This black 2015 Porsche Macan came to us from Ames, IA for a paint correction and Opti Coat Pro Plus, as well as interior leather and fabric guard. What was supposed to be a routine new car prep, turned into a 2.5 day, 30+ hour detail. The results were absolutely stunning, but we did come across some serious defects, likely courtesy of Stuttgart.

With only 600 miles on the clock, this car wasn’t terribly dirty, but it wasn’t clean by any means. It had endured a bit of rain and a few hundred miles of recent driving, along with a dusting of pollen.

We pretreated the car by spraying on a 1:256 dilution of Optimum No-Rinse. This helps lay down a base layer of lubrication and starts the process of encapsulating dirt and emulsifying oils. We gently cleaned the car in small sections with Optimum No-Rinse. Working on soft black paint is a great way to affirm the safety of the No-Rinse washing method. (click any image to enlarge)

Once washed, the car was starting to look really good, in ambient light..

However, under the scrutiny of a combination of high intensity halogen and LED lighting, we were shocked at the condition this car left the factory in. More than likely, at some point during the assembly process, technicians with small buffers, and de-nibbers went around and picked away at any imperfections on the car. This is not an issue, however, the compounding was never followed up with a polish, thus haziness and dullness were left behind, as well as some deeper scratches. Looking at a Porsche assembly video, we spotted right away where this is done.

The marks left behind match the signature of the tools shown in the video here

Half corrected

Cleared up

There were many rub marks around the car. A combination of soft paint, along with forceful rubbing results in this.

A very large portion of the drivers side rear door appeared to have been machine sanded and compounded. Unfortunately, black paint is not very forgiving and under the right lighting, massive hazing was present, along with some pig tail sanding marks, some of which were rather deep!

Before proceeding, we needed to know how much paint thickness was remaining. We took paint measurements all around the damaged area and ran into a 40uM variation. Typically German paint systems are ~150uM thick (inclusive of primer, paint, and clear). The average thickness seemed to be around 125uM in this area, with low spots close to 108uM! There was not enough paint remaining for a very aggressive correction to get the deepest of sanding marks out, but we were confident we could eliminate all of the hazing and the majority of scratches, restoring shine and gloss to the area.

This picture shows the difference a light correction makes on this area. As you can see, hazing is reduced, but still present. We stepped up correction and resolved the hazing.



The smudging around the light reflection is compound residue, not marring.

I did not get any good after pictures of this area – indoor lighting and black paint make that difficult.

Along the entire passenger side, we found this streak of compound marring.

It spanned from the front fender to rear quarter panel!

Naturally, it was resolved as well.

(screen grabs from video, excuse the low resolution)

Unbeatable shine – proven protection!

Since it was raining, there wasn’t too much outdoor photography. I tried getting some shots in the garage and was pretty happy with how it was looking. I got some more video and beading shots as well. It wasn’t until the client picked up the car and backed out of the garage that I got to see the full effect. I actually made the client stop just so I could get another shot of it!

Small beading, indicative of Opti Coat’s resentment for water.