Paint enhancement question

C

Cyb3rj0n

Member
Hello, if I were to pay to get my van paint machine polished and waxed, dare I ask if anyone knows roughly how much it costs?.. basically the vans black and there's some minor swirls everywhere, and it's already annoying me.

I'm in Swindon if anyone is near Wiltshire and knows or can recommend a company.

Cheers
Jon
 
Prices vary, wildly! Polished and ceramic coated will probably cost £800-£2500, depending on who and how thorough
 
I can reply... I have a black T5.1 Its in awful condition! There is also a little story to be told here!

I spoke to Pinnacle Detailing (Oxford way).... they wanted £1,000 inc ceramic coating. That was a 2 stage machine polish. I have every confidence this would be an amazing transformation and probably well worth the money.
Another firm wanted £1,200 again very good reputation.

I was thinking this is all a bit expensive!

So, i then found a guy on Instagram - i won't say his name or business its not fair.
Anyways, he said he would be able to machine polish the whole van and it would take 2 days. He would then spend half a day ceramic coating it and sorting the other bits out (interior etc). £500 for the 2.5 days. Now i tend to work out peoples "day rates", rightly or wrongly, it comes from being a IT contractor. I think most trades are worth about £200 per day, give or take for specialist services. so the 500 was about spot on for not a "specialist" trade...

He rocked up atmy place. Nice chap.
He then quickly washed the van - not the 2 bucket method i have come to expect from someone who cares about a car... no snow foam either. Just a preassure washer and a sponge...
Then he was about to start machine polishing. I asked about decontamination and clay bar. To which he replied "oh, your one of those people that look up the sales and marketing stuff on the internet...." he then gave me a big spiel about how he had been doing this for years and clay was a con.
He said, I'm going to use a machine polisher, it cuts through all that contaminent and muck and goes down a layer of paint so you don't need to worry about removing the contaminants!

My response was to explain, pushing a big, spinny thing onto my paintwork needed some preperation as all the grit, and crud would attach themselves to said spinny thing and end up being dragged all over swirling the paint. He honestly couldn't understand why i wouldn't let him proceed to machine polish my pride and joy.
Needless to say we agreed to disagree and he was paid for his washing abilities only!

I've found someone else, who i have confidence in and its going to them in a week or so. I need to get decals printed and someone ready to apply them at the detailers as before it gets the ceramic coating, but after its been machine polised the stickers need applying... that way they will stand a chance of staying on.

Attached image of desired result... sort of

Its like most things, its not a cheap process. I'll update in a week or so if you like with the results.

image3 green2.jpg
 
IestynD said:
I can reply... I have a black T5.1 Its in awful condition! There is also a little story to be told here!

I spoke to Pinnacle Detailing (Oxford way).... they wanted £1,000 inc ceramic coating. That was a 2 stage machine polish. I have every confidence this would be an amazing transformation and probably well worth the money.
Another firm wanted £1,200 again very good reputation.

I was thinking this is all a bit expensive!

So, i then found a guy on Instagram - i won't say his name or business its not fair.
Anyways, he said he would be able to machine polish the whole van and it would take 2 days. He would then spend half a day ceramic coating it and sorting the other bits out (interior etc). £500 for the 2.5 days. Now i tend to work out peoples "day rates", rightly or wrongly, it comes from being a IT contractor. I think most trades are worth about £200 per day, give or take for specialist services. so the 500 was about spot on for not a "specialist" trade...

He rocked up atmy place. Nice chap.
He then quickly washed the van - not the 2 bucket method i have come to expect from someone who cares about a car... no snow foam either. Just a preassure washer and a sponge...
Then he was about to start machine polishing. I asked about decontamination and clay bar. To which he replied "oh, your one of those people that look up the sales and marketing stuff on the internet...." he then gave me a big spiel about how he had been doing this for years and clay was a con.
He said, I'm going to use a machine polisher, it cuts through all that contaminent and muck and goes down a layer of paint so you don't need to worry about removing the contaminants!

My response was to explain, pushing a big, spinny thing onto my paintwork needed some preperation as all the grit, and crud would attach themselves to said spinny thing and end up being dragged all over swirling the paint. He honestly couldn't understand why i wouldn't let him proceed to machine polish my pride and joy.
Needless to say we agreed to disagree and he was paid for his washing abilities only!

I've found someone else, who i have confidence in and its going to them in a week or so. I need to get decals printed and someone ready to apply them at the detailers as before it gets the ceramic coating, but after its been machine polised the stickers need applying... that way they will stand a chance of staying on.

Attached image of desired result... sort of

Its like most things, its not a cheap process. I'll update in a week or so if you like with the results.

