Aaron’s Daily WRX
« Back to BlogPosted: 26 Dec 2024
Aaron had his WRX coated a couple of times over the past 7 years, both OPTiX & other very large USA brand name coating that won sema award boosting amazing performance claims. Both of these products probably lasted around 3 years each. Now back for the second time but this time with us here and using OPTiX for the second time.
Aaron’s car suffered mainly from lack of proper care that the car and coating/s needed and then recently severe paint overspray over the entire vehicle.
In short here is the list of works done this time around based on the priorities of 1)removed paint overspray and 2) Apply ceramic paint protection. But to do this we will need to also perform a complete paint correction to the highest quality.
Day 1; A 2 bucket wash and wheels, door jambs, engine bay area. Clay bar decon to remove as much of the overspray prior to paint correction which we used 2 clay bars that were thrown out afterwards. Rewash/rinse vehicle quickly before drying. 4 hours (which is rather quick considering most cars take longer. During wash we noted no water beading prior to claying and after (coating used prior was an opposition brand that was warranted for 5 years but had not lasted even 3 years). The exterior trims were taped up as can be seen in photo so we can start measuring paint and inspect the paint around the car to make notes of what was resprayed, which resprays were done at what stages (we picked 2 different repairs by 2 different repairers) Started the paint correction by Brandon
Day 2 & 3; paint correction by the team Des, Seth and Brandon all working on different stages and sections. Basically there was always one person working on the paint correction at all times and at times 2 or 3 of us during the last couple days. Vehicle gets pressure rinsed to clean the vehicle from all the loose polishing dust etc especially in the crevices like door jambs panel joins under boot lid and under the bonnet. Unfortunately most detailers who specialise in fairly significant paint corrections can experience dried compound (mainly underside edges of panels) that are not showing up sometimes a couple days later. Luckily for those who have a workshop service that keep cars for a for longer periods like us means we can check for these issues sometimes a day or 2 after the correction was done. It is not practical for mobile services to have the luxury of checking cars well after they the work is done. In saying that workshops are also under pressure by impatient customers or due to the workshops tight logistics and may need cars to leave as soon as they are done where these issues might arise. Having more than everything we need within our workshop, with access
over 12 polishing machines to choose from and so much more like a team to call upon.
Headlight care was not part of the job but now paint is done we contacted the owner and asked if we restored the minor oxidation which of the following protection Aaron would like? Aaron decided for the upgraded option of clear film to protect the headlight lens for the next 5 to 10 years using OPTIX NANO SHIELD clear PPF. Being a workshop service it meant we could load up our computer software to cut out the template and have everything we needed to install the PPF for Aaron.
Day 4; Coating time, a good wipe over with isopropyl alcohol after being washed from the day before means the paint is spotless before coating. Our workshop service has facilities to use our scissor lift which in most cases is a better option than a non portable lift? We can manoeuvre our right hand side and left hand side hydraulic lifts completely independently from each other allowing us to over come variable lifting points. The car parked in the most convenient spot for the best work space before lifting the car. We use the scissor lift to remove the wheels to be coated. Day 4 still included a little bit more correction due to the team being a bit too fussy even though we were well and truely over budget for the correction.
Day 5; second layer of coating gets applied, the interior gets thoroughly cleaned, engine bay wiped over and a little bit of OPTIX ALL TRIM in a conservative manner so that the engine bay looks clean but not look like someone sprayed a tonne of product on it and gives a natural finish.
Additional information for Aaron to report incase he didn’t know. Front and rear bumper has had previous respray by painter (a) the skirts a long with front lip was painted by painter (b) and the entire drivers side has been painted possibly by the same painter as (a) but unlikely.
this level of additional information came about from 3 pairs of eyes all coming to the same conclusion and by bouncing off each other. The other of our workshop service we can sometimes ask our spray painter / panel beater friends to come have a look to confirm our opinions of our paint report.
The total value of this job was $5200 and the budget we quoted was $4300
