Arizona Detail - Regal GS - CQ Finest, Wheels pulled detail

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Dealers….good ole' dealers. This detail was done right after the huge restore we had to do on a NEW C7. This car was brand new but had the misfortune of sitting on the lot a few months.





They love us….

The owner contacted us and told us about his swirl infestation lol - he wanted his new car to actually LOOK new and also wanted some hardcore protection to go along with it.


He came in, we checked it out and well yeah, it did need help. We thought a ride in this condition would be the perfect situation to use Adapt. We could use 1 step to get great results which saves us time, saves him money and still leaves a great job in the end.

We performed a test spot and got roughly 85-90% correction with a very glossy finish. We showed the owner and said if he'd like better than that, we could surely deliver, but if not then this is what we'd be looking at. He was very content with it and decided to go that route.

A few days before the detail he had a dent popped out of that trunk and for whatever reason they decided to go over it with rubbing compound…so that area you see in the first pic….WAS where we had done our test spot oddly enough….they kinda undid it lol. Whatcha gonna do?


So first thing was first, prep. We were going to skip the wheels and tires since we'd just be pulling them later on, no sense in cleaning them on the car when its WAY easier off the car.




There she was, awaiting her bath. The color was BEAUTIFUL. Hard to believe it was a Buick…nice design and…Brembo brakes? Yeah this aint your daddys Buick lol.


Prep being done…Dani spraying Iron X to help break down bonded contaminates on the paint:




Car was washed with Iron-X soap as well - which is quickly becoming our new favorite prep wash. Then a prep towel was used to take care of any contaminates left…the car was pulled into the garage and…bam!



Swirls!


Now as i said, this was going to be a 1-step polish, and Adapt came through like a champ. Its earning a permanent place on our shelf for sure. Not perfect but, pretty damn nice:




Before:



After:







Taped off that lovely trunk:




Both sides before:







And after:









Not baaaad at all.



This was consistent with the transformation we were able to get through out the car. A very nice combo of great correction and glossy finish.

But as I mentioned, there was more work to be done…these big wheels had to get pulled, cleaned, polished and Opti-Coated.




Up she goes.



And yup it was new but still needed some lovin'





As Dani would say "Grossness" lol



So wheel faces and barrels were cleaned. Tires were all scrubbed clean on both sides…just cause if you're gonna pull the wheels - you have to clean the tire on both sides…you just DO.








Thats better!!




Now the process was, i pull em and clean em - then Dani would take and polish them, coat them and dress the tires (both sides of the tires of course). While she did that, i'd clean the wheel well area, dress the plastic with Opti-Bond and prep the calipers for coating as well.

The first night we were able to get one wheel done, the other 3 were saved for the next day. Dani workin' the wheel in the cold:





Applying Opti-Coat Pro:




You can probably tell from how her eyes look but she was smiling cause i told her to make a cheesy product placement pose lol:






Very very nice!




Apparently on this wheel i got done with the wheel well early and received the added bonus of getting to dress the tires lol





And of course the lug nuts were to be polished and coated as well:






That night we also managed to get CQuartz Finest applied to the paint…it looked amazing on this red:







Here was Dani, still bundled in our freezing 50something degree weather out here at night (yes i know you mid-west folks want to hang us for that statement!) doing a final wipe on the paint after removing the 2nd coat of Finest:




Torquing that baby back down to end the night:






As you can see from the DAY LIGHT, we are now onto day two:




This is how we were looking after wells were cleaned, dressed and calipers were prepped.

Here Dani is doing a little polishing prior to OC being applied:






Smaller details were also completed such as plastic trim, door jambs etc:








I hated these exhaust tips…pain in the butt to clean but they turned out nice after some arguing with them:




They were coated too naturally.
 
Finally after all wheels were complete, it was time to pull her out for some beauteous shots:







I love reflections…i really do:




Obviously the star of this show though was the wheels:






LOVE that pic!





Ahhh buddy!










Gloss baby, lots of it:




And the small things really make a difference. This is why i LOVE using spotless water, it makes cleaning into grilles and vents like this SO much easier…and it really gives a very finished look to the vehicle in the end:








Remember…BUICK! Yeah you know you like it…



Now here is a very cool note to end it all. The owner came back 2 weeks later for his follow up wash…when he pulled up…we noticed a TON of white dots all over his passenger front quarter panel and door. One word…sprinklers. The owner told us he had his sprinklers set to go on only when he wasn't home, but had come home for something in an off hour and BAM…white chickenpox!

They were heavy too, he ran his hand over it lightly and you could hear them. They had been on for around 24 hours. We were a bit concerned but figured we'd wash the car and deal with the spots afterwards if need be.

After washing and drying….well, there was no need to go after the spots. They released 100% just from washing. NOTHING visibly left and NO drag during drying or touching the paint. This is one of the huge plus's of Finest - we'd heard other detailers say they experienced the same thing, but it was great to see it in person.

Fun detail, first official "wheels off" detail (other than our own rides lol). We have a 370z with us right now that will be receiving the same treatment tomorrow/Saturday.

