Bentley Bentayga Speed: Correcting a Lot of Black Paint, One Small Square at a Time

Black Outside, Red Inside, W12 Up Front

The Bentayga Speed is Bentley's idea of a fast SUV. It has a twelve cylinder engine, more than 600 horsepower, and an interior that's nicer than most living rooms. This one is black over a full red interior, with red stitching, a red steering wheel and Speed lettering on the door sills. It's a serious piece of machinery.

It's also an enormous amount of black paint, and black shows everything. The owner wanted it corrected and ceramic coated. I get asked a lot how we tackle a vehicle this size without the quality dropping off by the end, so that's what this post is about.

You Never Polish a Whole Panel

The mistake people imagine is that we start at one end of a door and run the polisher to the other. If you did that, the polish would dry out before you got back to where you started, and the result would be patchy.

What we do is divide every panel into small squares, each one roughly two feet by two feet. A square gets a few slow, overlapping passes, first side to side and then up and down, so the whole area is covered evenly. Then it's wiped down and checked under the lights. Only when that square is right do we move to the next one, overlapping the edge of the last so there's no line between them.

A Bentayga door is a big panel. Done this way it's a dozen small jobs, each finished properly, and that's why the last panel on the car gets the same result as the first.

Pads Get Tired Before People Do

As a pad works, it fills up with spent polish and the tiny amount of clear coat it has removed. A loaded pad stops cutting cleanly and starts to leave a haze of its own, and on black paint you see that right away.

So pads are cleaned after every couple of sections and swapped for a fresh one regularly. On a vehicle this size we go through a stack of them. In one of the photos you can see two machines side by side, each with its own pad, so there's always a fresh one ready to go.

Big Machine, Small Machine, By Hand

The large, open areas, like the doors, the hood and the rear quarters, are done with a full size polisher. You can see each of those in the photos.

A Bentley also has a lot of detail. There are sharp creases over the rear haunches, tight spaces around the door handles, and trim everywhere. Those areas get a smaller machine with a smaller pad, and the tightest spots are finished by hand. Before we start, the edges and trim are taped off so the polisher can't touch anything it shouldn't.

After each stage, every panel is wiped clean. There are photos of that around the door handles and across the hood. The wipe removes the polishing oils so we can see the true finish, and it leaves bare paint for the coating to bond to.

The Ceramic Coating

With the correction done, the Bentayga was ceramic coated. On black, the reason is easy to explain. Black paint shows water spots, bird droppings and bug marks more than any other color, and a coating is chemically resistant, so all of those have a much harder time leaving a stain.

It also makes the surface slick. Dirt releases more easily, and the car takes far less rubbing to wash. That's what keeps corrected black paint looking corrected, because the swirls we just removed came from rubbing in the first place.

The Result

Corrected black paint looks like a mirror with a shape. Out in the lot, the Bentayga reflects the buildings and the sky down both sides, and the Flying B on the nose is sitting on a clean, deep surface.

It took a lot of small squares to get there, and every one of them was worth doing.

Have a Big Vehicle in a Dark Color?

We're a paint correction, ceramic coating and paint protection film shop in Plano, TX, and we correct paint on everything from sports cars to full size SUVs for owners from Frisco, Allen, McKinney, Richardson and Dallas. Bring it by and we'll put it under the lights with you and show you what we'd do, section by section. There's no pressure, and we're always happy to talk cars.

(469) 954-9735

info@humblecrewautospa.com

535 Talbert Drive STE 113, Plano, TX 75093

Monday to Friday, 8:00 am to 5:30 pm