finally pulled a plug!
 

After couple of months and test driving both FR-S and WRX hatchback, I decided to go with Asphalt FR-S in manual. I have not regretted my decision! It is a great looking car and the interior does not bother me. I came from S2000 which had a driver oriented interior so that might explain.

Cant wait till the first 1000 miles is over!:party0030:

However I had 1 question, when i bought the car, it had some minor scratches, so I asked them to detail it and they took it to body shop. To make the story short, I have the car now with hologram/buffing trails :thumbdown: and I was wondering what would be the best way to remove them?

1. take it back to dealer and ask them to fix it? (i hate to leave the car at the dealer)

2. what would be the best product I can use to remove the hologram? (prefer to get it from local store) and yes I have searched the net and it brings up the the worst case scenario where the paint has scratches, water marks, etc.... where as in my case, the paint only has the hologram and it is new

Any help/suggestion will/would be appreciated!

Congrats on the new car. Black is great but shows everything.

Orbital buffer and soft pad with a fine cut glaze compound or your gonna spend a lot of time doing it by hand.

thanks. I will stop by Autozone to see what I can find.

Take it to a Detailer who knows what they are doing , get a full exterior done with opti gaurd , you won't regret it .

If you want you can try this. It's amazing and usually does the job.

Any auto store should have it. It comes with an applicator pad and I use a soft polishing/microfiber cloth to wipe off the wax.

http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/...XL._SS500_.jpg

I think I need a polishing compound to permanently remove the holograms. Waxing only fills up the light scratches and will go away after couple of wash.

I may be wrong

Wax alone will not remove the hologram/swirling. Unfortunately, holograms and swirling fall into the category where it will need to be polished out. And sadly, most auto parts stores don't really carry any good polish for removing stuff like that.

If you have a buffer (preferably dual action or an orbital) you'll need a light/fine polishing pad (Lake Country white pad for example) and a good, easy to use polish would be Meguiar's M205. Before you do any sort of buffing, you'll need to wash and clay the car.

1. Wash
2. Clay
3. Polish
4. Wax

yeah I thought so,

is the clay bar really necessary for a brand new car?

YES YES YES. Clay barring a car makes a huge difference because it removes any grime that's accumulated from sitting out/storage in shipyards/shipment/life. On my car it made a HUGE difference and after my wax job the paint was insane...Clay bars are actually a lot easier than waxing too, there's no reason not to.

seems like i need to invest in detailing tools/product.

i regret letting dealer detail the car. sigh!

Look at it this way: it's not going to be perfect forever anyway. Do as much as you can from this point forward and it'll never look worse and you can be happy with your work. No use crying over spilt milk

That is, unless that spilt milk can be fixed with a fine grade cutting agent, final polishing agent, and some wax ;)

It's a great idea to do the detail on the car. Claybar is necessary. IronX is necessary. Here's a full detail we did on mine after only 3 weeks ownership and no washing or touching of any sorts after rolling off the lot:

http://www.detailingbliss.com/forum/...tml#post354962

I'd recommend taking a look at Adams polishes and maybe investing in a porter cable. I do all my own waxing polishing detailing and make a Saturday out of it. Needless to say I always had people walking up to the Tacoma I previously owned (2007 trd off road with rad red paint 4x4) and asking if it was brand new because the paint was in such good shape. My FR-S is the same way and the asphalt paint pops! Especially after a proper washing claying and wax. I wax maybe once a quarter and polish once every 6 months to once a year just depending on how hard I've been on the paint. Your buffing marks like previously stated will need to be polished out though gives Adams polishes a look

http://www.ft86club.com/forums/showthread.php?t=25018

Watch some of this guy's videos...He's probably a little too good to have the same results in your driveway but he gives good tips throughout all of his videos. Plus it's cool to see him detail really nice cars :)

polish every 6 months? you are not worried about removing the clear coat after couple of years?

thanks buddy, yeah there are a lot of videos about detailing. will watch it

I've only had my car for a couple weeks, cold and overall shitty weather. In between work, storms and darkness I managed to clay bar and at least get a coat of wax on it. The clay bar didn't pick up much of anything so there wasn't much grime collected during shipping. Plus there are protective films put on all the top surfaces during its trip from the factory.

The dealership, I assume, did however manage to get some pretty nice swirls and scuffs on the deck lid. I'm going to hold off till spring to do a good polish and overall paint detail. I may even color sand it. The factory paint really isn't so good. A lot of orange peel. Hoping there is a decent amount of clear on top of it.

Watch the videos, get a good buffer and pads and do it yourself. Its really hard to muck it up and something I enjoy doing.

Probably the best advice, although it can be safely resolved by a newbie with the right tools / supplies.

That is just a paint sealant ( no abrasives in it ) and unfortunately will do nothing to remove or even hide the swirls / holograms inflicted by the body shop.

Compounds and polishes are two totally different products. Polishes for the most part will remove swirls and light scratches inflicted during the wash process and can be followed up with the wax or sealant of your choice. Compounds typically are very aggressive for removing deeper defects and will need to be followed up with a polish to bring the gloss back to the paint before applying your wax or sealant. Wax itself will not hide anything but the lightest of swirls. Its not meant to do that job.

Very good advice and easily accomplished with the right supplies and a bit of time.

Not always, but for the little bit of time it takes to ensure the paint is clean, its worth it. All the FRS / BRZ I've done have been clean on the horizontal panels as they are covered in plastic but the vertical panels have been littered in rail dust from transporting.

You could polish your car twice a year with a white pad and M205 or Menz Power Finish to remove light swirls and you would never go through the clear. Both of those combos remove such a small amount of clear, its not even measurable with the electronic paint thickness gauge I have. Using a heavy cutting compound first and following up with a polish may result in removing 2-3 microns but thats it and that king of polishing should only be necessary once if you are maintaining it properly.

These cars don't come with much in the way of clear so I'd stay away from wetsanding and live with any defects that a product like Megs 105 won't remove. 2000 grit sandpaper won't remove much clear but once you are past that in aggressiveness, the clear is gonna come off in a hurry. You are correct in that using a DA polisher like the Griots or a Porter Cable is very safe and any enthusiast should own one in order to keep their car mint.

took the words right out of my mouth

That level of damage needs someone that really knows what is going on. to say it nicely is very hard, but they did way more damage than polishing for 2 years.....in otherwords they removed 2 years of the cars paint life.

How in the world can the word get out that true detailing cannot be done by just anyone.

I would take it back to the dealership and show them the damage, I would photograph it, and tell them you expect them to pay to have it professionally fixed. They will want to do it......they don't have the skill set. They like most other neo detailers will glaze it up with lots of oily products that will look great for about 6 washes, then bam they appear again.

Ken above outline perfectly all the points that needed to be made.

If you need some contacts for AZ detailers let me know, I don't know anyone off the top of my head, but have lots of connections in states.....just need to look them up.

Cheers,
GREG

ps. It may sound like I'm scolding you, I'm not, it just pisses me off that so much damage can be done so quickly.....fixing it will take 10x's as long to restore it.

no worries. thanks for the advice.

It depends on the pads and composition of the compounds you use doing a 1 step twice a year won't remove clear coat like your thinking it will. Been doing this for quite awhile.

If you are in the Phoenix area, I have someone for you,

Couple of people already mentioned www.WindowsAndWheels.com, so I will get the car inspected by them soon. thanks

He is good enough to do the job.