2012 Mustang 5.0 2 Step Correction & Opti-Coat by Mr. Sparkle Detailing - Long Island

Gurge

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Recently sunk quite a bit of time into a 2012 Mustang. Black of course. Close to 18 hours total. A new record in the Mr. Sparkle garage.

I was contacted by a client looking for Opti-Coat who mentioned he had some swirls that would need polishing prior to application. We booked it for a 2 step correction and I put aside 2 days on the schedule.

Upon arrival the car was pretty dirty, and I couldn't get a good look at it.

No photos but I did a quick interior cleanup to start off - vacuum, megs QID, sprayway glass cleaner

Pulled it into the wash mat and hit it with the foam cannon. Mix of CG citrus wash gloss, OPC, and dawn. Trying to strip off the clients prior coats of ZAIO and NXT



Moved onto a 2 bucket wash => CarPro TRIX => Clay Magic blue

Got it dry and took some paint measurements. Everything was roughly 90-110 microns.

That evening I applied CarPro FlyBy30 to the exterior glass and left it for the morning

Arrived the next day and spent a fair amount of time taping off the exterior trim




Turned the fluro lights off and got a good look at things under the LEDs. Paint wasnt terrible but it was swirly. Also some water spots and deeper RIDS.









A rear spoiler was recently installed and there was some marring around the edge. This is after an IPA wipedown. Those smudges are in the clear.



Did some test spots and ruled out a few things. Eventually I settled on

Rupes 21 + Megs MF + D300 / M101 mixture

That left the paint a little messy, but got about 90-95% correction. Here and there on deeper scratches I went at it with rotary / purple foamed wool / m100 prior to the d300 step noted above.

To finish things up I used LC white pads with Menz Power Finish







Going at it with the Rupes


The trunk lid again. Did the best I could getting up against the edge of the spoiler


One of those deeper scratches that required rotary & wool





After a long day in the garage polishing, I again washed the car to get off all the dust and polishing oils. Dried it and left it for the morning to apply Opti-Coat

Next morning I went over the car with a leaf blower, then did a thorough IPA wipedown. Finally it was time for Opti-Coat (Opti-Guard)



Please no photos. Utmost concentration is required



Coated all the paint, wheels and exterior trim. Dressed the tires with PB bold n bright.

Photos inside




Reflections in the black paint





Pulled it outside to inspect the coating and get some more photos




Sun shots FTW







Swirls? Aint nobody got time for that!

From the Mr. Sparkle garage in Long Island...

Mr. Sparkle Detailing.com
@mrsparkledetailing
 
Nice work!

I see your putting that newly renovated shop to use, looks good btw. I love the race deck flooring and the lighting is great.
 
Amazing work!!! The car is now looking proper. The black looks perfect.
 
great stuff, i've got the same car and hope to complete my first correction on it soon. How much time did it take to tape off? What pad size would you recommend? I'll be using a Rupes 15.
 
Awesome work. The owner is on S197Forum as am I and he was pretty ecstatic after talking to you. I can see why now!
 
Awesome work. The owner is on S197Forum as am I and he was pretty ecstatic after talking to you. I can see why now!

yeah so am I and it was an interesting thread with a great finish from Mr. Sparkle!
 
Awesome work. The owner is on S197Forum as am I and he was pretty ecstatic after talking to you. I can see why now!


yes, I've since found my way to s197 forum and was shocked to know what was going on behind the scenes. Short version, other detailers who knew my name encouraged this guy to go with me after he shopped around a bit. It seems to have worked out for everyone!
 
great stuff, i've got the same car and hope to complete my first correction on it soon. How much time did it take to tape off? What pad size would you recommend? I'll be using a Rupes 15.

I used mostly 6.5in pads. still took a ton of time

20 mins or so to tape trim? Wasn't really watching the clock. just gotta get the job done
 
I tutorial on how to do things correctly the first time....Very well done!! :props:
 
Great job! Love the new Mustangs. Nice shop too.
 
Very impressive work there Mr. Sparkle!! That's awesome that the other detailers recommended you like they did. Says a lot about your skill level and your word of mouth too. Great to see awesome sun shots like that!! Keep up the fantastic work!!
 
Hey guys, I'm the guy with the mustang. Here's a brief rundown on what took place in the S197 thread....

1.) I heard about Opti-Coat and was interested so I made a post in detailer section of the forum asking the average cost, while I was seeking out quotes online. Mind you, I had no idea what the cost would be as I had never used a professional detailer before, for anything.

2.)First quote I got was from XpertAutoDetailers.com for $416. Now to me at the time, that seemed like a lot of money and I assumed they would do a good job. You can't blame the average consumer, for initially being shell-shocked by the prices. (Apparently some people aren't too understanding or tolerant of this)

3.)When I reported that quote back in the thread, a few of the kingpins over there like Seer, who is a detailer that charges top dollar, shot it down, saying basically for that price they will be cutting corners and do a Sh*tty job. I put up some resistance, because again, it seemed like a decent amount of money to me, and I was getting the impression guys like Seer just wanted to justify their prices more then anything. And when they asked what price I thought was fair, I even said $40/hour. (Even when other people like "Grabber" said he only charges $20/hour)I just didn't realize just how much time and effort went into it. Eventually they convinced me the $416 price was too low, and I didn't want to take a chance and have corners cut so I kept looking. And for the record no one recommended anyone to me I did all my own searching.

4) I emailed Lidetailers.com for a quote but they never got back to me. Was still searching the net and stumbled upon a black Benz that was done by "Mr. Sparkle"...The work looked great and I Loved how how he laid out his process with pictures as many of you detailers do here on Autopia. Then checked out his website and everything looked fantastic....just what I was looking for, and so I shot him an email.

5.)Within 20 minutes Bryan responded with a well written and very thorough response. Communication is very important to me. And one of the best parts? He was VERY understanding toward an average consumer that the cost of a 2-stage correction SEEMS really high and was fully aware that sending out these quotes may shell shock some people. Pretty much the opposite of how some folks over @ S197 were about it with me. And as a side note, there was several other members on S197, including other detailers, that also came in to that thread joking about the prices being quoted by Seer and a couple others. So it wasn't like it was just me. However, after understanding what goes into it, and considering the cost of materials, the overhead of the shop, etc, and more then anything, paying for QUALITY work, I felt Bryan's price was plenty fair and I said lets do it.

6.)Reported back to the thread about how I found "Mr Sparkle" and decided to have him do it, and I spoke very highly of Bryan and our communications, at which point "gothamite302" responded that he knew Bryan from this forum and that he does good work.

Took the car to Bryan, was very happy with the work he did and the rest is history. And without further adieu, here are some of my own pictures: (Note, these pictures are after sitting out over night and 2 hours worth of driving over the period of 2 days, paint untouched and pics untouched...just straight from the camera on auto mode.)


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I used mostly 6.5in pads. still took a ton of time

20 mins or so to tape trim? Wasn't really watching the clock. just gotta get the job done

Thanks for the info, itching to do mine. Especially after seeing it in the sun yesterday, thought I had a pretty clean car too! Light exposes all iniquity.

Keep up the good work!
 
Also want to add a few more things...

I bombarded Bryan with many questions, and he was fantastic about addressing all of them, even as busy as he is.

He did extra's for me like the glass treatment and interior clean-up. And when I dropped the car off it was pretty filthy both in and out.

I really appreciate the good customer service and quality work he provided. Would and will recommend him to anyone looking for a detailer on L.I. :props:

Cheers,
Kevin
 
He does good work for sure and you did go with a good detailer, a honest detailer. Beautiful car by the way.
 
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