You know those days when the weather conspires against you, no picnic, no BBQ, no car time?
https://youtube.com/shorts/P7SZ1HKNy...3vJ8kERKzuFtRV
Sometimes you just need to squeeze a bit of time out of them when nobody is looking.
Bottle of G3 compound and an old rag, joined by a knackered T-shirt.
Not exactly “Valet Heaven” and the purists will be sucking on their plastic refinish gel by now.
Still, a few minutes can change things, and add motivation and a feeling of accomplishment.
The whole Caddy is 21 years old, with loads of giffer style damage, careless scratches, tiny dings, chipped paint, rust in expected places. All these can be corrected with a bit of patience.
So I give you exhibit number one: @dozer my younger brother would walk away from a car like this “because it’s rusted” He hates rust.
Half the problem is the rusty water staining on the surrounding paint. After all….. it took 21 years to get like this.
So a few minutes of concentrated fingering gets you this result.
Other side, rear wheel arch, must be the plastic arch liner that chafed away at the paint, with added road grit and no cleaning.
And afterwards, just a bit better. If you now walk up to it as a potential buyer…… you can see the extent of the rust but it looks tidier.
Remember the previous life this van lived was as a wheelchair accessible vehicle.
Now you rarely see Macho Formula One drivers, or off Roaders and Burly Builders driving these cars, more often, irate women in long floral dresses and knitted button up jumpers with untidy hair, or their male counterparts wearing ugly black shoes. Now before you attack me….. THINK ABOUT IT. Looking after any form of disabled person takes a load more effort than shouting “
Johnny get your school bag, did you brush your teeth, put down the Gameboy/whatever, the bus is here, you’re going to be late for school” all in one extended sentence. So clothing, hair, your own life becomes secondary to the person you are caring for. Included in this is many sleepless nights, weekends between work weeks at a day job where carers don’t come because they get paid more at a local private institution, so suddenly the 48 hours you are meant to rest……. No rest because you are caring for your child/relative. I have good friends who do this every day of their lives and I can only respect them.
Washing, cleaning and doing maintenance on these become something secondary, maintenance usually covered by various motability schemes or manufacturers warranties.
The knocks, scrapes, dents and marks……
Often the result of trying to get your charge unloaded close to a buildings door, ramp or tour own home when the weather in the video above, prevails.
Just look at the amount of shameless dick heads parking in disabled spaces, or parking right up close to the rear ramps of cars, clearly marked as needing loading space. Think Stephen Hawking sized wheelchairs.
So the option of dinging and denting and scraping these cars are often forced on the drivers by society’s selfishness.
Rant over, for now.
When I bought the Caddy, this long scrape that someone had tried to clean up with a piece of 400grit sandpaper really bugged me, it had the clear coat scuffed, really badly, it also has an associated dent all the way down, and if you zoom in over the wheel arch bulge, more damage and what looks like ingrained plastic from another vehicle plus another deeper set of scrapes near the rear light.
But after previously sorting the Astro paint with a lot of effort, and hand buffing, I knew it was not impossible.
Marks are all obvious in the original for sale pics, I never took a better up close pic, but it’s obvious.
So I spent quite a bit of time on these marks, till the increasing rain stopped me outright.
I will be returning for another, more thorough and complete run at this, it should be possible to clear the paint scratches but not the dent, which I have to live with.
Better?
There is a lot to be said for just putting a bit of effort into things.
.