I feel so stupid - I let someone else wash my mini!!!!
It is now absolutely covered in huge swirls all over.
I took the car straight to my parents, when I realised how bad it was, re-washed it and polished it as well as I could. (meguiires cleaner wax x2 applications)
It has improved slightly, but still looks soooo much worse than before.
Unfortunatley as it is Solid Black II, it shows them up really well, and when the sun shines on it, it makes it look now like it has gone grey in patches.
What do I dooooooo?!
Will the 3 step meguires system do much better, or will I need proffesional help?
a 3 step and a lot of elbow grease will do it or you can use x-scratch.
if you can obtain an orbital polisher that can do most of the work but a good one will cost £120 give or take.
Don't worry it can be sorted just take your time or you could get the car mopped by a valet shop, not one of the £3 jobs. Do you clay bar very often as you may want to do that first to ensure you don't get grit in the 3 step
I have a 3 step meguirs system at home. It's a lot of work. But if it works then I am happy doing it. I think I also have some super resin polish, and some scratch x somewhere which I could try too.
Does anyone know how much a professional mop & polish would cost by a valet? - just incase my efforts are not good enough
I had a quick look and it looks like krystal kleen detailing is local to me. They havnt got an online price guide, but I will give them a call after I have done my work to see what they charge,
if you wash your car with a sponge then it will damage your paint! that's why people who car use almost a mop type sponge to look after the paint.
To me that would be a huge deal, my paint is oerfect with no swirles or scratches and yes it is a daily car which covers about 300 miles a week. Maybe I am just anal about it...
A proffessional mop will cost between £45 to £90 depending who you use.
The pro use a machine called a porta cable and I have used one in the past and its bloody brilliant
Sponge holds onto dirt and grit. Best to use a washing mitt. If you use someone else to wash your car then keep an eye on them. I've seen workers in car wash yards dropping their sponge/mitt and carrying on using it! It needs to be washed out properly if this happens as it would have picked up grit.
In your case it sound like it needs a proffesional mop and polish. About £80-£120. There is a website/forum for proffesional car valeters to find a good one but I can't remember what it is! I'm sure it'll come up on google.
Yea, if I have ever dropped a sponge or a mop it has gone straight in the bin. Wouldnt even risk it,
Which is why I am so stupid in the first place to even contemplate letting someone else wash it.
I am very anal about the quality of my paintwork. Have looked on a few of the proffesional valeting websites and they quote around £300 for a standard paint correction service to remove the bad swirls.
I still havnt had enough time to do my own work on it yet. I am hoping I am just fussing over something that isn't as bad as it seems.
Best of luck trying to get this sorted! I found quite a deep scratch on the front of my car one saturday afternoon after I'd cleaned my car, I took it straight upto the BMW who said go round to our bodyshop (up the road) they might be able to help you. Got up there, he used a bit of, well what looked like soft putty with a sanding machine thing with soft sponge like material (sorry crap at this) and he burnt my paintwork...luckily though they booked the car in straight away for repairs/respray. Good as new now
Back to your problem, my dad swares by AutoGlym products. Super Resin Polish is really good and long lasting, but to get the swirls out, could you not try T-Cut?
Whatever you do, do not use t-cut
The t-cut bottle only has to look at your MINI to give it bad swirls.
I'm like mooney and am very anal about paint and the condition - I won't even let the dealer wash my car when it goes in for service after the last time - it came out absolutely full of swirls, the idiots. They actually ended up buying that MINI back after a lot of other problems...
Every time my mini goes to the dealer for warranty work we make a specific request for them not to wash it. Every time it comes back, washed - badly!
(Plus every time they wash it, they take my damn ariel off and dont put it back on. I have a nice alta one, and it took over a week to get it back from them last time. )
I have used t-cut on another car, and would not use it again.
The mequires scratch x is better, but I think doing the 3 step systems with Autoglym or Meguires will do same job maybe.
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