Scratches UNDER the paint?

[Ben J]

Hey guys,

So I've just been giving my candy white mk3 golf a long overdue detail becuase I couldn't stand to keep looking at it with the swirls and oxidation on some panels that it had. I washed it down, used some wolfs decon gel and then gave it a good claying (its amazing how different the white looked just after the clay, looked more white, had never experienced a car looking much different after claying before) and so I definitely have it prepped well.

Parts of the car seem to have been resprayed at some stage (it seems as though everything except the doors has been repainted), I have no idea how long ago, why or if it was done by a good company (I literally know no history of this car except for what is in the service log book, and even thats a bit sketchy).

The bonnet seems to be covered in scratches which I just can't buff out. I've gone over the panel with Menzerna Fast Gloss 500 on an a yellow/orange (whatever the higher cutting pad was) pad, I've tried using the RO polisher on max speed doing passes until the polish faded away (about 3 times with this method) and also tried "priming the pad" and running it at a lower speed, doing 30+ passes all over. The scratches are still there. I'm starting to think that these could just be from dodgy prep work when the bonnet was repainted? I went over the rest of the car in the fastgloss and most of it turned out pretty well.

Does it sound like I could be right about the scratches being under the paint? Or do I need a rotary and something to get a much more aggressive cut? If they're under the paint, is there anything short of stripping the panel and respraying it I can do?

Cheers,
Ben.

[qsz]

Without seeing it you cant tell but i'd say a bit of shrinkback on the filler/ dodgey prep type situation. If you had a paint depth guage you might be able to give it a flat sand but as its not factory paint not sure how much is on their.

Hope this helps.....a bit....

[carcareproducts]

Apologies for delayed reply! (very delayed for that matter!)

I would suggest getting thickness checked as well. And its likely bad prep and bad spraying could be the cause of this. As you're not the original owner you really only can guess its history.

[Lucas_R]

^ agrreed - if the scratches appear to be UNDER the paint, then it could be poor preparation from a respray in the cars past life.

Also, i would advise against running your buffer at max speed.....its a recipe for paint burning disaster. Normally 1,500-2000rpm (varies a bit on each polisher) is an effective and safe speed - you've got to let the polish do the work, not the machine.

[Ben J]

Thanks for the answers guys. I'm fairly sure they are under the paint. Ohwell, they dont really stand out all the much and for a $3000 18 year old car im happy enough with how it scrubbed up. It definitely has been repainted at some stage, can see some sags and drips here and there (thankfully in areas that are really not noticable, I only noticed them when going over it with a fine tooth comb while detailing it) and I found small amounts of smashed glass under the carpet when I had the entire interior out to freshen all of that up as well which all sways me to believe its been in a smash at some stage.

Anyway some photos of the finished product after I finished detailing the thing... for three days

[Smead]

Looks good mate. I have the same issue with my polo, though only a few scratches (got the bonnet resprayed)

It doesn't really bother me as the car is a 06 model so it's 6 years old with 160000 on the clock now

[Lucas_R]

Would look better if you lowered it mate. Its sitting up like a 4wd.....

[thestu]

Wow. Looks sexy

Sent from my GT-I9300T using Tapatalk 2

[Silver dub]

Looks great ben, I only hope mine comes up as good as yours.

Did you use an RO polisher from Car care products?

[Ben J]

Thanks guys.

I agree, needs to go lower. Subframe is 2mm off the ground when its perfectly flat, just cant seem to get those last 2mm. Lays out if its a little uneven

But yeah, did use one of those cheaper mint RO polishers from car care products.