DIY products for dull/faded paint

My new-to-me '90 Miata just arrived this morning. First order of business is to try to swap out the differential myself. It's toast.

But I also want to spend some time on the cosmetics. The car appears that it was never garaged. The once shiny red paint is now really faded and dull. It's one of those things where when the car is wet, it looks terrific, but when it's dry its' very faded and hazy. You can see in this picture the difference between the wet part of the car and the dry...look at the trunk vs the finish panel and bumper.

I haven't had too many cars with paint like this, and the few that I did I never bothered with. I have no expectation of making the car really "shiny" again, it would need a full repaint. But anyone had good experience with a Turtle Wax type product that will at least improve it some?

You'll need a buffer, possibly a DA, and about $200 worth of various grit foam pads and levels of polish, but it is doable. You're better off reading an already-written "how to detail" website though. It's gonna take you about 3 days to restore it, and about 3 hours to write the how-to...

Order the buffer from Griots garage. They have a great instructional DVD that goes with it and it's not likely to burn through your paint unless you really do something wrong.

Maybe try some rubbing compound and a good cleaner wax first. That brought back the finish on my red '93 Miata.

Sounds like someone needs to go over to autopia:

http://www.autopia.org/forum/car-detailing/

http://www.autopia.org/forum/car-detailing-product-discussion/

clay, followed by meguiars paint cleaner, followed by meguiars polish, followed by meguiars wax. i believe the meguiars products i used were called "deep crystal" or something like that. i use a wool pad on a makita variable speed sander. i have always been pleasantly surprised at how well this system brings back dead paint. i guess after having revived four or five cars now, i should raise my expectations.

old #7 polishing cream and a buffer to put it on. Remove by hand or you'll see the swirls. Then Nu-Finish! Yup the cheap E36 M3 in the orange bottle. E36 M3 just berkeleyin works the balls.

The red paint from those years is fun. It fades to a dull orange and can be cleaned right up! My 91 looked like it was not even washed for 10 years and after I finished, a buddy at work asked if I had gotten it painted.

No need to start with aggressive stuff as it cleans up pretty quick.

Meguiar's 3 step stuff worked good as described above, but I did it by hand. Wished I had a buffer!! Only took 6 hours with lunch and goofing off thrown in.

I was amazed....truly amazed at how well it shined up with just the paint cleaner. The other 2 steps seem to not add anything, but do them with 2 coats of wax.

Had good luck using Meguiar's Ultimate compound followed by a good wax.

Bruce

20 lbs of elbow grease and about 10 hours.

Rather than spending a bunch of money on a buffer and materials, I'd consider simply taking it to a good local detailer.

Meguiars.com has some good videos. But when my dad got his similar Miata, he just went at it with some Turtle Wax and elbow grease. Looked great. The rags looked as if he'd murdered someone.

I use cleaner wax on my red Miata with good results.