, all our photos are taken only with a phone camera with no edits done to the photos besides hiding the plates.
Without further delays, we would like to present to you how we revived this Volkswagen Polo that had only 1 job. Its what we Malaysians call “Kete Pi Pasar” (Go to Market Cars). 5 years of age and less than 100k clocked on the ODO, imagine how mint it is?
First， we checked out how clean the car is.
Failed our first cleanliness test.
Drainage areas were stained.
Emblems were stained as well. We wouldn’t blame the owner as most people don’t know how to clean this area.
Pop the trunk and there is more stains.
The door handle cups are usually scratched as well
And of course, all doors looks the same.
Along the window trims, all stains were rather visible.
There were no rubber roof lining but there is definitely a ditch for rain water to flow down. Yes, its stained as well.
Hidden areas like this were of course neglected over the years.
Bumper trims were stained as well.
At this point, we would say, the whole car is stained.
Moving on to how bad the paint is. Swirls were spotted.
The paint had some light watermarks.
But severe paint damage caused by the Good Morning towel washing mitt.
Some areas had deep scratches.
Some areas had lighter scratches.
Taillights are made from plastic, they are most probably scratched too.
And lightly stained with watermarks too.
Alright, correction and cleaning. We scrubbed the whole car with a brand new 0.01mm soft bristle Systema toothbrush.
But yet, we fail to remove some rusty spots.
Most of the areas that were badly stained were restored.
Window trim areas.
Below the side mirror areas.
The gap between the fender and the bumper.
The signal side marker’s gap.
and of course the Volkswagen chrome emblems.
Sneaky areas like these are not neglected anymore
Hidden area under the Volkswagen logo had no chance of escaping this round.
Lastly, bumper trims and details were cleaned.
We polished the paint with a aggressive compound to remove most of the swirl damages.
But there were some damages that could not be restore due to the severity.
This is a 50/50 colour comparison. On the left, the true colour of the white. On the right, the stained white.
Likewise on the roof, 50/50 colour difference. Left: Restored, Right: Stained.
The taillights were given a light polish to remove the plastic scratches.
Restoring the glossy and colour of the taillights. You’ll see how bling it comes out later.
The wheels on first impression looked rather clean but when we looked closer.
Silver can be deceiving as well.
Lugnut areas were stained.
Colour difference on the spokes.
After cleaning the wheels.
Coming Soon on the next post.
As for the final finishing after topping up with a layer of premium quality wax. Check it out.
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