Morning Everyone, Got a pretty lengthy detailing write up here, so I hope you’re sitting tight.
It is honestly a long one, I hope you’re ready!
This car was booked in for an enhancement detail more than anything really.
The Customer wasn’t really interested in getting a 100% finish, but he ended up getting a better finish that he bargained for.
The Car has just recently had some work done which included Tarox 10Pot Brakes with Hawk Pads and Eibach Coilovers. It Also had a remap, so it was time to make the car look as good as it drives!
The car is going to be fitted with a new turbo back exhaust soon too so the owner asked for me not to bother with the old one, It was a bit nasty!
The owner had recently had the front and back bumpers repainted. I think it was about 3-4 weeks previous to me receiving the car, and they had been baked.
The owner was concerned about the paint match of the bumpers compared to the car. I suspected that the detail would put his worries at rest. The amount of swirls completely took away the colour and gloss in the older paint. The scratches added a grey matte with no sheen at all. Although there was a slight difference in the paint flake, I was confident the difference would be very small and probably not noticeable after a proper detail.
So here it is.
The car is a 2000 W reg, coming up for 9 years old. The car was owned as a company car, and then the person who used it bought it off the HP Company. And the next owner is its current one, my customer. It looks like it would really benefit from a bit of TLC from Miglior as you can see above.
It seems the previous owner was an automatic car wash fan, due to the sheer amount of swirls. There were a lot of Swirls, but apart from a few trouble spots, the swirls were uniform in a way. I’m sure you'll get an idea later on when the car is washed.
So...On with the Wash. The wheels had a lot of bedding in brake dust due to the new pads. So, a strong mix of acid free wheel cleaner was used.
All the wheels and arches were done, arches done with super degreaser.
Then the car was snow foamed with Hyper wash and left to dwell for 5 mins. Then Rinsed.
All the badges, grills and other difficult areas were done with the swissvax wheel brush
The car was washed with the Normal Procedure with the 2BM with a sheepskin mitt.
It was then rinsed off ready for claying.
The Clay to be used would be Megs professional Mild. Warmed up in some hot water whilst washing. Looking at the car, I nearly got out some aggressive clay, but with some patience, the mild was fine.
The bonnet was done first, real easy and surprised how clean it was.
Little did I know the driver’s side would leave my clay looking like this?
New clay please
Moved on to the other side and lowers
Nice!
So that left the paint contaminant free and smooth. I then moved into the unit to dry the car and get a real idea of the swirls and troublesome areas.
Now, Queue endless photos of unbelievable swirls!
The owner informed me there was rather a large scratch down the bonnet. Now, it wasn’t just one large scratch, the previous owner had tried to get it out with what looks like a "JML scratch master special" jobbie.
That looks like a toughie, can’t wait to get cracking on that one!
Some of the rest of the car
Some evidence of buffer trails, looks like someone beat me to it with a rotary!
Here are some more pics of our JML Special; these really show you how much of the shine has been lost on this car. It’s a shame, but
hopefully we can change that!
Right, now it’s testing time on the bonnet.
First up I used Extra Fine Compound on a Yellow polishing pad from gloss it. I thought this might leave a good finish, but for some of the harsh marks on the bonnet, it couldn’t cut it!
I know the owner wasn’t after a 100% job, but it seemed a shame to not go that little extra mile to 90-95% correction.
So with a brief consultation with the owner, I moved onto a white gloss it pad with Fast Cut plus. With careful monitoring of the paint with the PTG, I was satisfied that this combo was a winner for the day.
I could get 95% of the swirls and RDS out with a lengthy pass with this combo. The white gloss-it foam pad proved key in this operation, it was really stable in all conditions and predictable.
Remember our JML special? Well...one pass got rid of some of the surrounding scouring esque marks, but the original one remained, along with deeper surrounding ones.
After checking with the PTG, I was going to move onto a wool pad, but I tried again with the same combo and here are the results! :)
All gone. There were some deeper bits to the scratch, which still remained. These bits were broken up along the length of the scratch, and about 15% of the length was left.
With it being hardly noticeable, and there being a HUGE difference from before to after, the decision was taken to leave it be.
I didn’t want to compromise any more clear coat by going for another hit.
Bonnet done, Wing not. The paint here hasn’t been refined yet obviously, that’s going to be done after the major correction is finished.
The entire bonnet done now.
So, satisfied with the outcome of the bonnet, I plodded on around the rest of the car, armed with my ptg for some more readings. There were many areas that needed specific attention, so I carefully measured the whole of each area and spot corrected.
I didn’t include the front and rear bumpers in the fast cut plus procedure, they simply didn’t need it. They had some marring and buffer trails, and a few light scratches, but not deep swirls as such. These will be dealt with later on.
Here's me getting to grips with the roof. It looked to me like there had been some nasty brushes used on the roof, leaving some awful marks, some of which would need wet sanding. The customer didn’t want me to use my time like that, so settled with some remaining RDSs in the roof.
Here’s some 50/50s from the roof
I did the roof with the White Gloss it pad and FCP, but also Refined the finished with SV cleaner fluid so I didn’t need to get up there with the steps again, or lean over the car much.
So onto the sides of the car. Oh boy, those marks!
Same combo was used giving these results. I will let the pics do the talking!
Now, onto the boot. It seemed this had a spot repair on there, I couldn’t see any painting lines though, and the colour match was spot on, even under the sun gun!
Normally I can spot a smart repair a mile off, but I only spotted this my PTG
Some care to be taken here for sure!
Now onto the other side! Again, the Pictures are going to do the talking rather than me; this write up is probably too long already!
And with the Sun Gun for the real test
Now, Moving down to under the bump strips I noticed before there had been some work done on there. I don’t know how long ago this was but the lacquer was in a bad way.
I really didn’t want to touch this and let the owner know. What I did was fill the peeling off with some fresh lacquer and let it dry. So this was left and hand polished carefully the day after with some cleaner fluid. The Owner appreciated I didn’t want to go heavy handed on clear coat that was clearly unstable. A compromise agreed by the owner. Probably a sensible thing to do, especially as a good amount of correction was achieved later.
Filled, looking a lot better
The Door pillar strips were looking worse for wear too. I wanted to polish these whilst the car was still dusty, as cleaner fluid didn’t really do
much. So a 3m yellow spot pad along with Extra fine Compound was used.
This turned them around like this
Now at this point, there’s been a lot of polishing with some heavy FCP compound. This left a lot of dust, too much to be wiping off.
So out the car went for a snow foam and rinse. I also gave the tyres a good scrub.
The Paint was looking so much better now; a lot more colour and shine, with still more to come though. It still needs finishing.
Moved back into the unit for drying. I always roll the cars straight into the unit even when the car is wet. I prefer doing this as to reduce
the chances of any dust blowing onto the car whilst outside.
So the car was dried off with a fluffy drying towel and leaf blower to get rid of all the water in any creases or crevices.
Now, I tackled the interior rather than carrying on with the exterior. I like to break it up a bit if its economical for me and the customer.
So. Grimy interior shots await.
Plenty of dust dirt and grime. It was getting on for 8PM I think here so I didn’t take as many photos as id like! I also didn’t take any after shots until id finished the whole car! :(
