this just in: you *can* polish a turd. what I did for 10 hours today

[blmlozz]

Decided the Avant was a free practice run for Honing my skills for the day I buy up some Adams product and finally tackle the G8. Suffice to say, it turned out better than I expected.

step 1) Assemble the army


Products used;

This is a pure-polish, ie it contains no abrasives, had it left over, trying to use up/get rid of all the shit I've collected over the years.


Ultimate compound is described as a mediumish cut polish. I was extremely surprised with this. so much infact that I didn't even followup with a lower cut/swirl remover.


I've been using NXT 2.0 for a few years now. It's a sealer rather than a traditional carnauba based wax, but I just can't seem to get more than a few weeks out of the stuff before it needs another application. Oh well, It's what I had, so I used it on the Avant


step 2 was obviously wash. No thrills there in 50 degree weather.

step 3, Clay.

now.. if I had cared to re-use this clay, I would have taken some tar-remover to the side rails, since I didn't care to re-use it(and didn't see how dirty it was) this is what It looked like after a few swipes..


it's almost as if this this has *never* been touched with any product. The whole body was covered in oxidation like this


I thought the paint was toast, I bought the car knowing it would have to be resprayed. Although this level of oxidation is the stuff you only hear about as rumors or in TV commercials. Remember the advertisement on the Ultimate compound? Yeah, this is worse.



What can I say? The ultimate compound worked miracles.



used the flash just to show the million or so scratches. I honestly can't imagine how some of these happened unless people were having sex with rocks all over the body.


10 hours later...





oh yeah.. I also tinted to 30/5 front/rear today too. Can't let anyone see me rolling in the beast. Don't let the pictures fool you, there's still *alot* of problems, and lots of the scratches are still there, but everything is so much better that your eyes can focus on the beautiful blue instead of the abrasions.

sorry about the crappy garage pictures, it was cloudy today, and I finished late, didn't have a change to really take some decent pictures.

[patrick23]

wow good Job!!

[Calimus]

Damn, very nice job. Let is not be said that clay-bars & compound don't do a good job. The problem is folks actually taking the time to do it.

Just wish there was something for clearcoat peal. The majority of my paint is in great condition, till you get to the lower half of the rear bumper. The clear is coming off. Almost seems like it's a protective film though rather then CC. Oh well. Damn nice job ya did there.

[blmlozz]

wow good Job!!

Thanks. It gave me a good chance to play with my power buffer, and Splatter is way down now that I'm not dumping product on the wool pad. Paint care has been one of my weaknesses that I always wanted to touch up on, but I've been too afraid to burn-through paint. Not anymore though, and I still have a lot to learn, but at least I can do it... slowly.

[A62TURBO]

You should borrow my porter cable orbital with the proper product you can make your paint look like new again. I do have to say you did an amazing job with the car so far.

[blmlozz]

You should borrow my porter cable orbital with the proper product you can make your paint look like new again. I do have to say you did an amazing job with the car so far.

80% of the scratches are fixable, it's just like you said though, I need the right product and a better orbital than the one I have. That'll be fixed when I can dump money into stuff for the G8 though.

[SpooldYou]

Good for you man. Audi's typically have GREAT Paint. My car looks MINT after a good detail. even though it has 126k miles. and 10+ years of being outdoors.

[Vinchenzo51]

You should borrow my porter cable orbital with the proper product you can make your paint look like new again. I do have to say you did an amazing job with the car so far.

this, PC FTW

I put off buying one for YEARS but when I finally pulled the trigger, I couldn't be happier. Car looks amazing for a junkyard find.

[AofC_RR]

Your Avant was from NC right? I swear I saw it at work one day in the service dept. Nice work cleaning it up by the way

[awdjunkies]

This project turned out to be very enjoyable,while it needed elbow grease, it seriously IS a classic case of the "Ugly duckling, turned into a beautiful SWAN"

[A6Avant]

Looks great man way to use that spit and polish!

[VegasA6]

"sex with rocks"!!! haha too funny. Great job man!

[MLFHNTR]

Insert here:




Good work there. Good to see what works when I go to do mine.

[rollerton]

Holy crap man, don't you ever take a break?

[green a6]

awesome job