Pics Below, but read first to get the story....

So anyways, today at school my teacher says I have to polish this customers car. I was like cool, until i saw her black dodge magnum.

This was the worst hard water I have ever seen. But I started with my rotary.

Well I started with a medium compound, and well lets just say I had to go to the diamond cutting compound (one of the most aggressive).

Lets just say after about 4 passes with that compound there was still rings on where the hard water ATE into the paint... I showed my autobody instructor and he said, wow looks like were going to wet sand..
So yea , next week I get to wetsand and maybe even paint the front of the car since it might of gone through the whole clear coat

Some people just dont care.. I asked her once this is done are going to park in the same place that did this to your car.. She said Yep... ... Its alright shes still paying for it...

Heres some pics.










On this picture if you look toward the top you can see where I started polishing



Better Picture of where i started polishing



Another Before Picture



After some compounding I actually found out this car has pearl in it and not just black lol



An After Picture



Another After Picture beautiful reflection



But unfortunatly I could not continue because the hard water got so worse, like in the first pictures that the polisher couldn't get it all out, it just left rings where the hard water was at, thats why we have to wet sand now.. I used wool pad with diamond cut and still nothing..

Also it rained today so I snapped a few of my car



Nice shot of the pearl in my car

 

I worked on a car that was stained just like that before, the person insisted on parking the car where the city's sprinklers would shower and coat the car under Hawaii's hot sun. I had to start with some of the most abrasive compounds and had to work it down all the way to a light compound, just like how you'd work on a rough wooden finish basically. I believe most of the clearcoat was gone after we were done and we told the owner that if something like this happened again it'd be a new paint job.

 

WTF!!! some people are just crazy!!!

 

she has some major spotting goin on!
prob plenty of etching too-
you are on the right track and your pics are great.
she is very lucky that she found you!

 

Wow! That is just about the worst hard water spotting I've ever seen.

 

I worked on a friend's 2006 Civic Si and he had some type of hard water etching that was almost all the way down to the color level. You can actually see the little craters. Without taking the clear down to the lowest level in the pit to get rid of them there's not much you can do.

 

wow! i bet THAT was fun did you charge the guy? lol

 

no not yet, cause shes coming back monday for us to wet sand, then we will lay down the price for everything, but what sucks is this is college we just charge for materials not labor.. ..

 

That is disgusting, but you did amazing work

Nice water beading picture of your own car too!

 

What kind of college is this?

Let us know how the wetsanding goes. Tell her she probably gets ONE shot at this. If she lets it get like this again she might as well just schedule a re-paint.