Hi

So I just bought a 2 year old metallic black Golf to accompany our 500. The paint was quite badly swirled and the dealer (a main VW dealer incidentally) agreed (in writing) to have it machine polished as part of the deal.

When it arrived the swirls were still visible and I queried whether they had in fact machine polished it as promised. The email I have had back from the salesman says that their preparation people "mopped" it and got it as good as they could.

So the question is, what is mopping? And should it be as effective as a machine polish to get rid of swirls? Should I insist on a machine polish? Or another "mop"?

Any help or thoughts gratefully received.

Thanks in advance.

Mopping is machine polishing, it's a contraction ... sort of.
MOP = Machine Operated Polisher.

Eklipze3k said:

Mopping is machine polishing, it's a contraction ... sort of.
MOP = Machine Operated Polisher.

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That.

Sounds like one of 2 things has happened, It's just been hand polished and the salesman is trying to BS his way out of it. The operator of the Buff hasn't performed up to the level you where expecting. Probably from insufficient training with the equipment.

As above they have probably given it a very quick once over either with or without a machine polisher

Just watch out for them using a "filler" polish which fills the swirls rather than remove them...

Problem is to do it correctly it takes a long time Took me a full day to machine polish my GP and it only needed a very light cut as the paint wasn't too badly swirled....


German car paint is generally very hard so takes even longer and needs more aggressive combinations of pad and compound which then needs to be refined with a finishing polish to remove the marring from the harsher cut..

In both cases if the correct compounds / pads / work time is not used/ carried out you will end uo with something like this...



https://www.fiatforum.com/car-care/182419-started-machine-polish-gp.html

I'd agree entirely with the comment that German paint can be incredibly hard to polish effectively and having a vast experience of bodyshops and their idea of mopping, I'd wager that they simply reached for the G3 Farecla and ripped over it very quickly. G3 is very sharp and not the best compound to remove fine marks. To remove marks, as seen above, you'd need it to be followed up with a finer compound that diminishes those marks further until they're no longer visible, giving results like glass..

Put some pics up mate and I'll see what I can think of....

First off, apologies for the delay in replying - I was on holiday in sunny Cyprus.

Secondly, thank you to all who replied. I am now better educated.

Third, having washed the car it seems I was a bit unfair on the dealer, as the swirls are really not bad actually - in fact, not sure there are any.... So no need to take it any further after all.

oh dear, never trust a dealer who says they'll machine polish your car for you. Sadly when time is money and they are doing it as a favour they will only ever cut corners and you'll end up with lots of lovely holograms as above.

if ever you buy a car from a dealer, ask them not to clean/valet/detail/mop/etc it, then take it to a professional to have done, dealerships are generally, rubbish, not all, but most

AndyBM said:

if ever you buy a car from a dealer, ask them not to clean/valet/detail/mop/etc it, then take it to a professional to have done, dealerships are generally, rubbish, not all, but most

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Agreed. My 500 had more swirls on it when picking it up than it did when I first saw it on the forecourt! It will go for a pro detail in spring/summer next year.

Funny you should say about German paintwork. The swirling on my parents' red Audi is a lot worse than that on my 500. :chin: