Today we have quite a special customer that drove all the way to leave the car with us for an entire day. This Mazda2 is barely 6 months old but already met so much abuse that its crying for a full makeover.
Have you ever expected that the underside of the front bonnet is glossier, shinier and more wet look than the entire car?
Here we have the car, just arriving from Singapore. With the bonnet area and wheels still piping hot, we had to let her cool down first. Meanwhile, our routine inspection for the paint was done.
There was a dull shade on the paint when looked closely.
Stains from bird droppings were quite visible on the paint.
There were even some very much hardened bird dropping splatter. We’ll be expecting a bad etching later.
Black cars can be rather deceiving in photos because they may look very reflective but their true condition is hidden behind that gloss.
6 months of poor car wash resulted in stains in areas like this.
Side mirrors were covered in bug splatters as well.
Moving on to the paint damages, we found some rather interesting amount of swirls on the paint, this doesn’t look like a 6 months old car with these amount of swirls.
More swirls and holograms found on the paint.
Holograms spotted on the door. Well, basically the whole car is covered in holograms and swirls as a result to “restore” the car but failed miserably.
We did a detailed wash and decontaminated the surface. Check out what the clay bar picked up from just 1 panel.
As we mentioned before, we’re expecting a bad bird dropping stain on the hood.
Another bird dropping stain visible after the wash.
After a few passes of polish, we came to a swirl free result.
More areas swirl free.
The door previously covered in holograms and swirls are now clear of damages.
Finally, a quick before.
and After.
We also manage to clear off the bird dropping stains that was etched into the paint. Fortunately the damage was not catastrophic yet. PS: pardon the polish residue as we only clear it up when the entire polishing process is over.
We spotted some rather deep scratch on the roof. Probably from an attempt to rub off bird dropping.
Manage to recover the damage. Dear readers, please do not rub off bird droppings as bird eat from the ground, sand does not get digested and the bird droppings actually contains sand in them, rubbing the bird dropping off will only result in scratches. In this case, we’re lucky to be able to remove the scratch, you might not be as lucky everytime.
Final outcome from the detailed polishing, the car was ready for the Opti-Coat™Pro.
After the final wash and coating application, the night came. Before we showcase the finishing, we did some quick final checks on the paint under LED and also the street lights. Results were amazing.
So here’s the final results of this makeover on the Mazda2 all the way from Singapore.
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This Mazda owner had approached us since the car was new but because of his busy schedule, the car was not really cared for and also there was just no time for us to come over and get the paint protection from Day 1 of ownership. Finally after months of planning, we were able to setup a date where the owner is free of all work and get the car protected. It had been 6 months since new.
We expected some bad paint surface upon arrival since it had Zero Protection since Day 1.
The routine walk around was performed to check for obvious paint damages.
To be honest, metallic colours are really good at hiding damages. Swirls and Scratches are next to invisible when in shade. You would not expect such amount of paint damage on this car if we didn’t document it.
The first obvious paint damage we spotted was on the front bumper, this was a motorbike scrape.
Scratched from unknown source on the rear bumper area.
Of course some typical signs of daily usage.
We noticed some obvious hologram damage (damage from improper polishing) when the sun shined on this area.
Moving to some more in depth paint damage inspection. The LED check light is utilized.
Some obvious holograms were spotted on the side panels and on the hood. We also noticed some haziness on the paint.
Swirls from the regular washing
More swirls on the hood.
Hologram on doors.
A closer view on the swirls.
A closer view on the hologram
We spotted a weird stain on the paint as well. Texture felt like a matte surface.
We did some intense, deep clean and detailing in the washing stage. Unfortunately, there was nothing special to document. After that, we continued on with the paint restoration. We first attacked the obvious damages.
A closer view of the deep scratch with LED.
The scratch was visible even under the Sun
After the paint correction, the scratch is obviously gone.
A closer look with LED to make sure the scratch is fully restored.
No visible scratch or indentation on the paint.
Moving to the next obvious paint damage on the bumper. Before restoration.
After restoration. Although the scratch is gone but there is some permanent damage on the edges. The plastic trim could not be restored as well.
LED indicated the scratch is fully restored. The edge of the paint shows the permanent damage that we could not restore.
Now we tackled the hidden paint damages most consumer do not know about. Hologram damage before.
Hologram damage after restoration.
Swirl damage before.
Swirl damage after.
Remember the swirls from before?
Here is how it looks after restoration.
Hologram damage before?
Hologram after paint restoration.
Weird stain before?
Weird stain after. We were unable to fully remove this damage even after multiple attempts.
Final checking on the paint after an alcohol wipedown.
We gave the car a final washing and did some minor touch up to some neglected spots.
Exhaust tips before.
Exhaust tips after polishing.
The wheels were just dirty in the beginning.
A thick coat of brake dust.
After cleaning.
After coating.
It was obvious the wheels just bling-ed up.
Finally after many hours, we finished the car with a generous coat of Opti-Coat™Pro on all the painted panels, plastic trims, chrome, headlights, taillights, wheels, exhaust tips and all glass panels. Check out the glossy finish.
So, Since our last makeover, the owner was quite please with our with and decided to book us for the wife’s car. This is a 3 year old under utilized Mazda 6 but of course, it was poorly maintained as well. Else there won’t be a post like this for us to write about.
From the walk around we find the car to be rather “shiny” in its natural habitat.
as we investigate closer, we found some watermark issues on the paint.
Reflection wasn’t really reflecting nicely.
There were some tar spot issues on the lower panels as usual.
The common rain stains were visible as well. Not from far but from a nearer view.
Although its not very visible on photo but swirls existed.
The haze reflection from the LED lighting indicated some oxidation forming
Its only extremely visible when shot in a pitch black condition hence this is what we can show at the moment.
Coming to some deep scratches on the hood.
We washed the car as usual and also took the trim cleaning very seriously.
Being a 3 year old car, we expected this area to be heavily stained.
and we were right!
There were also some rust build up.
We did some test spots to brighten up the paint. The small spot on the left is a shrapnel of the polishing pad sponge.
The colour difference is major!
After some paint correction, the clarity is restore and the colour of the car immediately darkens into a wet look.
Pre-Coating shot shows a much reflective and well prepared surface.
As for these 3 years old wheels. It was the usual day to day road grime.
The colour of the tires shows an obvious “never been scrubbed” condition.
The brake dust build up is not extreme.
As usual areas like these are skipped during the normal washing routines.
The scrubbing begins. But unfortunately we forgot the Afters…
The glass was quite heavily stained as the car is usually parked outdoors.
After washing we can obviously see the watermark islands.
On the left, watermark stained the entire glass. On the right, a fully treated glass panel.
A closer look after the glass has fully dried up. No visible watermark.
Finally, after coating, the results were quite pleasing. Wet look achieved.
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