View attachment 71554
Click to expand...
Thanks for this... Have to admit I'd not thought about it being clayed before hand .. very interesting
 
Here's my take on machine polishing Black. Bare in mind I use a machine polisher every day, albeit not on car paint, and I own Black.

Knowing what's involved to do the job properly, the prices I see people quoting at around £750 up to £1500 are pretty much bang on the money, depending on how bad your paint is, and what you are having added as a finishing product.
What you will get is people that are not skilled detailers, spouting that they can do the job for half this price and you are being ripped off etc etc. These guys then come along, and ram a machine polisher all over your paintwork, burning through edges, splattering compound in every gap, and generally creating a mess. They then stand back and admire their work at one angle and one lighting, meaning the instant you get it in the sun, it's often covered in buffer marks and looks far worse then it did before, but these guys then lather wax all over their work, which hides some of their mess, and hand you back the vehicle, normally saying 'that's the best I could get it mate'

You drive it away and think it looks ok, but then several weeks later and several washes later, the waxes have vanished and the extent of their amateur work is fully exposed, meaning you then have to pay a real detailer the right money to put this right, or worst case, more to rectify the previous persons mess.
This is something you might get away with on White or Silver, but Black you won't.

My advice is deal with a real detailer, in real premises, with a real reputation. Their prices are high because what's involved is immense if done properly. Although as I said, I don't work on car paints, we see this exact situation time and time again, and we charge more money to rectify someone else's work, than we'd of charged to do the job correctly in the first place. Sadly, there are around 20% of these jobs we cannot rectify, because the previous person has taken off all the tolerance we needed to do the job right the first time.

Do it right, do it once, and listen to the detailers aftercare advice, but any detailer worth his salt, will warn you that Black is near on impossible to keep looking new permanently. Ceramic will help, but the input from the owner afterwards is just as critical as the job done initially by the pro.

Lastly, don't judge a finished job by how it looks after the detail, judge it by how good it looks several weeks later.
 
I agree 100% with everything @Tourershine said. When i went to pick our van up(which is black by the way) from the dealers,it was being polished and was covered in wax etc. After a few weeks and afew washes,all the swirling,scratches and burr marks where the machine polisher had juddered along the panels became evident. I couldn't believe how bad the paintwork was on it. Anyhow,i took it to a local detailer,paid proper money for a proper job and he completely transformed the van, i couldn't believe how good he got it looking. It had a multi stage paint correction and was then ceramic coated. To quote @Tourershine ,do it right and do it once! Heres some before and afters although theyve came out as afters and befores!IMG_0097.jpgIMG_0100.jpgIMG_0102.jpgimage1.JPGimage4.JPGimage6.JPG
 
Hi all,
I just wanted to follow up. I took my van to Adam at RefinedDetails. After chatting through my van on a video call and letting Adam see it, we discussed the options. Adam guided me towards a single stage correction detail, given the van is a fully used family van. It gets plasterboard, timber and dirty kids thrown at it, it gets soggy tents, cups of coffee and muddy grass verges... its a well used well loved part of the family, like so many are. It is not a garage queen.

Adam was really focused on value for money, was keen to say he could do a 3 stage correction with ceramic coat, but is that really what i want. After all thats 4 figures on a van as unloved as ours! However, for less than half that money Adam would be able to machine polish it, get a great level of correction, and then apply a hybrid wax - Its not a ceramic coating, its a wax WITH a low concentrate of ceramic in it, so longevity would be maybe 12 months.
The thought being maybe in 2 years i might want to wrap the van, or get a bit more detailing done...

I also worked with Wrap Smith, to design and install the decals. Both companies are brilliant to work with, Wrap-Smith travelled to Adams workshop to install the decals as they understood, the best time to install was AFTER the machine polish but BEFORE the wax coating.

As you can see for yourselves, i think the van looks amazing now. I need to get the wheels refurbished, or maybe buy some new ones... but I'm well happy with the look now.

image4.jpeg

image3.jpeg
image2.jpeg
 
Yes @lestynD i pressure wash it first,then snow foam it,then hand wash and dry it. Pretty sure a pressure washer shouldnt damage your coating but if youre not sure,perhaps ask the person that done it? Good luck
 
It's photos like that that resulted in me buying three black cars, swearing every time that I'd never have another!! :laugh:
That looks fantastic, when they're good there's nothing better, it's just hard keeping them looking that good, I had my black cars before ceramic coating was around.
I think you've had good value, obviously time will tell, but two full days of correction and ceramic coating, that sounds very reasonable. :thumbsup:
 
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