VW Golf R graphene coating. Previous poor polishing left haziness and swirl marks on every panel; lacquer peel and overspray on front bumper. Full clay bar and multi-stage buff before graphene coating applied. Result: shiny enough to film.
This VW Golf R came in for a graphene coating, but the paintwork needed sorting out before the coating could go on. Gary runs through what was found and why the prep matters as much as the coating itself.
What the paint looked like before we started
The car had been parked under a tree; debris in all the rubbers, not cleaned for a while. More importantly, someone had polished it previously and had not done a good job. The bonnet was very hazy. The quarter panels on both sides were swirly -- you could see it clearly when the light caught them. The passenger rear door was particularly bad. The top of several doors showed the same pattern: haze and fine scratches left behind by a rotary machine used without proper finishing stages.
The front bumper had been resprayed at some point. The respray itself was not bad, but there was lacquer peel starting at the edges and overspray that had not been cleaned up. Fine scratches ran across most panels.
The prep
Clay bar first to strip all the embedded contamination, then a multi-stage machine polish to cut back the haziness, remove the swirl marks and bring the paint to a clean, flat surface. A coating applied over hazy paint just locks the haze in; the prep is what determines how the coating looks.
The result
Graphene coating applied to the whole car once the paint was ready. Gary filmed it at the end -- he could not resist. Dark colours show graphene particularly well; the reflections on this one were worth the excitement.
See our graphene coating page for details on the coating, and car polishing service for the prep work that makes it worthwhile.
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