When I saw this car for the first time after shortly arriving at the owner’s house, I knew I had my work cut out for the day. The car is a 1998 Honda Prelude, and majority of the car has the original paint, but both rear quarter panels were resprayed when the owner fixed the common rust area a few years ago. The rear bumper was also resprayed due to an accident not too long ago. The car is parked outside year round, and is the owner’s daily driver. When I arrived, the car was covered mostly in dust. I took some pictures before I began but felt that the pictures after a full wash and claybar will give you a better sense of what I would be working with. Forgive me for being lazy and not wiping the car entirely dry before taking these pictures. It was something like 40 degrees last weekend and I needed to get out of the heat.

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Meticulous Detail - mobile detailing service for the Iron Piston community

 

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Meticulous Detail - mobile detailing service for the Iron Piston community

 

After the pictures, I moved the car inside the garage to put it under the halogens to reveal more defects. Took a couple of quick shots to highlight the swirls under different lighting.

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Meticulous Detail - mobile detailing service for the Iron Piston community

 

Before starting on the large panels, I noticed a ton of scratches under the door handle. The picture below is the passenger side, but the drivers side was just as bad. I wetsanded this area with 3000 grit, and then polished it by hand. I was able to remove majority of the scratches, but some of the deeper ones still remain.





So as usual, a test spot on a panel before any further polishing takes place. I felt that the passenger door was fairly representative of the overall condition – the amount of swirls were about the same everywhere on this car, expect for the repainted panels. The last 50/50 is my favourite.

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Meticulous Detail - mobile detailing service for the Iron Piston community

 

Wanting to finish this quickly, but knowing that this particular paint was going to take some time, I didn’t take too many pictures during the polishing stage. I did snap a few on selected panels to illustrate the before and after. The front fender turned out the best IMO.

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Meticulous Detail - mobile detailing service for the Iron Piston community

 

By the time I finished the sun was already down so I apologize for the lack of sun pictures at the end. Luckily, there was still enough light outside to showcase the finished results. Enjoy.

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Meticulous Detail - mobile detailing service for the Iron Piston community

 

Thanks for looking!

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Meticulous Detail - mobile detailing service for the Iron Piston community

 

That close up on the door handle made me sad, nicely recovered though. Such abuse needs treatment by the only one.

The rest of the car indeed looks very good but it has no visible rust either so that would've helped a lot in restoration.

Wondering how you'd reach under the spoiler?

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I was asked not to remove the spoiler, so I had to polish that area by hand. It was a small area so it wasn't a big deal...results would've came out better if I used my polisher.

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Meticulous Detail - mobile detailing service for the Iron Piston community