Thanks guys for reading.
 
Great work both of you :) I just liked you Facebook page for you!
 
Now that is what I love to see on a detail. A full on job pulling wheels and coating everything. Also nice to see the wheels being torqued down after installation as well.

Gave you a like.
 
Now that is what I love to see on a detail. A full on job pulling wheels and coating everything. Also nice to see the wheels being torqued down after installation as well.

Gave you a like.

Lol appreciate it. Going to be offering that as an upsell this year along with a few other things. Gonna do the same to the little nissan z tomorrow, put it up and pull em off! I dont miss going thru every area with wheel woolies, thats for sure!

Great job with the front grille, front bumper trim areas, and wheels!

Thank you! Small details make such a big difference for real, gives it a nice clean flow :)
 
Nice work, I always enjoy your posts. Quick question. With your use of opti coat and cquartz, why don't you use 1 of the 2 products for the entire detail? Why do you choose cquartz over opti for the paint? I only ask because I've been considering cquartz and am starting to see it used more than opti coat and am wondering its advantages. I currently use opti coat but am certainly open to trying cquartz if it's indeed a better product. Just wanted to hear your take on it. Thanks, again, nice work! Who woulda thought, Brembos on a Buick, lol
 
Superb. Man I like your stories. Let me see....she's freezing and you are there in shorts and t-shirt......I dunno.
 
Awesome. Those cars are really pretty. A friend of mine has one in White Pearl, it really sets off with those nice wheels. Great work again guys.
 
That first pic is APPALLING!

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I got tired just reading all of the details you did the work on... you musta been exhausted.
 
Nice work, I always enjoy your posts. Quick question. With your use of opti coat and cquartz, why don't you use 1 of the 2 products for the entire detail? Why do you choose cquartz over opti for the paint? I only ask because I've been considering cquartz and am starting to see it used more than opti coat and am wondering its advantages. I currently use opti coat but am certainly open to trying cquartz if it's indeed a better product. Just wanted to hear your take on it. Thanks, again, nice work! Who woulda thought, Brembos on a Buick, lol

In this case the reason was because we had seen opti-coat last quite a while on wheels -specially metal/chrome finished ones. So thats why we went with it on the wheels.

We went with Finest on the paint because it does offer the same awesome protection as OC, but it looks deeper, feels slicker - and after seeing how it released hard water spots, it seems to even have an edge on OC with water spotting. Plus the two year warranty. So that was the reason, we spoke with the owner about it in extent and thats what we decided on.

Note that we use CQuartz FINEST, NOT regular CQuartz, the difference is like between Opti-Coat PRO (which we also use), and Opti-Coat 2.0. Finest and Pro are ONLY available if you are an authorized distributor, where as with regular CQ and OC 2.0, anyone can purchase it - very big difference.

Corey at CarPro-Us.com is the ONLY distributor of Finest in the country - anyone else claiming to sell it is lying. You have to be authorized by Corey to purchase and install it.

That being said, 2.0 and regular CQ are both great products too, but they are not as good as Finest or Pro. Hope that helps :)

Great job!

Thank you :)!

Superb. Man I like your stories. Let me see....she's freezing and you are there in shorts and t-shirt......I dunno.

Lmao, honestly i was cold too…but you know how you kinda just get in a groove and you dont want to break stride…thats kinda where i was at. I was just moving trying to get as much finished that night before it was TOO late…so i didnt even take time to go grab a jacket lol
 
Awesome. Those cars are really pretty. A friend of mine has one in White Pearl, it really sets off with those nice wheels. Great work again guys.

Yeah they do look nice…i kept having to remind myself it was a buick lol…but hell i still liked it :dblthumb2:

That first pic is APPALLING!

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I know right? And like i said, that was the SAME area we had already polished when we did the test spot, and out of ALL the spots on the car thats where they went nuts with the rubbing compound. Guess they were going for an even finish :)

I got tired just reading all of the details you did the work on... you musta been exhausted.

Lol it was a pretty long haul. December was our best/busiest month of the entire year, we closed very strong. I think we have about 4-5 days off the whole month. Everyother day we were working, not all full correction/coating jobs like this, but we had at least 2 of them a week for that month. Trying to repeat that this month…so far- so good :)
 
Amazing that you both do that much work almost on a daily basis. Enjoy your youth. LOL
 
I really like your work. Every time you post, I know its going to be great. Liked your page too. Take care :dblthumb2:
 
Nice result Wills and Dani! That GS does have some nice angles on your zoomed in shots. I guess Buick plans to revive the GNX in 2015, but they will probably be limited production again and all be pre-ordered by collectors so we won't see any of them in the wild.

PS, What is "Adapt?" [edit: never mind; found it]

PPS, nice work on the white Tesla in the other thread too! White is such a challenge if you want to erase all fine scratches. Sucks to find a couple more a few days later that are only visible with the right sun angle and a really narrow viewing angle.
 
Very methodical and intricate. You guys do fantastic work.

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