We’ve always been a fan of the Proton Preve since its birth but never had we seen such a well kept and tip top condition Proton Preve. The owner is one of our longest friend and supporter, he decided that the car needed some love and attention after the front section had been repainted. This was merely a simple polish and restore. Read to find out more.
Upon arrival, the car was pretty hazy. With the complete R3 bodykit and an upgraded aftermarket wheel. The car sits just perfectly.
Being a rather well maintained ride, the paint was in quite a good condition. Just a few minor fix and some accidental damage that we could not restore.
Here is one of the scuffs that cannot be restored.
Paint wise, you can see that the paint shop did not do a very good job at the finishing. It is a common problem for cars that had been repainted. The typical paint shop are just not capable of that finer finish you are looking for, hence we are here to fix that.
We let the car cooled down before washing. Since it was rather straight forward, there wasn’t much to document. We’ll skip to the paint correction. Here is some photos of after polish.
A little haziness on the paint after the first pass.
Final finish cleared it off and you can actually see that metallic flakes more clearly.
Here’s a quick example of swirls detected under the sun.
After a minor polish, we cleared off the minor swirls.
Another minor swirl spot found under the sun.
Cleared it off. After shots.
After about 5hours, we finished the polishing and restoration process.
As a alternate finishing unlike our usual coating application. We finish the car with a generous coat of premium high quality wax. Check out that glossy mirror finish.
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Well, we like to start by saying, this is a sweeeeeeet ride, as much as we love the styling factor and the performance of the brand new Honda Civic Turbo, it really sucks to see how a dealership can wreck a brand new ride to this extend. The owner of this sweet ride did his homework and consulted many “specialist” on this matter, even his bosses, parents and friends said the same thing, “Its UN-SAVABLE! or NO WAY this can be restored”. Instead, We say BULLSHIT! Read on to find out more.
For this ride, we were given the keys to drive the car back as it would take longer than usual for the entire process to be done and the owner had to go to work. So yeah, we drove the car back at 8.30am in the morning. Cool down the paint and started the insane makeover.
As usual, we did our routine paint diagnosis on every panel of the car. Before this, we had already inspection the car prior to the appointment but now we found more damages.
Deep holograms were also spotted on the door.
More swirls and waterspot stains on the front bonnet.
The line you are looking at is actually a long hologram marks.
We initially thought the marks on the roof were glue marks but turned out to be holograms as well.
Watermark etching on the front hood after a polish? Imagine how good was that FREE polish now?
To give you a picture of how bad the paint is for a 15 day old car, check out this sun shot.
We started the process with a 4 hour wash to clear up all the polish residue left behind by the dealership’s detailer and also to clear off the stains from day to day usage.
After the 4 hour wash, we started to experiment on different polish solutions and different combinations to find out what’s best for this scenario.
Another 4 hours went by as we struggle to find the perfect combination to treat this paint. As from our experience with working on Honda(s), they tend to have very soft and delicate paint quality, which in this case, a lousy detailer would cause these severe damages. Fortunately, we found that finishing that we were after, check out the result.
This is a section on the front bonnet whereby we saw swirls and holograms.
After 1 pass of polish, the paint was not fully clear of the swirls too. In this case, not only did the so called “detailer” at the Honda dealership gave free hologram damage, he also scratched the paint as well.
By now, the owner was already stoked and very happy with this result. But we were not, as it was still lacking a little more shine.
After a little more kung-fu we settled for this final finishing on the hood.
We the night came near, we were unable to continue polishing the car and had to stop for the night. This is the before shot of the door.
This is the after. Cleared of all damages.
We updated the owner on the process and we also stated that we needed more time. He was understanding enough to know that this is not a process to be rushed. We sent the photo of this side mirror to the owner and the feedback was “I’ve never seen my side mirror so glossy ever!”
Happy with the result, we end our Day 1: with this final finishing for now.
Day 2: We started at 10am, the sun was out and we started work at the back of the car. Check out how severe the paint condition is.
After much effort to restore the paint, Check out the difference.
Sun shot reveals the before to be full of swirls and hologram.
And magic happens. The determination to prove the people that deemed this paint un-savable wrong.
After about 15 hours out, we finally finished the polishing process and was ready for the final wash.
We gave the car a final detailed wash to remove all polish oil, polish residue and polish dust. She was ready for Opti-Coat™Pro now.
We took about 18 to 19 hours split into 2 days to complete the process. Check out the final caption-less photos.
PS: The bosses, family, friends were speechless when they saw the comeback from this deemed total lost paint.
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.
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