Audi RS4 - 55 Hour Correction Detail Hi Guys,
Thanks for taking the time to read another write up of mine. This time it's a huge one, 55 hours on an Audi RS4, I think there's 200 photos!! eaak!
The car was brought to me from Wakefield after the owner had seen some of my other work on another Audi RS4. I was told he had just bought the car and admitted it was quite bad, which wasn't a problem, as that's what we do!
The car was booked for a
correction detail + Engine Bay Detail + Deep interior clean + Leather treatment & Protection + Full Alloy Wheel Refurb. (a big job then!)
This is how the car was dropped off…
Even from a distance its plain to see this car's paint is on a whole new level of swirled! I told the owner it would need quite a significant amount of time to bring back paint like that to life!
All kind of ugly in there, buffer trails, swirls, damage from tree sap, random deep scratches, the whole brass band!
My first thought was to do a test section to get an idea of how long it would take and how hard the paint would be. I spend about an hour on the corner of the bonnet assessing the damage and gauging how long it might take to give the owner an idea.
So after a long time measuring and treading carefully, I still had made a huge difference but there were still some deep scratches in my path!
After even more work on the original paint, I was able to safely remove these without removing too much clear.
Before
After
Phew!
So on with the job!
Wheels arches done
Getting cracking with the engine bay… I forgot to take a before shot but it was very dusty and dirty!
Getting started on the door shuts
Fuel filler cap
Time to snow foam!
Rinsed off and washed with the 2 bucket method
Now removing any tar
Claying really cleaned out the paintwork!
Now onto some serious work on the awful paint!!
Huge improvements made quite quickly, but it's these sorts of marks that are the crux of a correction detail. The paint was absolutely rock solid. Audi paint from 2004 - 2007/8 is always bulletproof and taking out marks like this without masking takes time! I was determined to completely turn around this car, so with paint thickness gauge and polishing tools in hand, along with a lot of patience, I cracked on!
Always checking the work with CarPro Eraser… I love this stuff!! Not only does it pull out oils from the finish, it helps to dissolve them too, unlike IPA, which will only redistribute oils back onto the paintwork. I think I ordered about 4 Bottles last time from Phil At Shinearama! cheers Phil!
This one half of the bonnet took me about 3 hours just to be satisfied with the finish.
Sun Gun Before
Sun Gun After
Metal Halide Lighting: Before
After
Before
After
Moving onto other areas of the car
I was carefully measuring the paint thickness all around the car and noticed quite a low spot on the Near Side Wing…
This is probably about right for some Jap stuff, but quite low for an Audi of this age in my experience so I tread carefully on this panel.
Before
Here you can see there is a deep mark, and due to the thickness I was happy with that. It still looks great and a lot better than before!
Onto the boot lid…. CRINGE!
Again, it's had some serious stick!
Onto the roof now, which is even worse than the boot lid. I know it looks kind of bad on the photos, but it looked a whole lot worse in person!
Look at those marks! Scouring pad anyone???
Once the upward facing panels were done, I got the car on the lift and took the wheels off and got them off for a refurbishment. You can see they have started to corrode and they were pretty tatty. The wheels had been subjected to some quite poor repairs too.
Back onto the correction!
The car's bodywork had also been subjected so some pretty poor repairs on the arches. The RS4 has pretty prominent arches so they can pick up stone chips pretty easily. It seems as if the arches had been blown in, but pretty poorly. So again, I was careful not to aggravate any repairs.
Some clear coat missing on one of the arches.
Rear quarter before
And after
Now moving onto the rear bumper… There was a pretty deep gouge in it. My only hope with that was to round it off and take the whiteness out of it, there's not really much substitute for paint when there is a mark that severe. It was easily detectable with a fingernail!
Bumper Before
During an Eraser Wipe down.
After
Again..
Bumper
Moving onto he other side now…
Now, a very slow shutter speed shot here with me and the sun gun, this gives a better idea of the difference made in the clarity of the paint! The hard work and steady correction really is brightening up the paintwork and improving reflections.
Thanks for reading so far! I will have the rest of the write up here soon!
MORE TO FOLLOW SOON!!!!!
