Buff the whole car?

[goredsox]

Well i have a 93 with nearly 150,000 miles. So my paint job isnt perfect. I have Blue Metallic paint like in my avatar. She has been garaged all her life and has been washed regularly, dried by hand, and had at least 2 coats of wax a year since the day we bought her.

But she does have Scratches(Surface and Deeper), Chips, Orange Peel, and odd bumpy indentations on the roof. There is no fading, or any primer showing anywhere. The paint shines beautifully in the sun and all the metallic flake make it incredible. In the shade standing back at an angle it acts as a mirror and it has a glass like shine to it. Standing up close you can see yourself. Now for the problems...

If you get the right angle in the sun, swirl marks, there are tons of surface scratches on the hood and the roof. There are also tons of rock chips on the hood. Touch-Up paint melts after a while. If you are at the gas station at night and you get the right angle orange peel all over. And if you get the right angle in the sun you can see very small differences in the shades of blue. The are also alot of deeper scratches on the deck lid and spoiler.

I had the spoiler buffed when i had some dents fixed, except for the deeper scratches the buffed spoiler looks great. It seems brighter and the shade of blue is even. When i compare the spoiler to the deck lid at the gas station at night the spoiler looks supreme.

Now could i take her in to my school auto shop and have them buff the whole car to remove imperfections. Or would they need to wet sand then buff and then polish???

Sorry for the long post, my paint is in excellent condition for being 13 years old, it is even better than newer cars i see, but since im a perfectionist when it comes to my baby i want it to look brand new.

There are a few GA's here in town that are the same as mine only theirs look like SHIT, their cars are reduced to spotty paint and primer is showing through.

[Sweet98GA]

if u wetsand with a 1000 grit you will take out the orange peel... then have it buffed to bring back the shine

[92CamaroRS]

Originally posted by Sweet98AEDGA
if u wetsand with a 1000 grit you will take out the orange peel... then have it buffed to bring back the shine

If you've never wetsanded before, i'd really recomend using a finer grit, like a 1500-2k grit.

If you've done it before, you can start with 1K grit, but id really sand it with a finer grit to make buffing easier.

[little00GT]

they are both right put together, there are 3 steps to wetsanding to take out all orange peel. first 1000 grit to get it as flat as possible, second 1500 grit to take out the 1000 grit scratches, third, 2000 grit to take out the 1500 grit scratches to make it easiest for buffing and polishing. if u stop at 1500 grit or 1000 grit u will probably use waaaay too much compound and waaay too much polish bringing it to a perfect shine. and u will def. see deep same color scratches. if u do it right 1500 grit and 2000 grit combined should take the same amount of time or only a little bit longer than just the 1000 grit. then for compound DO NOT use extra cut rubbing compound. use the regular rubbing compound(i use 3M its good stuff) to take out the wet sanding scratches which should leave u with just half moon swirl marks that are kind of hard to see in some light. u may need to go over each spot 3-4 times depending on the color if its black i would say 4-5 times compounded.. then use a swirl mark remover polish. this may take u 2-3 times to get rid of the swirls. again if its black i would do 3-4 times with the polish. then u should be done. don't make the same mistakes i did when i first started, which is don't wet sand where u can't get the buffer lol cause its a bitch to polish by hand unless u have a mini buffer. as for the deeper scratches depending on how deep they are that panel may need to be sanded and feathered out where u break through and repainted(blended). have fun!