Dealer buffed my FJ to death.

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"He went on to say that the swirl marks would come back after a few washes because it is a black truck and black vehicles always have swirl marks."

WOW that is a load of B.S.:rolleyes:

its to bad people cant own up to there f-up's
hopefully the dealer owns up to it and compinsates you so you can take it to someone that know what they are doing. good luck
 
Invest later on in a Porter Cable orbital sander #7336 and Griot's Machine Polish #2 and 3, and their Best Of Show wax.

Your swirl marks will disappear from using the Griot's products.
I like Ripsnort have been using the Porter Cable and Griot's stuff for years.

I just did mine today with the claybar (used with the sander) and followed up with the BOS wax.

It took off a few small scratches I had too.





Many also have good luck using Zaino products on black vehicles, but you have to do it in several steps, and by hand.

Using the Porter Cable today I clayed and waxed the whole rig in about 90 minutes or less.

And you can not burn your paint with this system either, it is designed to take out swirl marks.
 
I really like this forum. It is filled with great people and good advice.

Thanks to all.
 
Basically, you are being taken by this dealership. They did a bad job on your paint, and now are not going to do right by you.

The only thing left to analyze is whether or not you're going to take it from them.

Good luck.
 
Basically, you are being taken by this dealership. They did a bad job on your paint, and now are not going to do right by you.

The only thing left to analyze is whether or not you're going to take it from them.

Good luck.


Sure sounds like they are feeding you a dick sandwich to me too. Tell them to piss into a fan, you want a repaint.
 
If there are being that bad about there buff job I wouldnt want them to send it somewhere for a repaint especially on a all black rig. They would probably send it to macco or have someone come to there lot and paint it in one of those easy up tents:)
 
Basically, you are being taken by this dealership. They did a bad job on your paint, and now are not going to do right by you.

The only thing left to analyze is whether or not you're going to take it from them.

Good luck.

I agree with Jay. I would be very upset.
 
I can't believe what I am reading....I was just browsing in this forum and stumbled onto this thread.

#1...everything that service manager said to you is BS. He is not a paint expert, all he knows how to do is upsell overpriced maintenance packages to soccer moms.

Take your truck to a couple proffessional detailers and get quotes to have the paint fixed. Take those quotes to the dealer and tell them they need to make this right. DO NOT LET THEM TOUCH YOUR TRUCK AGAIN. I guarrantee that all they did was cover it up with a filler loaded wax that will wash off in a couple of weeks. This can be fixed, but it needs to be done by someone who knows what they are doing.

Take this as a lesson learned, never let anyone you don't trust near your truck with any detailing product unless you are absolutely sure about their detailing knowledge. Especially if your truck is black.

Good luck.
 
Black paint is a PITA! I have a dark brown fj 60 and a black 69 charger, the real one with 2 doors. :D I handwax both of them, it sucks but a power buffer is too easy to burn in swirl marks.
 
Swirl marks

I've been painting and buffing Auto's for a long time professionally so listen up! First of all, you got black and you wheel with it so you're asking for it. The clear coats are not fully cured when they arrive at the dealerships so they are a little soft and susceptible to light scratches and swirls. No doubt this clown didn't know what he was doing when he screwed up your paint so do what somebody else suggested and talk to someone who does this everyday professionally (body man who does painting ).It's true they don't put a whole lot of paint on these things but you'll probably be alright but without seeing it i can't tell. Depending on how deep the swirls are it will need to be buffed with an extreemely fine compound, rewashed, buffed with good quality (3m, meguires) Polish NOT WAX!! then hand glazed.With this being said EVERY auto will have light swirls eventually without waxing periodically, dark colors magnify this especially clear coats which yours is, make sure to always make sure your wash mit is free of dirt by always hosing it off during a wash and make sure to use a synthetic chamois.
 
One more thing, when buffing make sure to use a FOAM pad, not a wool one
 
Why a synthetic chamois over natural?
 
:frown: oh my, what a sad day it was when I picked up my TRD from the dealership after having a N.W. Package applied. The said that I had some off road pin stripes that needed to be buffed out before they could apply the N.W. Package. Now, instead of having pin stripes. I have some of the worst swirl marks I have ever seen on a new vehicle. The guy must have been drunk. When the sun shines on this thing I can see scratch marks from across the street. :frown: I had a guy I don't know ask me what happended to the paint job.

