Can My Car Sparkle Like This?

[clonedaccnt]

Is this photoshopped or what? I want my car to sparkle like this one:

http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4103/...54dbcf324b.jpg

My car paint is like this:

http://dv0pyon1tdlvh.cloudfront.net/...1618372013.jpg

I don't know if the first picture was a brand new GTO or what but I highly doubt it.

[vr4tune]

Yes it can search for some detail threads.

[green-lantern]

Is this photoshopped or what? I want my car to sparkle like this one:



My car paint is like this:



I don't know if the first picture was a brand new GTO or what but I highly doubt it.

I'll help you out with the pics

It depends on the condition of your paint but yeah with some good elbow grease and know how you can do a lot. I know a guy that's real good at making paint look good I can steer him this way.

Edit: also that 2nd pic just isn't a very good one.

[stealthee]

Look at the pictures I took of what I did to clean up my Grand Prix last summer.



She was a dirty Gert





This was the result of just a wash







I found this nice scuff once it was clean, grr.



I bought Turtle Wax Black Box and figured I'd give it a shot.

This is the result after just using the pre wax cleaner





And this is the result after wax.









And this is the scuff



I did this all by hand. No buffer.

[stealthee]

Also as was pointed out there are detailing threads here and all over the internet. People on the Grand Prix Forums love there Porter Cable dual action buffers and different people go with different systems. With a Porter Cable and some time I could make my Grand Prix look like the GTO in the first picture you posted, and my car has 168k miles on it.

[Macky]

OP - yes. you can get your car to "sparkle" like the first one.

It will take a lot of work depending on the condition of your car's paint, but its doable. Here is an example of a 99 VR4 that I detailed a while back.

This VR4 had extremely dry paint. Dry paint will suck the moisture from whatever polish or compound that you use. The term dry doesn't mean in the literal sense. Rather, the oils that are part of the paint are simple gone due to neglect and washed with the wrong soap.

Now, when I detailed this car in the showroom, I had to go over the entire car twice with a cutting compound and then once over with a polish just to restore some luster and shine to the paint. besides restoring the paint, I also tried to restore the black trim on the car as much as I can.

Here are the pics.

First, the stuff I used -




Then the car before -





YUCK





swirl city





all taped up

[Macky]

Correction stage: 50/50 first pass -



Uncorrected side close up -



Corrected side close up -




After 5 hours -






















from this :



to THIS :




pics don't do the car justice. but hell that paint was horrible to work with. I went through a full bottle of cutting compound and half of the polish just to get it to where it is. There are still lots of random deep scratches that I just could not remove, but they've been reduced to hairline scratches that you can barely see.

Without looking/seeing the condition of your car, there is no real way to tell how bad it is or how much you need to do to it. But at the very least you probably would need a dual action polisher to start. Unless you are experienced, a rotary polisher is a BAD IDEA.

[HilbillyHomeboy]

Unless you are experienced, a rotary polisher is a BAD IDEA.

That's what I was going to add, and can't be emphasized enough. Thank you for stating that.

Jeremy

[green-lantern]

^ the man I was talking about ^

[clonedaccnt]

I believe now that it is possible. Thumbs up for you guys.