richy
New member
- Mar 27, 2007
- 5,158
- 0
I was contacted by a gentleman for whom I started the season this year with a brand new Cayman GTS. They had just purchased a brand new Macan for his wife and wanted a wheels-off Finest job for it too. As I started on the car, it was apparent that there were quite a few marks that needed to be corrected and much more than the standard high-gloss polish that I include with a Finest job would cover. This car, unlike the other, is a lease, so he was not as concerned about the protection but still wanted the paint perfect. We ended up agreeing to coat it with regular CQuartz instead of Finest to save some money. It didn't matter to me and he traveled an hour to come to me, so I was happy to do whatever he wished.
The other issue was an impending heavy snow storm. I was on a tight time line to finish it in time. As it was, I had to snowblow the driveway of about 5" of snow before he came to get it. The coating was going to get immediately put to the test!! Here it is as it arrived. It was below freezing when doing the outside work, so I was happy to get that done and get it inside with my propane heater going!
First up was the wheels. The wells were cleaned with LATA. The tires were cleaned with Zep 505 and the barrels and faces with Zep Citrus and DG 901 and a wash mitt.
Next up it was foamed:
I will often skip that step, but due to the cold and very dirty state, I wanted to ensure as safe a wash procedure as possible. The vehicle was washed with DG 901 and then blown off with my Master Blaster to the paint and wheels.
First up was to remove the wheels. The last Porsche had ceramic brakes which made me very nervous. These luckily did not. He provided the guiding rods I used for the last car to help safely remove these wheels as well. Great idea!
Each wheel was removed, cleaned again and then coated. The barrels were coated with DLux and the faces with Finest (this was when we still thought the whole vehicle was getting it). The calipers were double coated with Finest as well:
Where correction was required (probably 40-50% of the car), I used my 3401 + TB black wool + M205 or M100 as required. That was followed up by 3401 + Essence + Gloss pad. The red on this car is absolutely lovely and the 2 steps just made it jump! The front half of the hood and front end including headlights had been sealed with a PPF film, so no polishing was done to those areas. They did however get a double coat of regular CQ. The side and rear glass and all painted areas were double coated with CQ reg. Since it was heavily snowing, I could not apply DLux to any of the trim, nor could I apply a windshield coating. I wished I had shot a pic of it leaving in the storm, but I had already put away my camera as I had just finished doing the driveway when he arrived. Here are the shots that I took inside. I don't think they do it justice to be honest, but I didn't have any option to get better shots.
Thanks for looking. All of my supplies were put away the next day. Now I just wait (impatiently) for Spring. Comments as always are welcomed.
Cheers,
Rich
The other issue was an impending heavy snow storm. I was on a tight time line to finish it in time. As it was, I had to snowblow the driveway of about 5" of snow before he came to get it. The coating was going to get immediately put to the test!! Here it is as it arrived. It was below freezing when doing the outside work, so I was happy to get that done and get it inside with my propane heater going!
First up was the wheels. The wells were cleaned with LATA. The tires were cleaned with Zep 505 and the barrels and faces with Zep Citrus and DG 901 and a wash mitt.
Next up it was foamed:
I will often skip that step, but due to the cold and very dirty state, I wanted to ensure as safe a wash procedure as possible. The vehicle was washed with DG 901 and then blown off with my Master Blaster to the paint and wheels.
First up was to remove the wheels. The last Porsche had ceramic brakes which made me very nervous. These luckily did not. He provided the guiding rods I used for the last car to help safely remove these wheels as well. Great idea!
Each wheel was removed, cleaned again and then coated. The barrels were coated with DLux and the faces with Finest (this was when we still thought the whole vehicle was getting it). The calipers were double coated with Finest as well:
Where correction was required (probably 40-50% of the car), I used my 3401 + TB black wool + M205 or M100 as required. That was followed up by 3401 + Essence + Gloss pad. The red on this car is absolutely lovely and the 2 steps just made it jump! The front half of the hood and front end including headlights had been sealed with a PPF film, so no polishing was done to those areas. They did however get a double coat of regular CQ. The side and rear glass and all painted areas were double coated with CQ reg. Since it was heavily snowing, I could not apply DLux to any of the trim, nor could I apply a windshield coating. I wished I had shot a pic of it leaving in the storm, but I had already put away my camera as I had just finished doing the driveway when he arrived. Here are the shots that I took inside. I don't think they do it justice to be honest, but I didn't have any option to get better shots.
Thanks for looking. All of my supplies were put away the next day. Now I just wait (impatiently) for Spring. Comments as always are welcomed.
Cheers,
Rich
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