Sorry, I was bored. Cleaned up the car this afternoon and decided to throw up a couple crappy cellphone pics. Tell you what, Audi earned their rep for having some of the best paint finishes in the business - this paint is all original with 154k miles on it, no resprays ever in its history. This is simply after washing it, no wax, no polishing, no buffing, just soapy water and a microfiber towel. I can't wait to see the gleam once I have the chance to claybar and high-speed buff this thing





It's nice to have bought the car from a previous owner who took the same kind of care of the car that I like to take when it comes to detailing. Maybe I'll go out and polish/wax it tonight. It's raining, kids are asleep, and TV sucks tonight.

 

ya the paint is rly nice, i especially like how mine has faded over the years so my car is silver at night and tan during the day lol. i have a crap load of blemishes here and there though. i think i'd have to respray the whole car to get it perfect.

 

You got lucky man, my a4 was a Bay Area vehicle for a while and it's all dinged up. Worse than that its got swirls in it so bad and its black so you can see every little rock chip in it. I used some "Fix It Pro" by Simonite to take out the swirls yesterday... Not impressed, I wouldn't recommend it to anyone. I'm told to use the McGyers Diamond Cutter, what do you think Upstate you seem to know the detailing deal.

 

word up to that!!! im at 10 years of Cali sunshine and everyone still thinks my car is a 2001 that has sat in a garage

They for sure do the best job paint wise out of anyone else.

 

I think the silver color must just be supernaturally nice. Mine is like yours...unbelievably good even for a new car (but the fact that it's ten years old makes it even more amazing!). The post face-lift A4 silver is pretty, but it's no match for Aluminum Silver Metallic which might as well be alive for how liquid and gorgeous it is. In my opinion, that is.

 

Well said by everyone, really - I agree with it all. Sineo is definitely onto something with her comments on the colors.

Drocka4, if you have swirls in the paint, there are a few things that you can do at one time to bring it back as much as possible. First off, your swirls could be in the clearcoat or in the wax alone (sounds like clearcoat though, considering what you said about trying a swirl-removing compound already). I'd claybar the car, which will strip the finish right down to the clearcoat. Hit the paint with a paint cleanser as well for extra insurance. Use a high-speed buffer and rebuff the clearcoat itself (you can buy them pretty inexpensively anymore, maybe $100 or so, and they'll last a lifetime - you can make money on the side detailing cars too, and that'll pay for the buffer after about a car and a half). Then put down two coats of good polish, and a coat of good wax. Wait til the next day and do a final wax coat.

You can mix and match any products out there, but if you want a budget multi-step system (the only way to go - the all-in-one wax/polish/cleanser compounds have compromises), look at Meguiar's three step system (paint cleanser, crystal polish, finish wax). It'll run you about $25 for all three, and for a budget system, it really gives a nice finish. Or stop at a Harley dealership and pick up some wax there called S100 (that's the only place I've ever found it). It is simply amazing - use that instead of the Meguiar's wax. Apply all the compounds with microfiber towels, and buff them off using an orbital buffer (they reciprocate very quickly and have far less chance of swirling the finish when you remove the compounds). That should handle it for ya You could do all of this in one day, and plan to spend about 6 hours or so working on the paint, but the combination of high-speed buffing and a claybar treatment can make a 10 year old paintjob look to be about 3 hours out of the paintbooth. It's unreal what you can do with it.

Here's a couple pics from last summer, when I had washed the car and just did a coat of crystal polish and a coat of finishing wax (steps 2 and 3 of the Meguiars 3-step I was talking about). No claybar, no buffing, no paint cleanser. For about $16 for the polish and wax, it works VERY well - the reflections in the paint are very sharp.







It came out that nicely with just two compounds. Imagine what is possible when you do the whole thing like I was talking about up above. And since you have a black car, you may see even more amazing effects - a color like that shows all the imperfections for sure, but give it the works like this and you won't believe it. My 300ZX was black, and after doing a claybar/buff/multistep, it looked like a new paintjob. I finished it with the S100 wax, and I could've used the door panel as a black mirror to shave in.

 

Yeah under my swirls my paint is beautiful. Other than alll the minor scratches. But im going to clabay buff and wax it sometime soon.

 

Thanks for the info Upstate, I'll look into that because I want my paint to be all pretty like the rest of you guys and girls.

 

No problem man - spending some good, quality time on the paint finish of your car (6-8 hours), you can end up with amazing results. When you clay the car, do rectangular motions instead of circular as when you wax it. I go across, then vertically, and sometimes even diagonally after that, depending on the condition of the surface of the car. I do about two square feet of body at a time. It takes time, but be patient and diligent and you'll amaze yourself.

 

looks good bro.