Been meaning to tidy up my Octy for ages but through lack of time its been neglected slightly, so today i thought it was time for a good wash and general clean up. Being yellow it suffers from paint fade a bit but after getting the T cut out and attacking one of the main affected areas (the spoiler) i was left speechless at how bad it was.

Note the right hand side after a couple of minutes with T cut:

Pretty bad isnt it? My question is, is this beyond help or is it possible to get it close to body colour again? The whole car could have about 6 different shades in total

go to a detailer,

am no detailer but a DA and some g3 works wonders on cars when i want to spruce em up!

Been thinking about that, I thought it might have been possible to do it myself but now it looks like it needs the touch of a pro

I would. You could lose around 2 stone trying to work that back on an entire motor by hand.

lol, yes feck doing it by hand!!!!

jeez, you would end up looking like this...

or this....

now this is hardcore popeye!

sorry...i do get carried away!

Haha love it. Looking at the state of the spoiler it seems like the whole car will need it, someone said cutting compound but im not so keen. Detailer will do I think

or this....

now this is hardcore popeye!

sorry...i do get carried away!

Mymy, Daniel Craig is looking rough these days...

rather than getting carried away with popeye, i meant to post and say, i have a DA, its a machine polisher, though i use it for sanding too, it follows a random path unlike a rotary polisher, which in untrained hands can burn through paint.

that with g3 (which is a cutting compound) will do wonders to tarnished/dull/scratched paint (and lots of water to lubricate)

look on youtube for vids and tips, as a detailer will charge a fair bit for paint correction, though its worth it looking at yours.

isnt somebody doing paint correction for charity on here

good for the car and good for the soul

Mymy, Daniel Craig is looking rough these days...

lmao, he is looking rather hench...bring it on!!

isnt somebody doing paint correction for charity on here

good for the car and good for the soul

lol, kind of wax on wax off:>

Mymy, Daniel Craig is looking rough these days...

who u calling fatneck?

who u calling fatneck?

Obviously a fan drew that one. In reality his head is at least 50% smaller in proportion to the rest of his body. Weird looking SOB.

yes not sure they are, haven't done him massive favours with that block of a head, or his trophy style ears!

Il give YouTube a look, for cutting compound with the polisher, (not Daniel Craig vids lol)

lmao, yea whatever

we know you are looking up trophy head..

yes g3 is the stuff i use, will have a quick look too...not at craig ffs!

or this

1 caveat, i am no expert, i do not recommend you do this unless you read up/watch enough vids and are confident to do so..

if you are, great results can be had, my DA on ebay was around £60

Cool, seen Edd China do it a few times on wheeler dealers, but then again the man can turn his hand to anything.

the man legend China!

I must say it's fairly straitforward with flat paint. It's trying to buff lacquers with machinery that really gets tricky. Ruined a Citroen Xantia like that once (cheap electric £20 Maplin buffer)... to be fair, it only cost me £500 (the Citroen, that is) and I'd put another 20K on the clock, so I wasn't crying about it.

We have a valeter at work whos a pro with a buffer, hes done a couple of my cars including my vrs as the body wasn't bad but i had a pink spoiler instead of red,

Unless you know what your doing i would leave well alone and do it by hand as its quiet easy to buff through the paintwork

thats why a DA is much better than rotary, rotary is for pros but still you need to be careful

Unless you know what your doing i would leave well alone and do it by hand as its quiet easy to buff through the paintwork

Ha, did that with the same machine on a turquoise Corsa too. Again, I had about £50 in it as a trade (although I did have to do the head gasket, stat, and temperature sender) and it was rough and rotten. Never known thin paint like it. Still, got £800 back with a six month ticket, after covering up the rust (and the bits I'd polished through) with a quick two tone silver (actually Teledyne Continental Gold, that often looks like silver, depending on the supplier, but hey, I'll take free paint wherever I can get it! )