If you have a car that you take to the track often, you know how hard it is to remove the rolled-up rubber marks you get on the exterior. They don’t often damage the paint, they just require some intense polishing to remove. And that’s the risk: If you aren’t careful with the polishing, you …
Sometimes there’s just nothing left to polish. This is especially true with cars from the 90’s. When the auto industry switched over to water-based clear coat paints, many of the earlier products started to fail before the new-car warranty even expired. The other area which caused problems was in door jams and trunks. The flexible …
In a previous blog post, I mentioned that my core service is a detail with ceramic coat, which I offer at three service levels: good, better, and best. Since I’m working mostly with cars that are drivers, it makes no sense to do a concourse-level detail. That said, some cars do need more attention than …
As a general rule, I try to do minimally invasive work, only removing enough paint to get the desired level of shine and clarity before coating. But occasionally there isn’t anything to work with as was the case with this fender flair. A good bit of paint was scraped off down to bare metal which …
I recently had another E36 M3 in the shop for to detail for resale. A preservation detail can really help a car “pop” and make a solid first impression for any potential buyer. It also helps ensure that the condition they see is more than just temporary as is common with many used car dealers. …
This E36M3 was really loved by someone. The roof was painted black by brush and the front of the car sprayed yellow with rattle-can paint and no clear coat. Much of the factory clear is failing or missing on the rest of the car and there appear to be at least two layers of yellow …
This is a 200K mile X5 we had in the shop this week for a detail and ceramic coating. White paint is tough. You wash it and it looks white. You clay bar it and it looks white. You polish it and your pad is filthy, and it looks white. But then when you ceramic …
This is perhaps my favorite type of project, the preservation detail. You find a complete car that’s been abandoned in a garage or barn. It may not run and has been off the road for years. You want to clean it up, get it running and then decide what to do with it. Is it …
Right now, the E36 M3 is about fully depreciated. A low mileage one in great condition will cost $9-$11K and still require $3-$5K of work. A high mileage one in fair condition like this one might fetch $3-$6K. The owner of this car wanted to sell it, but was not attracting any buyers at his …