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GTI to Golf R?

aloha_from_bradley

Autocross Champion
Location
AZ
All cars are nothing but problems after an accident, depending on where the damage was.

I wrecked my first MK7 GTI w/ 1764 miles on the odometer going too fast on a highway exit on stock tires, careened into the curb. Full F+R suspension, control arms, axles, ball joints, subframe etc. you name it, it was replaced.

the car drove like a bag of dicks until I traded it in at the end of the lease. So glad I made that fateful mistake on a lease and not a car I actually owned.

adter the repair work was done the steering wheel felt like a fisher price toy and there was lots of wheel hop/torque steer on stock power WOT, even with upgraded tires. Had the drivers side ball joint replaced twice, some other work done all under warranty (despite the issues being fallout from my accident). Nothing ever fixed it.

I would never buy a rebuild.

My wife was T-boned, albeit at low speeds, at a 4 way double lane intersection. One car went and it was then my wife's turn, but the car next to the car that went first (which was on the outside lane) decided to go right after even though they didn't stop first. Of course this means she runs right into my wife at about 30 MPH.

The car needed a door, quarter panel, a bunch of permanent body work, I believe some suspension components. Never drove the same. For some reason the car didn't run right. Not sure how it correlated, but it was just never the same. Also, matching paint is a lot harder than most people would think. Especially if you have lots of flake or pearl options. Takes a real wizard to blend paint between panels, namely the plastics bits and bumpers.
 

bentin

Autocross Champion
Location
Austin, TX
Car(s)
23 Golf R - 3 Pedals
Also, matching paint is a lot harder than most people would think. Especially if you have lots of flake or pearl options. Takes a real wizard to blend paint between panels, namely the plastics bits and bumpers.
Oh, it's pretty much impossible with metallic or pearl, that's why body shops prefer to blend into adjacent panels, just to ease the transition. Of course that also makes it super easy to detect repair work with a $50 paint thickness gun. Even matching solid color paint is very hard, especially between bumpers with flex coat and metal panels with regular primer. Mazda is notoriously bad at this one, brand new cars on dealer lots have visibly mismatched bumpers.
 

aloha_from_bradley

Autocross Champion
Location
AZ
Oh, it's pretty much impossible with metallic or pearl, that's why body shops prefer to blend into adjacent panels, just to ease the transition. Of course that also makes it super easy to detect repair work with a $50 paint thickness gun. Even matching solid color paint is very hard, especially between bumpers with flex coat and metal panels with regular primer. Mazda is notoriously bad at this one, brand new cars on dealer lots have visibly mismatched bumpers.

I'd argue that most cars have different color plastic bits from metal panels. Different materials entirely, regardless of primer or flex coat. Different chemical bonds. Just hard to perfect. Mass produced cars just don't have that kind of engineering behind them. Cost prohibitive for the mainstream manufacturers. It's just easier to spray everything the same and call it a day. 99% of buyers won't notice anyway. The other 1% live on this forum talking about it.
 

bentin

Autocross Champion
Location
Austin, TX
Car(s)
23 Golf R - 3 Pedals
Years ago when we bought a B5.5 A4, it clearly had a door damaged at the port and one door was clearly a different shade than the rest of the car. The dealer body shop fixed it much better, but it still sucked to have a new car that required paint right from the start. It was a car we'd ordered, so not really ideal to just walk away from it, but the certainly crossed my mind. The sad thing is that it was a much worse car than the B5 it replaced, lots of rattles, lots of recalls and the 5V motor didn't seem to have any advantages over the previous 4V motor. That thing led me to BMW for 15 years, until they stopped offering manuals in nearly all of their cars.
 

sterkrazzy

Autocross Champion
Location
United States
Car(s)
Turbo. Blue.
I had a few parts on my CSG mk6 that needed to be painted and it was always stressful hoping it'd come out right. You give someone the paint code for it and they come back saying there's like 2 or 3 different versions of it to pick from. Then you've got different brands making the same paint codes, but none of them are exactly the same. I had to take my car up to my painters supplier and put color swatches up to it in order to figure out the right one. I looked at them with the supplier and neither of us agreed on which swatch matched the best, but I ended up going with his choice and it was perfect. Later on I needed a new front bumper painted, but had to take it to someone else for that. On the first attempt the bumper came out too light. The painter wasn't happy with it, so he gave it another attempt with a german paint that was a little more expensive, and it came out perfect on the 2nd attempt. He didn't blend it into the fender, but it looked perfect. When I went to go pick up the car he asked me if it had ever been rear ended and as far as I knew it hadn't. He tapped a few spots on the car though and on one side it sounded like he was tapping metal, but then he moved to the other side and it sounded like he was tapping on plastic or bondo. I had the car for almost 6 years by then and I never would have guessed it had been through anything like that. I'm not exactly sure what made him check for that though.
 

