47p2
Senior Member
- Joined
- May 3, 2006
- Messages
- 3,583
- Reaction score
- 5
- Location
- Scotland
- Your Mercedes
- W638, W140, W220, W639 All gone but not forgotten
Almost two years ago Mercedes kindly paid for two new front wings and the rear arches to be de-rusted on my S-Class.
The job was done by Evans Halshaw in Glasgow. I was told when I handed the car in it would take 2 weeks as this was what Mercedes allocated them for the work involved, sadly it turned into almost 4 weeks and would have been longer if I had not put pressure on them to get the car back.
I went to collect the car and almost started crying when I saw the state it was in. There was overspray everywhere including the dashboard, headlamps, roof I mean everywhere, there was score marks on the rear lenses where the sander had touched them, the paint finish could only be described as heavy orange peel. Before taking the car away they told me that if I wanted to re-book it in they would rectify it, this was after almost 4 weeks in their custody. There was no way that I was going to let them do another thing to my car, I wouldn't let them paint a barn door let alone a Mercedes. There was no way that it could ever be polished up without doing major surgery.
Last week when I had the car up on the ramp I saw for the first time just how bad the shoddy work of Evans Halshaw was, the orange peel was some of the worst I have ever seen. I knew that it was repairable but it did mean that I would have to cut the paint back using wet & dry. I took a sheet of 1200 grade and soaked it for about 10 minuted in warm water which I had added a small amount of car shampoo. I then cut the wet & dry in half and then rubbed the two halves together to remove a lot of the cutting power. This left me with an almost glass like cutting paper which wouldn't remove too much paint from the start. I removed the top layer of orange peel working the wet & dry carefully until I thought I had cut in enough. Mercedes cars do have a slight orange peel effect to their paint and if I had cut too far it would have looked out of place against the rest of the car, this I was trying to avoid.
Once I had removed enough orange peel with the wet & dry I started cutting the paint with Farecla G3 course cutting compound which removed the wet & dry marks. When that stage was completed I applied Farecla G10 which is a fine cutting compound which removed the G3 marks. Next I started polishing, by machine using a polish that has a very slight cut until I got to this stage
Now if I was any good with the machine I could have finished the polishing a lot quicker, but I like to finish by hand. That way there is less chance of damaging the fresh paintwork and I think the finish by hand is better than a machine
I'm usually pretty good at spotting a car that has been repainted, but I would really struggle with this car now that the rectification is completed properly. I'm now happy with the finish and the car should be easier to keep now that I have brought the paintwork up to this stage
The job was done by Evans Halshaw in Glasgow. I was told when I handed the car in it would take 2 weeks as this was what Mercedes allocated them for the work involved, sadly it turned into almost 4 weeks and would have been longer if I had not put pressure on them to get the car back.
I went to collect the car and almost started crying when I saw the state it was in. There was overspray everywhere including the dashboard, headlamps, roof I mean everywhere, there was score marks on the rear lenses where the sander had touched them, the paint finish could only be described as heavy orange peel. Before taking the car away they told me that if I wanted to re-book it in they would rectify it, this was after almost 4 weeks in their custody. There was no way that I was going to let them do another thing to my car, I wouldn't let them paint a barn door let alone a Mercedes. There was no way that it could ever be polished up without doing major surgery.
Last week when I had the car up on the ramp I saw for the first time just how bad the shoddy work of Evans Halshaw was, the orange peel was some of the worst I have ever seen. I knew that it was repairable but it did mean that I would have to cut the paint back using wet & dry. I took a sheet of 1200 grade and soaked it for about 10 minuted in warm water which I had added a small amount of car shampoo. I then cut the wet & dry in half and then rubbed the two halves together to remove a lot of the cutting power. This left me with an almost glass like cutting paper which wouldn't remove too much paint from the start. I removed the top layer of orange peel working the wet & dry carefully until I thought I had cut in enough. Mercedes cars do have a slight orange peel effect to their paint and if I had cut too far it would have looked out of place against the rest of the car, this I was trying to avoid.
Once I had removed enough orange peel with the wet & dry I started cutting the paint with Farecla G3 course cutting compound which removed the wet & dry marks. When that stage was completed I applied Farecla G10 which is a fine cutting compound which removed the G3 marks. Next I started polishing, by machine using a polish that has a very slight cut until I got to this stage
Now if I was any good with the machine I could have finished the polishing a lot quicker, but I like to finish by hand. That way there is less chance of damaging the fresh paintwork and I think the finish by hand is better than a machine
I'm usually pretty good at spotting a car that has been repainted, but I would really struggle with this car now that the rectification is completed properly. I'm now happy with the finish and the car should be easier to keep now that I have brought the paintwork up to this stage
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