Sap Attack - A lot harder than I had expected.

Hope its all sorted properly cousin.it, looks pretty nasty.

I notice you have that little clear protective sticker just above the rear light near the tail gate edge, I hadnt noticed them on mine till recently one started to go black at the edge with dirt, havent tried to remove it yet! looks like the light unit may need removing to do properly.

(29-07-2012 11:20pm)PhilSkill Wrote:  Hope its all sorted properly cousin.it, looks pretty nasty.

I notice you have that little clear protective sticker

Actually.... they had the car for about two weeks since it took them some time to get a service procedure from LR. I'd say they cleaned about 90% of it and I'm in the process of going over the car inch-by-inch, centimeter-by-centimeter, etc. to identify the remaining spots that were missed or the first cleaning didn't quite get out. I have to keep the car completely clean to do the inspection so it's been sitting in my garage for about 3 weeks now as my day job has had me too busy to even feel like hanging out in my 100F degree garage to sweat it out finding the spots. So shortly there will be a second cleaning visit to the dealer.

Here's another picture from the front lettering:
   

I would not have noticed that piece of tape. I wonder if it's there to help with vibration rubbing the light assembly into the paint there? It could be there to slow down the wearing down to metal that I suppose could happen over time. No matter what it's there for, thanks to you it is going to bug me now!

What on earth is an acid wash ?!?!? Certainly doesn't sound like something that is going to do any long term good to your paintwork!

(30-07-2012 12:26am)WB Wrote:  What on earth is an acid wash ?!?!? Certainly doesn't sound like something that is going to do any long term good to your paintwork!

I actually used the generalized term "acid wash" and actually don't know if that's what they used. For example, the Iron-X product is technically advertised as not being an acid based product but will do the job in most cases. The detailer used it and a Finish Kare product on the Evoques he cleaned. I thought those pictures with the purple reaction in the detailing link I posted were interesting. Here's a product description for Iron-X:
http://www.cleanyourcar.co.uk/engine-and..._1048.html

The Finish Kare SIRR bottle says 'acid based cleaner' in the detailer's picture. As I recall, the Ford TSB talked as if they used an acid and stipulated that they had to measure the paint thickness and if it got below some threshold they just had to repaint the bodypart. Some of the warnings are to NOT get the solution on bare metal as it will attack it, but that's what you want it to do to the metal particulate caught in your paint. Here's a link to a Finish Kare SIRR description. I don't know what the Ford folks used:
http://www.autopia-carcare.com/finish-ka...mover.html

The original thought my dealer's bodyshop had when they looked at my Evoque was that they would buff the particulate out which would ultimately remove some of the car's paint until they got it all out. That sounded too aggressive so I started looking for and luckily found a few things including that detailer's description which I shared with my service manager.

I had to do a search on the Tardis you posted earlier and I have a really bad aphid secretion 'honeydew' thing going on in my driveway right now due to trees and I'm not looking forward to cleaning it off of my truck. That might just be something to try. Thanks.