Restoring Scratched Black Paintwork

[AntneeUK]

Hi guys,

I bought a black LCR210 back in March which has quite a lot of scratches in it, including car-wash swirls all over. The garage tried to patch it up as best as they could, but it's clearly an amateur job.

In an ideal world I'd like to have the car resprayed (the same colour) but I don't have a lot to spend on it at the moment, especially since the car is high mileage (96k on a 52-plate) and as such I don't know whether I'll keep it (and do it up) or switch it for another lower-mileage model.

So, with that in mind, what would you recommend to get it looking "almost new" again? Is it a respray or nothing do you think? If so, does anyone know of places near Nottingham that are well priced?

Thanks guys

 

[jonjay]

Ant is it very similar to this?

http://www.seatcupra.net/forums/showthread.php?t=235917

 

[AntneeUK]

Yeah, though happily I don't think mine is quite as rough not much better though!

Do you guys offer your services for a fee?

Seriously, I have neither the patience, nor the skill to do this, though I may be able to rope a friend in. He has a concours-winning Ford Racing Puma that has just been fully resprayed after his ex-girlfriends sisters ex-boyfriend (!) paint-strippered his car. Really does look better than new. Nice motor too. Anyway, I'd love to have a go, but if anyone is willing to help out (of course I'll pay you!) then I'm happy to take the help

 

[jonjay]

Yeah, though happily I don't think mine is quite as rough not much better though!

Do you guys offer your services for a fee?

Seriously, I have neither the patience, nor the skill to do this, though I may be able to rope a friend in. He has a concours-winning Ford Racing Puma that has just been fully resprayed after his ex-girlfriends sisters ex-boyfriend (!) paint-strippered his car. Really does look better than new. Nice motor too. Anyway, I'd love to have a go, but if anyone is willing to help out (of course I'll pay you!) then I'm happy to take the help

Paint Stripper...thats not nice!

I Pm'ed you matey. I am sure I can help in some way.

 

[AntneeUK]

Replied. Thanks Maz

 

[AntneeUK]

Maz, here are some pics of the terrible state of my LCR. In hindsight, maybe it is as bad, or worse than the other one you did recently. Also, until I took the photos I completely forgot about the fact that the car has two little dints in it behind the passenger side rear door. It looks like it was a casualty in a drive-by BB-gun shooting

I make no apologies for the fact that the car is just plain dirty at the moment!

Front bumper/splitter scrape (I hold my hands up to being responsible for this damage):

General scratches (that I had to clear the dirt from to see properly):

Passenger side rear wheel arch:

Rear Bumper:

Passenger side, behind rear door:

Spot the BB injuries:

More general scratches:

Rear Bumper:

 

[AntneeUK]

By the filler cap:

More on the drivers side:

And the Brembos:

Shameful, I know

 

[jonjay]

I would say around 50% of those look light and I am confident I can get them out. Some of the scratches, almost look like small scuffs are quite deep but with some TLC I am sure I can get rid of a few/make them look more respectable. Generally when you machine polish you can really lessen the impact of the scratches by rounding off the edges.

My biggest concern would be RDS (random deep scratches) but we wont know that till I start working on the car.

 

[AntneeUK]

RDS? I love that there's actually a term for random deep scratches! I feel so much more confident

I'm wondering now whether it was worth paying less for an LCR that was not in the greatest of knick, only to have to pay to get it back to a decent quality. I had never noticed quite how rough the wheels looked until I took these photos either. Dammit!

I think that when I have the brakes refurb'd I'll have the centre of the discs painted in a high-temp black paint too

 

[jonjay]

Well the black one I did recently was really bad in every respect however by the end of the day there was around 95% correction achieved. Looking back i think there was only 1-2 scratches that you could see out of the 20-30+ at the start of the day.

Now if you asked me at the start of the day whether that was possible I would have said no but as I started machining the car the level of correction from a single pass was really good. I am not saying yours will be the same nor am I saying I can preform myricals but lets go in with an open mind. I am pretty sure you will be please with the results at the end.

 

[AntneeUK]

I'm not looking for miracles Maz, just something to stop me spending God-knows-how-much on an unnecessary respray that I can't afford! Things like this free up a little extra cash for the carbon roof

 

[Jim@WD]

Dear lord! Your poor car lol

Antnee, if you do ever get this sorted, you want to stop rubbing the dirt around like you did in photos.. thats likely to have left a hell of a mess on the paintwork by itself! (did it for photo purpose etc, I know.. but, just a word of warning)

"..the less physical touch, the better"

 

[AntneeUK]

Ha ha, that's a good point! I was just trying to work out whether it was a scratch or dirt. It may have been dirt but it's definitely now a scratch!

 

[jonjay]

Dear lord! Your poor car lol

Antnee, if you do ever get this sorted, you want to stop rubbing the dirt around like you did in photos.. thats likely to have left a hell of a mess on the paintwork by itself! (did it for photo purpose etc, I know.. but, just a word of warning)

"..the less physical touch, the better"

Very true.

Keeping paintwork like new you need to use the most least invasive method at all times.

 

[AntneeUK]

Yeah. My mate gave me a b*ll*cking for that one too. Then the other day, I had to move the car to let the brother-in-law out (he was parked behind me) and I touched a concrete bollard with the front of the car. I can't believe my luck (or lack of skill). What a moron!

 

[Vaspetrol]

Hey dude,
You have been well and truly 'Told' about the rubbing dirt in etc. But I think we got pretty good results today, and I hadn't even got into 'Hardcore' mode!! hehe! You need to get some correct touch-up paint next, and we will go over each panel for defects.

Very pleased with the waxing though, the paint was so 'dry', but apart from scratches its in pretty good nick.

 

[AntneeUK]

Thanks again Vas, effort much appreciated. I'd love to see the results of a 'hardcore' clean, but there's no need just yet. Thanks again for the help.

(See the link in my sig if you want to see the state of the car as it is now guys, thanks)

 

[MarkWales]

what did you do ?

 

[AntneeUK]

Mark, if you don't mind checking this thread you will see pics and Vas has put a description of what he/we did: http://www.seatcupra.net/forums/showthread.php?t=243655