This 1986 Porsche 944 was bought by a good customer of ours as a track car and everyday driver. With 22 years and 56,000 miles on the original paint this Porsche was clearly had clearly been cared for and was in good shape overall, but still was far from looking as good as it could. We decided to go with a one-step paint correction to remove ~80% of the paint’s marring and RIDS, which would greatly increase depth and shine without removing too much clear coat from the aging paint.
Before:
Under the garage’s overhead lights the paintwork looked fairly glossy:
Closer inspection with LED lighting showed moderate to heavy marring that would be removed via paint correction:
After a wash with Optimum No Rinse and filtered water, the paint was decontaminated with Clay Magic’s fine grade clay and the plastic moldings were masked to prevent staining during the correction process. Following this, various pad and polish combinations were tested in order to maximize defect removal while still leaving a refined finish. Eventually a combination of HD Polish and Meguiar’s D300 on Meguiar’s microfiber cutting pads was found to remove ~90% of the paint’s marring while leaving no traces of micro-marring. This combination was used at speed 6 on the Rupes 21 Mk.II polisher, with the Rupes 75E and 3″ microfiber cutting pads being used on the tighter areas. Once the correction was completed, the car was wiped down with Optimum No Rinse to remove polish dust and the paintwork was sealed with Sonax’s Polymer Net Shield.
After:
Though the hood still showed pitting from 22years of use, the lack of marring made a great difference in shine and the visibility of the metallic flake:
