We keep three cars. One for each of me and my wife, and a third car that serves as my commuter vehicle.

Late last year, my wife got a new Volvo and so her 2014 BMW X3 got pushed down as my commuter car and I sold my Subaru as a private sale to take advantage of the hot used car market. Economical Japanese cars are doing exceptionally well.

Anyway, her BMW was perpetually dirty because it's a black car. It was her first car (not having needed one when she lived in SF and NY), so she didn't know better to not buy a black car. Lots of dings, scratches, and a general patina of neglected paint. I kept a coat of Jet Seal on it as best I could, but my wife really didn't care if the car was covered in bird poop.

Anyway, now that it's "my" car, it needed a little TLC. Started off with a wash, then claybar, then a 4 stage polish on the hood (2 stage on the sides), wipe down with IPA solution, then ceramic coat with Adam's Graphene Ceramic. I restored the headlights and plastic trim with Cerakote.

The front bumper had actual damage from hitting the garage one or two times, so I hit it with a little bondo, a couple layers of primer, paint and clear. It's not perfect (hell, it's not even good), but it was good practice and I'll likely respray it again. I also replaced a cracked foglight.

There are dings and dents, but all in all, the car looks really good for my first attempt at ceramic and paint correction (I think). Was hoping to get some practice in before I worked on my own car and my wife's new car, and this served that purpose well.


After wash and clay, we can see the amount of swirling, hazing, scratches, and pitting:




MANY hours of machine polishing later.

A clean and polished black always looks good - for the first day or two.

My wife has a black two door Accord. There is something mentally satisfying though when making it looks shiny again.

Nicely done, congrats!

I admire your innovative solutions that created a very nice commuter car.

Nice job.

BTW thanks for rubbing it in that you could do this outside. Yesterday I went to a car wash to get the road salt off my car. Would have washed it at home but the 30ish temps prevented that.

Nice job. I'm tired from looking at it and thinking the work involved.

I had a black car, once.
That was enough for me. Looked great right after being washed and waxed.

That looks fantastic, you probably saved $500 by doing it yourself.

That looks great! My current BMW is black and my detail guy spent 14 hrs on paint correction. The old lady who owned it for a year and a half parked it outside and only put 3800 miles on it.

quote:

Originally posted by Calif Phil:
That looks fantastic, you probably saved $500 by doing it yourself.

Full car ceramic coatings are pretty pricey. $2000-3000 is not uncommon. No saying my job is pro grade, but the basic steps (and thus labor costs) are similar.

The ceramic coating I used is pretty durable. I messed up on a panel and left "high spots" where the thickness of the coating was uneven. Imperceptible to touch, but you could see that it was a little darker, like wet paint. Had to use the machine polisher to take the ceramic back down to the paint, actually tougher/more durable than the paint itself. Took two rounds with polish to remove the ceramic.

Huge improvement.

If everything goes well (knock on wood), this year I'll just need to use a cleanser polish which is very mild, but should take off the ceramic sealant, any love marks, and leave it glossy. Should be a lot less work than last year's spot correcting with Sonax Cut Max and following up with Sonax perfect finish on the entire truck.

Looks good. I never messed with ceramic s the flash time is just too quick for this guy.

I had a black Mercedes. I loved that car and I spent a ridiculous amount of time keeping it perfect. Here is the paint.

quote:

Originally posted by Calif Phil:
That looks fantastic, you probably saved $500 by doing it yourself.

Uh, more like $3,500-4,000. Even more depending on the type of ceramic coat. Heck, even a crappy bumper repair is $1,500 around here. Probably $3,000 just because it says BMW on it.

I had a quote for $5,500 to ceramic coat my truck when it was new. That was for no paint correction. I passed and have regretted it every single year.

quote:

Originally posted by Beancooker:
Looks good. I never messed with ceramic s the flash time is just too quick for this guy.

It's not bad, just tedious. Literally working in a 20" square, watching it flash, level, buff, repeat like 4 dozen times.

One mistake I made was not recognizing that as you level and buff you are pushing product onto surrounding areas. You have to wipe that off before it sets, otherwise you end up with high spots on adjacent panels/sections.

Also, you need super bright lights to really do a good job. I did everything in my garage which I believed to have enough lights with a bunch of LED lights. Moved the car out into the sun and saw a bunch of swirls around the door handles that I could have easily removed had I noticed them, and of course the high spots that had set. Couldn't see them in the garage, but plain as day in the sun if you knew what to look for.

I've got two more SUVs to do, so I'm looking into getting big bright lights.

quote:

Originally posted by Aeteocles:
I've got two more SUVs to do, so I'm looking into getting big bright lights.

For polishing and coating, having a good swirl finder light is handy and it shows more than the sun. I have this one.

My smallish bmw x2 was $2k for the paint correction and ceramic coating. They did the wheels and brake calipers too. And tinted the front two windows and windshield. My guy gave me a discount because I paid cash and was willing to wait a week for them to work on it. They also popped out a dent for me.

Had I done that work I would be proud as a peacock over your results.

The bumper looks fantastic.

quote:

Originally posted by Chowser:

They did the wheels and brake calipers too.

I regret not doing a wheels off detailing. The wheel wells are graying and stick out like a sore thumb against the now black lower plastic trims. I'm going to have to go back in there with something to clean and restore the black. I've got Chemical Guys VRP and their Barebones Undercarriage Protectant on hand, but if I had the wheels off, I would have reserved some Cerakote trim coat for the wheel wells.

I bought a new X7.
Never washed it and owned it for about 3 weeks.
It was $2000 for paint correction and full Kenzo Ceramic
The dealer had buffed it and made a mess of the paint i guess.

quote:

Originally posted by Timdogg6:
The dealer had buffed it and made a mess of the paint i guess.

I keep a sheet of red cardstock with big bold writing that says "DO NOT WASH" on it in the glove box.

I put it on the dash every time my car goes to the dealership.

The courtesy wash at the dealership comes with complimentary swirl marks.