The owners of this M3 also have another '98 M3 that I recently polished and performed leather restoration on. Next up is their brand new black Z06 Vette!

This 10 year old classic has about 110K on the odometer, and was actually in pretty good shape. It had moderate swirls, but time had left it with some deeper scratches, water spot etching (some severe), and bird poop etching as well. The interior just required a thorough cleaning (gotta love black interior!).

When I worked on their silver M3 a few weeks ago, I found it to have pretty hard clear coat, so I allowed for more time on this one since I was going for a higher level of correction, and because it is a darker color. After doing a test section, I found the M105/PFW combo to work the best for correction. It was doing a tremendous job correcting, and I was able to get an amazing finish afterwards for such a strong combination. The finish was so good in fact; that I was able to skip an intermediate polish as would be required with many compounds, and go straight to PO85RD/blue. After cleaning, IPA wipe downs, and sun inspections I was very happy with the combination, and confident that it was finishing down completely and not masking any potential marring and/or holograms.

Now on to the details:

Interior:
Clean all surfaces with Woolite/water
Treat leather with Zaino Z10
Megs Interior Detailer on console/controls
Optimum Protectant Plus on all vinyl & plastic surfaces
Vacuum
Clean rubber mats with Megs APC+
Windows cleaned with Stoner's Invisible Glass
Door shuts cleaned with Optimum No Rinse

Exterior:
Wash with Chemical Guys Citrus Wash & Clear at paint prep ratio (2oz/gal)
Wheels cleaned with P21S Wheel Gel
Megs APC+ on wheel wells
Clay with ONR lube
Wash #2 to remove residue from claying process
Stoner's Invisible Glass
Sonus Tire Gel
Chemical Guys VRP on plastic trim

Paint correction:
Carbon fiber hood: SIP/white followed by PO85RD/red
The rest of car:
Megs M105/PFW on compounding stage
Menzerna PO85RD/blue for finishing polish

Protection/LSP:
Optimum Opti-Seal
Optimum Car Wax

Tools Used:
Makita 9227c rotary
Porter Cable D/A (used with 3” PFW in tight areas)
Blaster Sidekick blow dryer
Canon Rebel Xsi with 18/55mm lense

Total time: 10 hours.

Upon initial sun inspection, I found the car to have moderate swirls (severe in a few areas…trunk lid and spoiler in particular), RIDS (more on these later), water etching, and bird poop etching as well.

Bird bombs can be hazardous to paint!






Nice carbon fiber hood:






Here’s my test section for the painted surfaces.


After 1 pass of M105/PFW (1000rpm). Notice how nice the finish looks for a compounding stage!


When a surface is covered in swirls, it’s sometimes hard to tell if there are any deeper scratches (RIDS) in the finish. Many times you don’t find out what you’re really dealing with until you’ve done at least one pass…sometimes it comes out clean, and sometimes you get a few surprises. Take a look at the photo below, and you can pick out one scratch in particular on the wing. It’s about an inch back from the leading edge, and you can see it’s about as wide as the reflection of the light.



Now take a look at this photo. This is after 2 passes with M105. That long scratch we picked out in the photo below is gone, but there is another one that is clearly visible about an inch below where the other one was. In the first photo you don’t notice this one much, but after cleaning up the surface, you then see how bad it really is. The wing had a lot of deep scratches, and you can see how much water spot etching there is. Even after 4 passes with 105 at varying speeds and applications of water, some of the defects and etching just wouldn’t come out. It would have taken a lot of wetsanding to completely get rid of them. Upon initial inspection however, it was hard to tell that the condition was this bad.

 

Okay, now I’m moving on in the process a bit.

After the compounding stage was complete, I pulled the car out for wash #3 with CG CW&C at paint prep ratio. It’s imperative to do a thorough wash after compounding to completely remove the residue and dust. Since it’s so abrasive, you don’t want to risk getting some of that in your finishing polish otherwise you’re going to have to re-do a lot of work! The extra time of washing is definitely worth it. It’s also good because you can have a very clean surface, and inspect the work in the sunlight (which kept coming and going).



Now fast forwarding again…

I’ve finished up the carbon fiber hood, and the PO85RD/Blue combination did a tremendous job of bringing out the gloss and showing off the details of the CF. There were a few deeper imperfections that remained afterwards, but overall it looked fantastic in comparison.



Got gloss?



Techno Violet may be a horrible color name, but it’s a beautiful paint! Look at the details and the amount of colors that go into it.



Now to some after shots:

Before any LSP

 

I forgot to change the white balance on the camera when I pulled the car outside and took the first few photos, so they show up blue instead of purple…you’ll see below where I realized the mistake because the photos go back to more of a purple color.



No more swirls!



Bird poop etching gone.







As you can see, a few deeper scratch remnants remained





The roof is now looking much better.



A few shots while the sun was still out. For a 10 year old car with more than 100K miles on it, it still looks spectacular.

 

And that quickly, the sky went completely cloudy on me…















I cleaned up the polishing residue afterwards that is hiding in the body molding in this photo.






Thanks for checking it out!

 

Wow, that is gorgeous! Great job!

 

Wow, this job is particularly special Todd! You did an amazing job as always and I love reading your threads! Thanks for sharing!

 

agreed, your write-ups make your threads twice as interesting! awesome job!

 

Thanks guys, I appreciate the kind words for sure. I'm just trying to share what modest amount of knowledge I have on the subject so we can all learn something from each other.

 

+2
I look forward to reading your write-ups and the info you give every week!

...and man! that car...theres something about that purple color (maybe because i've never seen techno violet), that make it look so bad-ass

 

Thank you!!

 

F*N Cool!

Love that paint and great job man.

Now...if I could only do...what you did...to that M3...to my car...for free....on my own...I'd be good...ha ha.

 

Todd it's good to see you're able to get at least one more in before winter. Nice job as always!

 

Nice job! I would imagine that car is pretty rare. I wonder how many violet e36 M sedans there are running around.

 

Todd, I mirror everyones comp's! (As always, you make things look too easy)
I have to say though, that CF hood RUINED it!

 

Great job, always nice to see such nice paint recovery, I have a question though, what products and steps did you use on the CF hood, any special equipment or tricks you used for it? Mine has some light swirling, but I don't wanna go at it too aggresively

 

Even CF hoods have clear coats. Repair, correct just as you would a traditional paint job.....

 

looks great, what kind of bike do you have, i noticed some motorcycle tires in the reflection of one of the shots...look like sportbike tires to me....

 

Those are some trackday take-offs from my (sold) Triumph Speed Triple.

And here are those tires in action...

 

Like Patrick said...it's clearcoated just like the painted surfaces. I found it to be pretty soft though, so I used SIP and a white pad for correction, and PO85RD/blue pad for finishing.

 

ok, I have white pads, just scared to go after that clearcoat, guess I'll give it a shot

 

Just start with your least aggressive polish, and go from there...

 

TSC,

Wow...great job-props to you buddy! The carbon fiber hook is awesome and the paint color IS very cool.

 

Outstanding work!!! I know your customer was floored when they saw the final result.