This is a Nissan NV200 Panel Van. Originally, Nissan only offers them in White. Instead of leaving it stock, we resprayed it black. Why? because black is the hardest colour to deal with, it has extremely visible swirl, hologram or scratches when damaged. On top of that, a repainted paint job does not always show up shiny.
Orange peel is 1 of the major shine buster in a repainted car. Why? Simply because it will distort the reflection, when the reflection is distorted, there will only be a dull shine.
Because the paint had been sun for a month, there is bound to be watermarks as well.
Notice the reflection on the paint, you can barely see the fence.
Although you can still see there car behind the fence, its still not as clear.
For the newly repainted surface, we allowed a 1 month drying and curing period before we started any kind of work on it. There were alot of distortion on the paint hence we had to do some spot repairs. Sanding was involved.
Usually, you will not see these defects as the paint shop will handle the all these defect prior delivery back to you. We decided that we will do it to show you how it’s done. 2000-3000grid sand papers are used in this process to smooth out any dust, dirt, or even bugs that is stuck in the clear coat.
We will now require to remove the sanding marks.
Final view on the orange peel
This is the initial surface.
After cleaning up
After orange peel reduction. Now you can significantly see the reduction.
Its late night now. We are still pushing on. This is Before.
During the first few passes.
Significant improvement. We decided to not fully remove all orange peel as we might need to do some correction in the future. Safety Net is a must as we are not building a show car.
After orange peel removal, there is bound to have some micro marring on the surface.
Its around 10pm now. Hence we will be stopping soon. But first.
Here is the swirls created after orange peel reduction. Lightings are a LED floodlight and a LED torch light.
On a different panel.
After removal of swirls.
Next morning, we continued on the swirl removal after the orange peel reduction process.
Finishing touches. The shine is coming out.
We gave a final wash and prepared it for coating.
Because we are JDM Enthusiast & DIY People, Yellow Fogs and Dipped black Grill is a must.
Rear emblems are de-badged.
Next up, we give u the comparison Before & After orange peel reduction.
Wheels were filthy, we had to do some cleaning.
When we started to scrub it, the suds became brown!
After some finishing touching and decaling. Check this out.
“My car is brand new, just got it a few days ago” is a very common respond from our clients. Most consumers have no idea how wreck their car is upon delivery. Most dealership’s salesperson will deliver the car is a delivery room, whereby the lighting is warm enough to get the car looking glossy as F***. OR They request your arrival for collection in the evening where the sun is setting and its the perfect ambiance lighting!
Upon arrival, what we see is what the client see, what the client see is what you see in this photo. Its a new car.
Looking closer, we see that there might be some puddles on the way.
Or there might had been some rain for the past few days.
But you cant really hide when it comes to LED flood lights.
Most obsolete detailers will still use 400-500watt halogen lighting to spot damages, but that way is just insufficient. LED shows all, The SUN shows all. You could have gotten your car detailed, it looks perfect under halogen spotlights but once u parked at a petrol station, BAM, the small swirl marks are still there!
The damages on this ride is way too severe to be acknowledged as a NEW CAR. Hence, we did something about it. Check this out!
Before we forget, of course we washed the car, clayed the car. Did we forget to mention, white car are extremely tar prone?
10 hours of detailing, we end up with? You got it right, Gloss.
First thing we noticed about the wheels is that its rather clean. But we are OCD, so clean is not enough.
we cleaned and detailed the wheels
Finally, coated the wheels with a fresh coat of Opti-Coat Pro.
Anxious for the results? here you go.
Everyone has their own dream ride, the owner of this Mercedes had half his life trying to get to this. We are here to restore its appearance today. Being a car more than 10 years of age, the paint is in quite a bad shape, headlights oxidized, wheels stained, paint swirled and scratched up, watermarks all over, but we still decided to try and restore this beauty to its former glory.
Upon arrival, we can see that the car still had some shine in it. Being in a state where there is not much professionals in car care, this car had gone through hell to be still having that little shine.
The sun was out, hence we took a sun shot. Check out the swirls.
Getting a closer look on the LED, we found these.
On another panel
The condition of the car is pretty much all like this, covered in deep swirls, watermarks and random scratches.
Coming to the headlights, it is obvious that oxidation had begun many years ago. Causing it to become dull and yellowish.
Fancy some watermarks? It is also evenly covered on the entire paint work of the car.
The reflection was very much dull.
Yes, we clean the most filthy area of the car. This was the before.
We would say that the swirls were 90% removed. Some were just too deep to reach as the Paint Depth Gauge indicated that the paint is not very thick.
Headlights were restored of its shine and clarity.
Here is a better comparison. Before.
And After. PS: all chrome parts were hand polished as well.
Check out the final reflection. Looked quite impressive now.
At this point, we completed the exterior and moved on to the interior.
The owner wanted us to try and restore the interior as well. Years of grime, dirt, stains, dead skin? All stored in the cabin.
So yea, why not. Here is a 50/50 on the passenger seat.
50/50 on the arm rest? Our cleaning tools kind of smelled funny at this point.
50/50 view on the door panels. Zoomed-Out.
Look closer and you see brown stuff.
“Leather is supposed to have a matte finish -Veloc” Once a leather master told me. So, here is a 50/50 on the shiny and matte steering
Side sill plates were half plastic half aluminum, 50/50 looked like this.
Finally, after a gruesome 12hours, no lunch time, no break time, solo, only water to drink, detailing and correction session. We came to these results.
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