Here's how the car looked before:

Hood:


Door:


Front Passenger-side Panel:


Note the mirror, scratched by tree branches


As you can see, plenty of swirls, stone chips from road debris. On the driver's side door there was also damage caused by an eggshell (stupid punks), which had deep chips in the paintwork.

After smoothing the paint chips which had been painted on, removing the swirls, covering up lots of damage i.e. tree branch scratches. At the end of it, this is the result:











After many hours, it's a pleasing result

 

wow...!! very clean. what did u use??

 

Someone needs to take better care of their Z. Almost brings a tear to my eye. lol

 

nice work mate...wat did you do to remove the stone chips and the swirls?? i got almost the same problems but not as bad as yours..

thank you

 

Do you have any after shots in direct sunlight?

 

well, i try to take car of the z as much as possible..but lots of daily driving does take its toll on the car

at least she looks good for now...sufficient to keep me satisfied for quite a while!

 

used something called CPP (Coloured Paint Protection system) and lots of buffing action...it seeps into the pores of the paint thereby 'filling' it up..is supposed to last for years, or so i'm told..

 

i took the before pictures in the bright afternoon sun and the after pics as soon as the car was done (evening)..

but i'll post some pics of the car in the bright light tomorrow, it'll probably give a fairer comparison!

 

Great job!

I hear you when you say that driving the Z a lot can get it looking a little bit bad... It is my daily driver and I have lots of chips and small swirls.

A full polish and paint retouching is coming so I am looking forward to that

 

*shiver*... this is why I'll never own a black car agian, no matter how sweet they look when they're perfect.

 

It looks like you wash your car w/ rocks. Washing in a circular motion is a bad idea. You should wash in a back/foward motion instead to prevent swirls. It makes scratches less noticeable.

 

Or spend the extra cash and buy quality car wash material instead of using the bathroom floor carpet.

 

awesome work. Share te secrets!

 

I understand that there may be some people who may still be sceptical since the before photos were taken in the bright sunlight and after photos were taken in the forgiving light of the evening..

I just took these:

As you can see, a major tree branch scratch from reversing out a dark driveway with a protruding branch has more or less disappeared


Most of the major swirls have been removed from the passenger side panel


The previous owner had a bad habit of opening the trunk with keys in hand, leaving many deep scratches around the vs insignia, this has been covered up and smoothed very well..


Again, swirls on the door panel has been removed


Hope this before/after photoshoot has shown the stark difference a cut/polish/filling in the chips can do! There's no real 'secret' per se, just the usual tips u might find on autopia.org

The swirls have been ingrained in the car for sometime since i purchased the car from the previous owner and since it doesn't really show up other than in the bright midday sun, I did not act on it on first instance...But I'm glad I finally did, very rewarding

 

wait... is that 2nd picture final?