Hello there!
Here We Have a 26 Audi RS4 in Sprint Blue. The Owner Contacted me about his car as he said it was looking a bit tired and needed a spruce up. He mentioned he wanted a full correction performing on the car after I ran through the options with him. He wasn’t too familiar with detailing at the first point of contact, but soon after, he was booked in for a full correction detail.
The RS4 is one of my favourite “hot saloons†especially in sprint blue, one of my favourite colours. I’ve worked on several sprint blue cars before and I know just how good they look after some proper detailing attention. With any car, I am always passionate about the work I carry out, but I must say, on this Job, I had a little bit more. I definitely have a soft spot for a Sprint Blue RS4 with Recaro Seats!
Anyway, on with the job at hand. The owner dropped the car off late on one afternoon.
Here are some pictures on arrival.
I got straight onto giving the car a full clean down.
First Up, Wheels!
It was pretty clear the owner had gotten the alloys refurbished recently; there was evidence of painting and differences in finish. Nothing too major, just something to watch for. I was expecting them to be a pain to clean.
On with some Bilberry to start.
Now for the wheel inners to be cleaned with a Vikan Brush. Spoke Holes done with a Swissvax wheel Brush and the rest with a microfibre mitt. They were harder to clean than original alloy wheels, but I’ve had worse! They needed two hits with bilberry to shift the really nasty pitted stuff. Two of the Wheel inners required some Tardis too. This got rid of all of the lumps of tar on there.
All rinsed off and looking good.
Now it was time for the bodywork grime to be sorted out. I started off with some Snow Foam and citrus based degreaser, mixed in the foam lance. This gave a good effect and busted through and broke down the grime on the car that had dried on.
Whilst this was dwelling I set on the Grills, Panel Gaps, Fuel flap and badges.
Then it was time to spend a good few minutes rinsing off the snowfoam and trying to take off as much bonded contaminants as possible.
The car was now ready for my normal Two bucket method wash.
After the wash, as there was no wind, I decided to keep the car outside and wet to get cracking on the claying.
Clay of the day today was gloss-it used alongside my trusty last touch.
That’s the worst of it. For a three year old car, I was quite surprised how little came off the car.
So, Another Snowfoam later and rinse down, the car was brought back into the unit to be dried.
Looking nice? The car is certainly is looking nice from a good distance! Not so nice up close!
The car was dried using compressed air then a drying towel, to leave it dry as a bone! Then the car was left until the next morning.
Now, The next day, this is normally the part where I take lots of pictures of the various defects around the car, but this time I forgot and ended up getting straight into the masking up! Don’t worry, remembered to take some after I masked up!
All masked up and ready for polish. But, I better get those swirly shots! There is plenty to go at here!
Also, some funny finding and very deep marks on both driver and passenger side Sills. The Sills on the RS4 are prone to “traffic†as they are quite prominent.
Now I got onto properly assessing the paint condition.
Around the majority of the car, it was a healthy 125-135. But, there was one of two problem areas. One being on the front passenger side wing.
This was incredibly Low, but there was no evidence of any spot repairs, dings or pigtails from wet sanding.
Another problem area was the rear driver’s side door. On consultation with the owner, he told me that the door had been painted due to an idiot who keyed the car! So the paint read higher.
It was evident from a quick glance on that panel that there had been a repair performed. The paint match wasn’t bad at all, but the finish left on the paint was shocking!
After taking a closer look at some random strange marks, I satisfied myself it was time to start. Obviously, extra care was to be taken in the aforementioned areas.
So on with the correction work. I started on a pretty forgiving combo of pads and polish on the boot of the car, the exact spot marked with a laser pen. At 132 Microns, I had a healthy coat to work with. The Pad was a 3M yellow pad and the polish was 3m extra fine compound.
That didn’t do so much at all, so I upped the polish to fast cut plus, but again. It did round the defects and RDS’s but it didn’t do much to get rid of them at all. It was also not taking much at all off the clear.
So I opted to use Fast cut plus still but I used a White Gloss-It compound pad. It’s a more aggressive pad but I seem to get along with it better than the Green 3M pad. This gave a much better finish, but I did have to do two passes to achieve this finish. I was able to achieve at least a 95% correction. That is what was agreed with the owner, he didn’t want be spending silly hours on the car.
Moving onto the rest of the car now. The same combo was used on the bonnet. This really did need two passes though.
Taped up for a nice 50/50
Some with the 3m Sun Gun to really asses the paintwork after correction
I then proceeded to work around the rest of the car, mainly on the metal panels for now, which brought my round to the rear driver’s side door.
I started again with the yellow 3m pad. I did two passes on this area to achieve this.
There was the odd mark but I didn’t want to go any heavier on this particular area of the car, given the uncertain history of the paint. The owner was more than happy with this after a quick call.
All the door done
In that picture above, you can now almost see the subtle differences in the paint due to the repair. But unless it’s under extreme light, you wouldn’t notice and it is probably one of the better repairs I have seen.
More correcting
It looks like someone has been over enthusiastic with a sander or polisher? There is lacquer over the top of this. It was found on the underside of the passenger bump strip.
There were some strange marks on the passenger front wing. It looked almost as if steam had at some point been seeping out of the gaps around the panel at some point. This was only apparent on the passenger side. The marks were around the top corner of the bonnet, the lower wing and around the indicator. The marks wouldn’t come out with claying earlier or any APC. I can only guess it was from maybe the brakes over heating?
Anyway, here are some shots.
It came out relatively easily. Along with another perfectly corrected panel
Onto the more delicate plastic panels now. I decided again to use a yellow waffle weave pad to tackle these. Even though it was less aggressive I still achieved fantastic correction results.
Now, finally all the major Correction had been finished! It was now time to refine the finish! This was done with Swissvax Cleaner Fluid Pro
I also did the lights with this too.
Now all the polishing work had been done, the car was in a pretty dusty state. It was getting on a bit at this point, but I wanted to get this ready for protection work the following morning so I soldiered on!
So out the unit it goes, and look at that dust! I dusted it down in the unit too!
So it was given another snowfoam down and rinsed thoroughly. Then it was brought into the unit and blow dried and patted down, leaving it tucked up dry for the night ready for the morning.
This is the point where you see the light at the end of the tunnel. You see the transformation of a scratched tatty car, and then get full of dust, then you clean it off and dry it. Now you’re presented with a beautifully corrected car, and even though I had already spent 22 hours on the car, I was still looking forward to working on it in the morning.
So Next morning arrived and so I started on the protection. I didn’t get to spend as much time with the camera as I wanted but you still get the gist, I hope!
The Wheels were up first, with a coat of this
The tyres were then dressed with Gloss it Tyre Shine
The paintwork was treated with Swissvax Best of Show, this was applied twice with 3 hours between coats.
Whilst the second coat was curing I saw to the exhausts.
The windows were cleaned, all the door jambs were dusted and sealed and the grills were given a spray of Zaino Z-CS.
As I said, I am a bit miffed at the quality of after pictures I took. This car really looked stunning and the pics just don’t do it justice, I really need to employ some better lighting in the unit!
Here are some 3m Sun Gun Shots
Anyway, I hope you enjoy the afters!
Total work time: 26 hours.
Thanks for reading! :)
