White Paint on 2000 Toyota 4 Runner

[foosorlose]

Hey guys. I'm new to this forum and need some help on making my vehicle look good again. I can see swirls and small scratches in the paint. You can also see where a bird or 12 has celebrated on my paint before. Also, the paint doesn't appear to be a vibrant white color. I bought this vehicle used and I don't think the previous owner took care of the paint very well.

Any help is greatly appreciated.

Wes

[Murr1525]

Re: White Paint on 2000 Toyota 4 Runner

You are going to want to read these first, to get a good understanding of everything. You also might like to read "A Lesson from White Paint" over at auotpia.org.

Meguiar's 5-Step Paint Care Cycle
Step 1 Wash
Step 2 Clean
Step 3 Polish
Step 4 Protect
Step 5 Maintain

Suggested Products for Taking Care of a New Car

What it Means to Remove a Scratch

How To Remove Swirls By Hand

How to remove a defect by hand with ScratchX

1986 Ford Bronco II - Extreme Makeover

Rotary vs. PC vs. Regular Orbital Buffer

Recommended Products - G100a Dual Action Polisher

Using the G-100 to remove swirls with the Professional Line

Each one, teach one... Ferrari Fiorano 355 F1 Spider

After that, ask away....

[Mike Phillips]

Re: White Paint on 2000 Toyota 4 Runner

Welcome to Meguiar's Online!

Matt has given you all the right links to the right information to bring yourself up to speed as far as learning what to use and how to use.

The nutshell version is this, since the car is a daily driver, you'll want to,

1. Wash the car well
2. Clay the paint using detailing clay

After this you'll want to either use a paint cleaner like Deep Crystal Paint Cleaner to clean the paint, that is remove all the staining, dirt build-up on the paint and in the paint and oxidation.

After that you can apply a coat or two of wax.

If you want to keep it Simple-Simon, the do this,

Same first 2 steps...

1. Wash the car well
2. Clay the paint using detailing clay

And after that apply ColorX really well to all the painted panels. ColorX is a strong and effective one-step cleaner wax that will clean, polish and protect your car's paint in one step.

Hope this helps...

[yalerd]

Re: White Paint on 2000 Toyota 4 Runner

Hi and welcome to Meguiar's Online!
Read those links and that will put you up to speed.

[J. A. Michaels]

Re: White Paint on 2000 Toyota 4 Runner

Welcome to mol. Read those links and do whats suggested and if you go to where you bought the car they will think you had a paint job. lol Seriously it will look alot better.

[Mike Phillips]

Re: White Paint on 2000 Toyota 4 Runner

Moved out of Hot Topics and into Detailing 101

[WrightDetail]

Re: White Paint on 2000 Toyota 4 Runner

Hey guys. I'm new to this forum and need some help on making my vehicle look good again. I can see swirls and small scratches in the paint. You can also see where a bird or 12 has celebrated on my paint before. Also, the paint doesn't appear to be a vibrant white color. I bought this vehicle used and I don't think the previous owner took care of the paint very well.

Any help is greatly appreciated.

Wes

Welcome to the MOL family

[foosorlose]

Re: White Paint on 2000 Toyota 4 Runner

I tried the above steps with washing the car, did the clay, did the Deep Crystal paint cleaner, then I did not do the wax yet. I can see water spots, etc. in the paint.

Any suggestions on what to do now?

Thanks,

Wes

[yalerd]

Re: White Paint on 2000 Toyota 4 Runner

Read the following link
How To Remove Water Spots

[foosorlose]

Re: White Paint on 2000 Toyota 4 Runner

Thanks for the info guys. I tried the everything except using the Scratch X with a polisher. Would this be the best thing to use in everyones opinion?

Thanks in advance.

Wes

[foosorlose]

Re: White Paint on 2000 Toyota 4 Runner

Any help on my last reply at all would be very helpful. Can anyone help?

[Murr1525]

Re: White Paint on 2000 Toyota 4 Runner

Using a machine can help with resuslts, depending on the kind of machine. What type of polisher did you mean?

The cheap $30 ones wont do much, you would likely do more by hand.

A PC or G100 or G110 would do a lot. Likely you wont quite want to step up to a rotary yet.

[oldmodman]

Re: White Paint on 2000 Toyota 4 Runner

Another thing that you may want to determine. Is the paint clearcoated or single stage.

I have a 2002 Toyota Corrola, Super White, and it is single stage paint. And before anyone asks, the car has never been repainted.

It's easy to find out. When you polish the paint, do you get a white residue on the foam pad or cloth? If you do it is single stage.

[Murr1525]

Re: White Paint on 2000 Toyota 4 Runner

Single stage paint should be more workable, but other than that, nothing would change.

[Mike Phillips]

Re: White Paint on 2000 Toyota 4 Runner

Thanks for the info guys. I tried the everything except using the Scratch X with a polisher. Would this be the best thing to use in everyones opinion?

Thanks in advance.

Wes

Hi Wes,

Just to make sure we're all on the same page, in order to remove the water spots or any below surface defect you must remove enough paint surrounding each spot or swirl or scratch, et., until the level of the surface of your car's paint is equal to or level with the deepest, or lowest depth of the defects you're trying to remove.

This mean you need to remove paint and depending upon how hard you clear coat is, how deep the defect is and you're skill, experience and process are all factors that will affect how hard or easy it is for your to remove paint. (remove the water spots).

As you may be finding out, removing defects, (removing paint), can be a challenge.


What it means to remove a scratch out of anything...


You may consider moving up to machine cleaning and polishing as it's more effective when it comes to removing below surface defects.