How To Polish/clean A Faded Carbon Fibre Bonnet

[south west motorsport]

To see the full version see http://www.bodykitsonline.co.uk/blog/?p=339#more-339

For those of you like me who have a carbon fibre bonnet that has the dreaded sun bleached faded look then this blog post is for you to read. Ive tried a whole host of things to polish out the faded appearence but 95% of the time it just looked rubbish.

This is how my bonnet looked at 15.00 today

As you can see the bonnet is very dull and almost white in places, not the best look for a very expensive item on show cars. What i used was a cutting compound called G3 you can buy it from all car accessory shops or from us @ south west motorsport for about £13 a tube, it is expensive but i think its the best money can buy. You will also need an electric polisher usually called a buffer or a mop, not one of the big disc things from Argos a proper heavy duty one with a 5″ pad on it, apply a mist of water over a small area of the bonnet and rub some compound onto the wet patch and rub it around a bit either with a cloth or preferably the mop head, it is advised to wear old clothes or overalls for this job as it is messy, using the mop firmly pressing doen on the bonnet start to polish, be very careful not to keep the mop in one position too long as it will run the risk or burning through the laquer. Once this patch has been done, follow this step until the whole bonnet is complete, if like mine it may need more than one attempt. After you are happy with the results use a silicone free polish, i found Meguiars step 2 to be the best, again you can buy this from most car shops or from us. Below you can see the bonnet at 15.30, it was hard work but it looks 10 times better now, still a bit faded in places but its a good start.

One thing to add, use a hose pipe and sponge to wash the car after to clean off all the polish splatter.

[pezza_no1]

Now that's what I call a job well done lol

[Guest sti3_lewak]

Thats amazing... Might have to come and spend a day with you and can show me the best way to clean a car..... i shall even let you demo on mine

Excellent Job there my good sir

[monkip1]

I think I need to do this to my carbon fiber lip on my P1.

[south west motorsport]

Just re-visited this forum for the first time since I wrote this thread. I still have the car but it looks quite different now

[Rick N]

[subarucraig]

Wow where you been for 3 years ?

[south west motorsport]

Just busy working, and not realising how fast time was flying by lol

[monkip1]

Its not a messy job if you dont use as much water

[south west motorsport]

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Edited August 1, 2013 by south west motorsport

[south west motorsport]

above is how the car is looking now