Color Restoration
 

Okay, I just picked up a 95 Honda Accord and the paint was just awful. Swirl marks everywhere, scratches, blemishes, etc. Picture a 14 year old car that's never been 'cared' for. This may be my beater car, but that's not going to stop me from making it shine. I absolutely love the car for what it is, but I just don't like driving around something so beatup.

I figured I'd do a small writeup on how to restore faded color, incase anyone else here has an older Accord that they want to clean up. I don't have pictures for everything because I wasn't planning on making a thoroughly detailed thread, but I have some decent ones going through the process.

I first washed the car with a new sponge (cheap $1.99 sponge from Advance) and Meguiars Car Wash (purple stuff, don't know exact name). The left side is wet, the right side is dry. This is just to show how horrible the blemish on the hood was.
https://i295.photobucket.com/albums/...a/DSC_0289.jpg

A little closer up, at an angle it has almost no reflection.
Attachment 21031

I'm now standing over the car, attempting to use it as a mirror and you can barely see my reflection from directly above.
Attachment 21032

After washing the car, I moved onto the clay bar, to make sure everything was off. I mixed products here because I had an extra Mother's Gold Clay Bar sitting around and I picked up some Turtle Wax Ice clay bar lubricant. This was after doing just the corner of the hood. Filthy :(.
Attachment 21033

Here is where I failed to take pictures. As you can sort of see, the rest of the car is looking decent and some of the hood is looking better. I wasn't sure exactly what order to use these products in, but what I did ended up working rather well. After the clay, I used a Paint Cleaner by Meguiars. It's part of a 3-step process, Cleaner, Polish, Wax. I also used a product called Color X, which is supposedly cleaner, polish and wax all in one. I first used Color X to attempt to bring back the color, and to my dismay, I had amazing results almost immediately. This is the Color X. I used a 10" orbital buffer to apply and a microfiber towel to remove it.
Attachment 21034

After removing the Color X, the paint was vastly improved.
Attachment 21035

Another angle after the Color X. Just to show that the blemish is still there, but nowhere near as bad.
Attachment 21036

A much better reflection in the hood. If you look at the fender, you can see that it's still faded, but that's because I hadn't touched it at this point. The hood was the worst part of the car, so I wanted to focus on that first.
Attachment 21037

I moved on to the rest of the car. The doors weren't bad at all. In fact, most of the car was in decent shape, it was just the hood and roof that needed A LOT of TLC. This is after just Color X. The reflection is decent, but I wanted to get as much out of the color as possible.
Attachment 21038

A closer up shot. It looks a little cloudy, but I think it's just from an over exposed picture. It's much darker in person.
Attachment 21039

After the Color X, I moved onto the paint cleaner, polish and wax. I was more than satisfied with the final results.
Attachment 21040

And here is the final product.
Attachment 21041

Here is an overlaying before/after shot. The scaling was off and I did it in MS Paint, so bare with the horridness lol.
http://i32.tinypic.com/24xpdzm.jpg

Oh and the wheels are already gone :D.

Hope this helps some people. If anyone has questions, feel free to ask.

make it shine
 

do you have any suggestions on which wax would bring back the shine in my 96 accord?? my car is a flamenco black and I would like to see the detail in the paint..

thanks,:cool:

Almost any kind of carbauna wax would work fine, however a good polish would do a better job getting the shine back.

Great job on the paint.

What about the windshield, did it have scratche marks? Did you do anuthing to it?

Mine after 14 years looks pretty bad, I was thinking of repalcing it but that would cost $$.

Got a 95 as well, Looking Pretty cloudy when i see my reflection, But my question is that passenger Headlight looks almost new, Did you clean that as well? If so what did you use?

I didn't do anything to the headlights. The D/S has some writing on it like it was replaced at a salvage yard, so that's probably why it's so much foggier.

wash it first, then do a claybar, then move on to Meguiers #80 or #81 polish. It has a light to mediu8m cut base and will remove minor defects and swirls. Then use Meguiers #26 Carnuba wax as the final step.

I suggest you use a nice DA polisher like the Porter Cable 7424. It's great for everyday use and wont burn holagrams in the paint like an orbital can.