Took a day off work today, mainly due to having too much accrued holiday but also because the weather looked dry, bit of sun, and warm so a good day to brush up the Pug. Paintwork is generally OK, but it needed something doing. Lots of areas of slight cloudiness and quite a few nearside hedge hitting fine scratches.

Started off claying the car and de-tarring. Quite a lot of tar so that took most of the time. I reckon half the work was simply the de-tarring and the claying. Generally the paint wasn't too contaminated, apart from low down.

Then taped up some main bits of trim ready for machining

The nearside wing was probably the most scratched / bad looking part. But it came up quite nice. Couple of marks still left but overall much better

Then there was the bonnet. It was quite cloudy - no reflection. That bit down the bottom on the before shot looks cleaner because I spent a little while getting some sticker glue/gunk off the bonnet. Well caked on. Must have polished it a bit at the same time.

Looking down the nearside after polishing

A look at the bonnet

and the roof

Offside before I started polishing

and afterwards, with some bumper & trim gel applied all round. Not masses of difference from back far, but up close it is definitely better.

All thats left now is to fit the wheeltrims which arrive on Monday, and do a little touching up of some nasty chips and scratches here and there. You might have also spotted the attempted bit of repsraying on the bottom nearside sill in shots 1 (primer) and 7 (paint). It was the only bit I felt needed taping up and given a proper bit of respray work. Should definitely look way better than before.

Oh and if anyone is interested all polishing was done using a Kestrel DA, SFX-1 (toughest) polishing pad, and just Autoglym SRP - not wasting any of very good polishes on this car

Hi Jason,

Do you do this semi-professionally now?

Best wishes

John

N.B might own old octavia 4x4 next week

Hi Jason,

Do you do this semi-professionally now?

"semi-amateur" Learnt from experience, but only relatively recently got the gear to do a decent job.

Excellent results - nice little runner that, you intending to sell on for a small profit?

By the time I do sell it on I don't think the profit will be that significant, but then I only bought it as a polishing canvas really. Kind of "saved it" I think.

Cracking work Jason

How very dare you....

.....post pictures of such a car on here?

How very dare you....

.....post pictures of such a car on here?

At least I didn't put in the Tyres section! :p

Jason,

Would you pm me detailing what you do and how much it costs please.

Best wishes

John

Wow! Cracking job.

Looks grand to me, decent cheap (diesel i hope?) rug runabout, i'd drive it

Electric windows now working. Wiring re-terminated. Only the central locking is still to sort.

Red is always a nice colour to work on like any solid colour.........

Nice result with SRP to be fair........ :yes:

Bye bye pug. Sold tonight after it served me well as a run around. 350 faultless miles driving - now back to the Skoda.

I can't get my intake manifold on my octy any 'shinier' anyone got tips/ advice - so far tried steam clean and solvol autosol.

Best wishes

John

PProbably needs removing and given proper machined polish. Very different to paint polishing. Whats this got to do with my old pug anyway?