Hi all!

Here's an Audi A3 that I did over the holidays, but I'm just getting round to posting it. The manager of an apartment building called me up and I really didn't understand what he was trying to tell me about the damage on this car so I told him I would come and look at it. He said it had some "stuff" on the hood and windscreen that didn't want to come off. Hmm, when I translated "stuff" into "customer" language I knew I was in for a treat... When I arrived I was introduced to the owner who happened to be a really hot French bird... single too... (I'm married ). Anyway, enough about the sexy French bird with an unbelievable body and big, brown, pouty eyes and... sorry.

Like I said, I knew I was in for a treat, but I wasn't expecting this >>





I was thinking "Sweet jeebus, what the hell is that???"



It was obviously some sort of salt and something else compound because it had dripped on her car from the ceiling in the garage. Whatever it was, it burned the paint and not a single chemical I had would even put a dent in it. I even used Super APC undiluted and still nothing. By the time I arrived this stuff had already set like cement. So the only choice I had was to wet sand it off. I wanted to take off as little paint as possible so I used 1500 grit to sand it off. Using 1500 sure took a lot longer, but I could monitor exactly when I was through the mystery mix and on the paint. After polishing I took paint readings again and on average only took off about 3-5 microns. Here's some during shots >>



After being compounded with a wool pad and Insta Cut #2. Normally I would have used a lighter polish but Audo/VW have THE hardest paints in the world... well at least here in Europe anyway.



The car got an ONR bath afterwards and was waxed with Insta Finish Premium Wax.



Random shots of the hood after being polished out with Insta Cut #15 and a finishing pad.











You can see here in the reflection where the paint is a bit wavy... this was the "burn" damage I was referring to. It burned little "valleys" into the paint!



And NO, I didn't dress the arches . Waste of product if you ask me.







Thanks for reading and to all the Playboy subscribers, thanks for "reading"!

- Jesse O'Connor

 

WOW- Thought it was gonna need a re-paint for sure! Nice work... Ever figure out what that stuff actually was?

 

Thanks mate! I thought it was going to have to be resprayed too! I have no idea what it was but it was very acidic... it was all over the ground too. Street salts with something else mixed in it... There was actually another customer that came to me when I was doing that one and he had identical damage. Unfortunately his needed a respray though because some jackass tried to polish it out and burned through the clear in several spots!

 

This same thing happened to an acquaintence of mine at a place I used to work. He just had the whole front end repainted.

Great work!

 

Thanks Alex! Actually that probably would have been much easier and I thought it was going to come to that for a while, but the wet sanding and bringing it back from hell was so much more rewarding .

 

Pics of said bird.

 

.... acid rain??? ... I hate PC ....

 

^^ Once again the Pic Master pulls through!!

 

Thanks guys! No pics of mentioned bird :*(... she was smokin' like e crack fiend though! It was some street salts (snowed like crazy all winter) and something else mixed in with it... burned the poo out of the paint.

 

Hmm, how about the GPS coordinates of the bird? So we can all google the birds flying in formation

It's nice to know that you were able to save that A3. it's a great feeling to restore something.