Glacier White Toyota Hilux Double Cab - Detailed by Lawrence

[lawrenceSA]

Friday night was spent sorting out the interior of the double-cab. I started by removing the existing seat covers (which were looking rather tired) revealing some extremely dirty leather seats that looked like they had never received any cleaning/conditioning. There was also a rather nasty black stain on the right rear door card and upholstery insert, which the owner wanted me to remove. All the plastic surfaces as well as the leather were scrubbed with APC and various brushes before being wiped clean and dried. I then treated the leather with Cyclo Leather Tone. The interior was vacuumed out and plastic panels and dash treated with Smart Wax Smart Dressing.

Moving on to Saturday I started with the wheels first (to ensure that any splash-back would fall on dirty paint that still had to be cleaned). The wheels themselves had the usual build up of dirt, road grime, iron and tar.

The tires and arches were scrubbed clean using Cyclo CM30. Once this was done the wheels were cleaned using AF Imperial Wheel Cleaner which was followed by tar removal using AF Oblitarate and iron removal using AF Iron Out.

Tires were dressed later on in the detail using Optimum Opti Bond Tire Gel.

I then spent some time cleaning up the areas always over-looked in a normal car wash

Badges before

During

After

Door shuts before

After

Stepsills
Before

After

Inside fuel flap before

After

Once this was completed I moved on to the engine bay
Before

After

 

[lawrenceSA]

I was now in a position to give the car a decent wash which was my usual process of a prewash via the foam cannon and then a 2BM. Here are a few pics of what it looked like prior to the wash.

Notice the deep scratches here - these were present across most of the vehicle - a sign that the 4x4 component of this vehicle had been put to use outdoors as designed, and not just driven around on the tarred roads as some owners do.

I was now able to see the condition of the paint and it was immediately obvious that the vehicle had been subjected to a rather poor previous attempt at a polish. Over and above the obvious swirls and deep scratches littered around the vehicle, there were a lot of holograms / buffer trails.

Found this on the roof

I then began the process of decontaminating the paintwork starting with the removal of all the tar spots

Followed by iron removal

Lastly any remaining contamination was clayed off using Clay Magic Blue clay. At the same time I clayed all the glass surfaces too. All in all, this vehicle had more than average contamination and getting it all off the paint really went a long way in bringing back some of the white to the paint.

 

[lawrenceSA]

I had come into the detail expecting to get away with a 1-step polish (the physical size of the vehicle would have made it very difficult to do any more in the time I had) and having worked on a couple of Toyotas before, thought PF2500 would be a good option, but after conducting a few test spots and settled on FG400 on a Cyan Pad on speed 5.5 on a PC - the paint was a lot harder than what I was used to, and this just reaffirms the need to conduct a test spot prior to polishing out the whole vehicle only to realize you have not removed enough defects, or have not finished down well enough.

The results from the test spot

Here I began working on the deeper scratches
Before

Some progress being made

And here there were some very deep scratches on one of the tail lights which I tried to improve (the scratches were too deep to safely remove completely)

Paint correction continued until just before midnight on Saturday and I recommenced at first light on Sunday.

Once completed I laid down a coat of Poorboys White Diamond and followed this with 2 coats of Collinite 845, leaving me with this

Total time spent = 33 hours

Thanks for looking and as always and comments are welcome.

 

[zmcgovern45]

There is a reason I try to stick to small sports sedans and coupes... I just don't have the patience to tackle a beast like that.

Great work!

 

[lawrenceSA]

There is a reason I try to stick to small sports sedans and coupes... I just don't have the patience to tackle a beast like that.

Great work!

Thanks - yeah look I certainly didn't WANT to tackle this beast - I knew it would be a long one, and my aching body agrees, but I also try not to turn anyone away if I can at all help it. For all I know, this customer may have a Ferrari parked in the garage at home and was 'testing me' with his double cab.

Also, the benefit of good word of mouth that will come from this detail (the customer was so overjoyed that I managed to get most of the damage to his paint corrected that he hugged me :bowdown cannot be underestimated....

Sometimes you just have to suck up the bad details in hope of the good ones

 

[Mike@DedicatedPerfection]

Very nice work! Poor truck was subject to improper use of a rotory by an unskilled user.

I'm sure the owner was thrilled.

 

[Dr_Pain]

Even white abused white trucks need love!

Great job rops:

 

[lawrenceSA]

Very nice work! Poor truck was subject to improper use of a rotory by an unskilled user.

I'm sure the owner was thrilled.

thanks smack - It is always such a sad sight to see cars that have been subjected to such poor buffing techniques

and yes, as mentioned the owner was extremely happy - I have had some interesting experiences when owners see their freshly car detailed for the first time....but receiving a man hug has to rank up there as one of the least expected

 

[lawrenceSA]

Even white abused white trucks need love!

Great job rops:

Thank you kindly!

 

[DetailedTaco]

Nice job! Great attention to detail. Detailing a double cab truck is a pain! I only know because I own one

 

[JSou]

Great job Lawrence. Good lord that was a mess.

 

[Phathooddetail]

great job man i know that had to kill your eyes sometimes while you were working on it.

 

[theclock12]

That exhaust set-up is crazy, nice job 33 hours jeez!

 

[lawrenceSA]

Thank you for all the kind words - much appreciated