bentin

Autocross Champion
Location
Austin, TX
Car(s)
23 Golf R - 3 Pedals
I'm not exactly sure what made him check for that though.
Most body shops run a paint thickness gauge over the whole car before starting work. As a casual car detailer, I do before starting work on a car. Primarily it's to know that I have enough paint to safely do corrections, but it's also nice to know where you're dealing with factory paint vs repaired/blended areas.
 

aloha_from_bradley

Autocross Champion
Location
AZ
Most body shops run a paint thickness gauge over the whole car before starting work. As a casual car detailer, I do before starting work on a car. Primarily it's to know that I have enough paint to safely do corrections, but it's also nice to know where you're dealing with factory paint vs repaired/blended areas.

I've heard of shops doing this. Great and all, but what you really need to know is how much clear coat you're working with, not how much material there is down to the metal.
 

bentin

Autocross Champion
Location
Austin, TX
Car(s)
23 Golf R - 3 Pedals
I've heard of shops doing this. Great and all, but what you really need to know is how much clear coat you're working with, not how much material there is down to the metal.
You invent it, you'll be rich. As it stands, you just sort of work on assumptions that primer, color and clear are a nominal thickness, therefore, you don't want to remove more than a set amount without disrupting the clear. I freaking love solid stage, single coat paint with no clear for exactly this reason. Plus it shines so much better than cleared paint and you can do wet sanding on it and actually remove orange peel, unlike cleared paint where there's usually orange peel in both the color stage and clear.
 

aloha_from_bradley

Autocross Champion
Location
AZ
You invent it, you'll be rich. As it stands, you just sort of work on assumptions that primer, color and clear are a nominal thickness, therefore, you don't want to remove more than a set amount without disrupting the clear. I freaking love solid stage, single coat paint with no clear for exactly this reason. Plus it shines so much better than cleared paint and you can do wet sanding on it and actually remove orange peel, unlike cleared paint where there's usually orange peel in both the color stage and clear.

Yeah, tell me about it. Lots of guess work. I recently had my mom's car stage corrected, and there are some burn marks in the paint on the roof. The paint was very poorly maintained over the years and had lots of oxidation. It's just so hard to tell, especially on older paint. I try to minimally polish (using very mild polishes and only a 10% IPA mixture) and keep up with the paint on my vehicles to make sure I never end up in that type of situation to begin with. Only hand wash properly, literally a 3 bucket method with foam cannon to get most of the dirt off before I even touch the paint. I never wipe the car when it's dirty or with "quick detailers," and always have some kind of protection such as ceramic sprays or hybrid synthetic waxes. Clay bar only when absolute necessary, and try not to park in places that would require that type of maintenance to begin with. I've found that using a drying aid such as your favorite detail or Si02 spray eliminates the second step of having to go back over it a second time after it's dry. Also, hitting the glass with the same treatment as the paint is frequently overlooked.

I've got lots of little techniques and tricks I've learned in my amateur detailing journey over the almost 20 years I've been working on cars. It's almost therapeutic for me, definite stress reliever. My neighbors are always giving me shit for how often I wash my R. I honestly don't even let it bother me. Love having a clean ride, and watching the water bead right off the car the next time I wash it. Oh, and don't forget about using PH balanced soaps, unless you want to constantly apply protection to your paint which requires a lot more rubbing... and subsequently more risk of swirling.
 
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sterkrazzy

Autocross Champion
Location
United States
Car(s)
Turbo. Blue.
My neighbors are always giving me shit for how often I wash my R. I honestly don't even let it bother me.
lol, Last time I got a "hey you wanna do mine next?" from my neighbor I was like 6 hours into a detail. I had been working in the heat all day and I was so worn out. I had no response for him, all I could do was stare at him. After a few seconds he goes "ok jeez, it was just a joke" and he went back inside. I got the feeling he thought his comment really bothered me. I didn't say a word to him. I was so focused on my car and not paying attention to anything else, so when he randomly popped out with his little joke I wasn't prepared, just like a deer in the headlights.
 

gixxerfool

Autocross Champion
Location
New Jersey
Car(s)
2016 Golf R
lol, Last time I got a "hey you wanna do mine next?" from my neighbor I was like 6 hours into a detail. I had been working in the heat all day and I was so worn out. I had no response for him, all I could do was stare at him. After a few seconds he goes "ok jeez, it was just a joke" and he went back inside. I got the feeling he thought his comment really bothered me. I didn't say a word to him. I was so focused on my car and not paying attention to anything else, so when he randomly popped out with his little joke I wasn't prepared, just like a deer in the headlights.
I hate this comment. I don’t know why people think it’s funny or original.
 
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