This 2014 Jeep Grand Cherokee SRT8 was a recent acquisition by one of our repeat customers who purchased it out of state, towed it home and immediately called us to get the paint protected and looking properly glossy. Given its role as a daily driver, we decided that 22ple’s VX-Pro ceramic coating should be applied in order to minimize the need for maintenance and maximize gloss and protection from environmental damage. The paint had light to moderate marring in areas, which necessitated a one-step paint correction in preparation for application of the ceramic coating.
Before:
The wheels had some embedded brake dust and grime that would necessitate machine polishing in addition to a deep cleaning with Sonax Wheel Cleaner Plus:
After a thorough wash and decontamination process using CarPro’s Iron-X and Tar-X, the Jeep was pulled into the garage for inspection under LED lighting:
The pillars showed a fair amount of marring due to the soft, single-stage paint black paint used:
The paintwork also had its fair share of marring:
After inspection the paint was decontaminated further with Clay Magic’s fine grade clay, the trim and moldings were masked off to prevent staining during the correction process, and finally various pad and polish combinations were tested in order to maximize defect removal while leaving a fully-refined finish, sans micro-marring. Eventually a combination of Rupes yellow foam polishing pads and a mixture of HD Polish and Meguiar’s D300 was found to remove 90%+ of the paint’s defects while leaving a perfectly refined finish. All polishing was performed with the Rupes Mk.II at speed six with light to moderate pressure, with the Rupes 75E being used for the tighter areas. Following this the car was washed and dried, then wiped down twice with CarPro’s Eraser to remove any residual polishing oils and ensure proper bonding of the coating.
After:
