Kia Niro with iron fallout plus an unknown hard plasticky coating on the paintwork. Gary worked through multiple solvents before dry sanding with Japanese flatting paper. Two estimates (worst/best case). Bonnet saved without respraying.
The customer noticed small rust-coloured dots on the paintwork -- iron fallout, which is metal particles from brake dust or industrial pollution that embed in the paint and oxidise. Standard on older cars parked near roads or rail lines. But this Kia also had something else on it: a plasticky residue coating over the top, possibly a sealant of some kind, that was not coming off the normal way.
Gary started with an iron remover (it turns red as it reacts with the metal particles -- that is the indicator that it is working). That dealt with the fallout. The other coating was harder. He worked through an acid product, then a citrus solvent, then a degreaser, then a product normally used on concrete to dissolve alkali residues, then a specialist plastic dissolver. Each one made some progress; none of them was the complete solution. James moved on to dry sanding -- a Japanese flatting paper that lets you work dry so you can see when the problem is gone -- and machine-polished each area after.
Gary was transparent throughout in the videos he sent the owner: two estimates, a worst-case (respray bonnet and roof) and a best-case (everything polished without respraying). The bonnet was a 50/50 chance; the roof he was more confident about. In the end, the bonnet came through without a respray. The result -- after all that work -- was a car that looked like a million dollars.
Gary's comment at the end: never quite seen anything quite like this stuff before. Sometimes you work out what the problem is as you go.
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