Hi guys, thanks for checking out another write up of mine.
This time, we have another Golf Edition 30, but this one is rather a special one! Its our very own "greener's" car aka Nathan. It has a Matt black vinyl wrap and is a true show car. It only comes out for shows and the odd trip to the Nurburgring. Other than that, it’s garaged. It is Naths pride and joy.
Nath had the car wrapped matt black with the idea it would be easier to maintain than the original paint work. That worked out a little different in reality. With a matt finish, it picked up marks very easily. Finger prints, water marks and light scuffs really took away from the finish. It holds water like a sponge too and dries with nasty marks.
So, Nath brought the car us to be protected or waxes. Now, it’s a bit of a tricky one, waxing a car without making it shiny. So, we used Swissvax Opaque wax that has been specifically developed to not change the appearance in matt paintwork.
Here is the car on arrival.
Straight on with a full wash procedure. All arches, wheels, tyres, bodywork, door shuts, grills cleaned in the usual manner.
The car was then brought into the unit.
The car was full of oily marks and splashes
The vinyl was then cleaned with Swissvax Pre-Cleaner Opaque.
And wiped
This helped a lot to get rid of the oily marks on the car that were so easily picked up. Any traces of tyre shine on the bodywork were easily taken care of with the pre-cleaner.
After the Pre-cleaner was used, we removed the red vinyl on the front splitter on request of Nath.
Now it’s time for some wax.
Here you can see a waxed area before buffing off.
Don’t worry, that will calm down a lot after buffing. After the wax cured and the residue was removed, I went around the whole car again 3 hours later which smoothed out the finish again.
Test section of wax curing
I decided to do a 50/50 on the bonnet
Wax curing
When buffed off, the wax left a very subtle change in depth in the film. Bear in mind, this was before the 3 hour period where I went around the whole car again buffing. Nath loved the subtle added depth in the vinyl.
Below is another shot of how the wax levelled out the film, making a much more uniform finish. Something which is hard to achieve on a matt surface. Underneath the bump strip has yet to be treated.
Another huge advantage of protecting a matt finish like this is it will be far more capable of repelling water. Matt finishes normally cling onto a silly amount of water. Below is a small splash on the paint.
This will stay like that for about 15 minutes until it develops to a dry stain. Not just a water mark, it really almost stains the finish!
Once the surface is treated, it repels water like it should do!
Beading and a Matt finish are not something you'd normally see in the same sentence!
Once the whole car was waxed, which took a LONG time due to the matt finish; I completed all the finishing items. The exhaust was cleaned with Swissvax metal polish. The wheels were waxed with Swissvax autobahn after being polished with Cleaner fluid. Tyres dressed with Pneu. Arches dress with 303. Any shiny areas (a few are still there!) were waxed with Best of Show.
350+ Horses wanting to play!
Total work time: 9 Hours! It sounds a lot, but the waxing stage in a finish like this is unreal, if you are going to do a proper job!
Thanks for reading guys!
Swissvax Detailer: Covering Manchester, Lancashire and North West 