They said they would try and buff out the marks. Hmmm. Buff out Buff marks. I am not a painter so forgive me but isn't there only so much paint that can be removed from the vehicle before I see primer?

What do you guys think I should do?

I did not read past the first thread, but I just went through this.

I have a Dr. who has me detail his rides every 1500 miles or so, most never get anything more that a complete detail and hand wax (they all have the NWPP when sold) well one day Chewy (detailer) decided to polish his new Denali with 5k miles on it. I about freaked and had them go over it several times by hand and I felt 90% sure it was correct when it left. It was dusk and should have called him the next day...........But he called me and asked what he could buy for it as a fellow Dr. also has one and he wants to set them apart. I spit out the prices for GM performance exhaust, chrome tip, cold air intake, tinted windows and 3M clear bra, he just asked when he could drop it off. A few days later he rolls in a high noon and I about s*** my pants as this $50k rig looks like one polished it with a scotch brite pad. He dropped it off and I had everything installed over the next few days pondering my decision to send it to J&M auto body to have it polished as they have the best detailer I have ever seen. I made the choice to just do it and did not ask to cost, well I got it back 24 hours later and it was better than new! It also cost the store $500 to have them do it and we do alot of business with them. $44 an hour to make it perfect.

My point is that the dealer will pay to have it corrected and should not even question it. YOU call around to the best body shops you can find and ask if they have the best polisher for black ( im sure you have a dark color) and dont get a bid, you just need them to bill the dealer.

If you can get to Portland call Jim Justice at 503-653-5500 he is the owner of J&M auto body and has 5 stores and is well known and he can help you out.

Don't even let the dealer have the choice of doing it again, and the NWPP must be stripped and re applied after polishing......

After this you can wash them with no issues.

The service manager will do what it takes to fade the heat, take your case to the Toyota rep in your area (call Toyota to get his name and number) as they are a dealer and must make you happy. Also call the General manager as he will do what ever it takes to make you happy as his car is 10x what the service manager drives and just ask him if you can take his car home and buff on it. He will side with you if you are not a cock about it and just express your concern.



Shane
 
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any updates? I hope you got this taken care of, AATLAS1X gave you a lead to a guy who knows what he is doing. Have them give you a quote to fix and take that to the dealer's GM.

Hope everything worked out for you....
 
Update. It is much better then when I got it back the first time. The swirl marks are mostly gone. If I shammy it dry and hit it with a spray on wax after washing it looks shinny for a couple weeks. Of course if you look hard enough you will see my NW pin strips :)

I have the wax cure, it takes a little extra time when washing. But the results look good. The swirl marks are no longer noticable from across the street. In fact you can not hardly see them at all. Unless the FJ is dirty or I skip the wax.

Live and learn. I guess I could be a little more hard ass about this but I have better things to do.

Is there an easier way to size down a picture for posting? Here is a small area of the FJ paint after first buffing.

I really like this forum. Thanks for sharing your ideas.
Untitled.webp
 
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If you're still upset with this you can let Toyota know about this dealer - Contact Toyota's Customer Experience Center at 1-800-331-4331 and let them know about your experience.
 
The swirl marks do not automatically mean that an orbital buffer was used, nor does it mean that a rotary was used at too high of an RPM. Many things could have caused this, including debris during washing, etc.
Almost any scratch can be entirely buffed out if it can not be felt when running a fingernail over it. Color does not matter. As mentioned, darker colors are the most challenging to maintain. I recently took an extremely damaged paint job on a Land Rover (dark blue) to a point where no scratches could be seen in the bright sun.
To remove surface scratches, swirl marks, and spider webbing it takes a multiple step process, time and patience. Typically a compound, then swirl mark remover, then polish, then wax. The compound type (ie. medium cut) is dependent on the severity of the imperfections. For dark cars, a dark color swirl remover is used. A rotary buffer is the tool to be used and can easily be handled without any paint damage by simply setting at the correct RPM as speced by the manfacturer.
Preferred products: PS2, 3M, Pinnacle.
 

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