2008 Honda CR-V - 65 Pictures

[rwright]

Greetings all. It's been a while since I've put together a write up so I figured what the heck. The featured vehicle belongs to a co-worker and he is a heck of a guy, one of those that you can tell just has a good heart after just a few minutes of meeting him. After many conversations about detailing and showing him some of my previous work he decided that it was time for his ride to get cleaned up. In all honesty he just asked for an interior clean up, wash and real good wax job because it hasn't been waxed since new. Let the story begin...

Vehicle upon arrival

Notice the rust specs?

After a quick trip to a touchless wash since I was mobile, this is what the paint looked like

*Photo enhanced to better represent condition of paint

As you can see there was still a nice build up of grime that needed to be addressed. From this point I proceeded to clean the wheel wells, tires, and plastic cladding with Optimum Power Clean full strength. The wheels were cleaned with Iron X then washed with Chemical Guys Citrus Wash N' Gloss. I washed the whole vehicle with CG CWG at paint prep ratio. Please note the plastic cladding was washed last.

Look closely and you can see how bad the paint was even after being washed.

Remember the condition of the wheels?

During the Iron X bath

And after the final wash and rinse

To be continued...

 

[rwright]

The next day I returned to snap some interior before pics and get started on the paint prep. Before taping up the trim work, the paint was clayed with Riccardo Yellow and ONR as lube.

Interior Before

Pretty nasty driver side door panel

Driver seat

Passenger side front arm rest

and seat

The above stains were identified as blood stains and were a couple years old. Hmm...

The interior was cleaned using 1Z Einszett Plastic Deep Cleaner on all interior panels and Folex on all cloth surfaces. Interior was then bombed with Dakota Odor Bomb Non Smoke and the ventilation system was treated to a full can of 1Z Klima Kleaner.

Now it was time for the paint and I wanted to try Blackfire Total Polish N' Seal as a prep for Blackfire Wet Diamond sealant and to clean up the staining and marring on the paint. Well this didn't go over too well once again. Previously I tried it on a 2011 Subaru Outback in pearl white and it muted the pearl. Not only that but when I got some of it on my hand it stained my skin. After discussing this with Angelo and later on Todd, I received a new bottle to try. This time I had tiger striping with both Lake Country Crimson and Black Finishing pads. At this point I called it quits with this product.

I looked at my Griot's Garage Detail Bag and noticed I brought my Optimum Hyper Spray Polish with me, figured I would give it a shot and couldn't believe the finish! After finally cleaning up the whole top portion of the CR-V, I moved to the side to take a couple 50/50 pictures. Paint was polished on speed 4 on Griot's DA and 5 1/2'' low profile Lake Country tangerine hydro-tech pads.

I ran into an interesting problem but forgot to document it with photos, the paint was soaking up the oils in the polish and the residue was drying before I could safely wipe it away. Thinking back on some of Richy's threads I grabbed my bottle of ONR mix and sprayed the panel, bingo! After I finished polishing a section, I literally had to spray the paint with the ONR solution to wipe away the polish residue. It took me 45 minutes per side to polish this way but it worked just fine.

To be continued...

 

[rwright]

After doing a few sections I wanted to pull the car out into the sun to check my work. Keep in mind this wasn't a scheduled correction and no compound was used, so yes some RIDS still remain.

I got a little carried away, sorry. Well I pulled the CR-V back inside to finish up and apply the Blackfire Wet Diamond sealant, allowed to cure over night, and dressed the tires with Blackfire Total Eclipse Tire Gel. But after applying the Blackfire sealant I decided to bomb the interior again. The next day I returned to finish up the exterior and interior details, including one more round of Dakota Non Smoke (yes this makes 3). The wheel wells were dressed with Meguiar's All Season Dressing, all plastic trim including the grille was treated to Chemical Guys New Look Trim Gel, glass cleaned with Adam's Glass Cleaner and Autoality's new white glass towel, exterior glass cleaned and treated with Duragloss Rain Repel. The wheels received a coat of Duragloss #501 Marine/RV Polish. The interior panels were all wiped down with Chemical Guys Inner Clean, then lightly buffed.

And the final parting shots

Congrats if you made it all the way through the entire write up! If not I hope you at least liked the pictures. Thanks for looking.

Richard

 

[BobbyG]

Richard,

That was one well driven daily driver!! This is typical of what comes in and with the right amount of time, personal skill, products, and equipment it's amazing what can be fixed.. Those after shots are simply amazing!! rops:

Things are coming along quite nicely, thanks for the great work and contribution!! rops:

 

[Buckskincolt]

Nice Job Richard,
That had to be one very pleased customer.
Thanks for the write up!

 

[TimmyG]

Nice save! Love that Ironx photo dwelling on the wheels - they cleaned up better than I thought they would.

 

[Flannigan]

Great work Richard! Gotta love working on soft paint that cleans up so easily like that! Car looks brand new!

 

[LuxuryMobile]

Great turn around, love the 50/50 shots.

I have been meaning to pick up those Optimum spray products (polish+compound). This post will have me order it today.

Nice work as always.

 

[Klasse Act]

Nice save! Love that Ironx photo dwelling on the wheels - they cleaned up better than I thought they would.

That's exactly what I was thinking too, WOW! That one overall, 50/50 shot from further back is simply amazing, couldn't even photoshop something like that, LOL! Nice to see that the same tool I use (Griot's DA) can produce results like that, thank God for the soft paint used by Honda for sure!

Thanks for the pics and write up:dblthumb2:

 

[Mike PhillipsMike Phillips is verified member.]

The CR-V looks as good as new! Excellent work, photography and write-up that will help and inspire others into the future.

When I look at the scratches and swirls on the before side of this picture I just have to wonder what did the owner do to the car?

Very nice work Richard.


:dblthumb2:

 

[TheCougarGuy]

Amazing recovery. Great documentation of your work.

 

[Kevin Cullen]

Great Job Richard! Took that thing from "junk" to "my turn to drive"! Awsome job all round.

 

[Memphis_Blue]

Mind if I ask what product(s) you used on the exterior trim? (and tires?)

 

[rwright]

Richard,

That was one well driven daily driver!! This is typical of what comes in and with the right amount of time, personal skill, products, and equipment it's amazing what can be fixed.. Those after shots are simply amazing!! rops:

Things are coming along quite nicely, thanks for the great work and contribution!! rops:

Thanks Bobby!

Nice Job Richard,
That had to be one very pleased customer.
Thanks for the write up!

Thanks! He was very pleased and actually mentioned that he forgot the paint was metallic!

Nice save! Love that Ironx photo dwelling on the wheels - they cleaned up better than I thought they would.

Thanks! I honestly didn't expect the wheels to clean up completely, but I'm glad they did.

Great work Richard! Gotta love working on soft paint that cleans up so easily like that! Car looks brand new!

Thanks Dave! You are correct buddy, sometimes soft paint can be a blessing such as this one...sort of. The biggest problem I had was while polishing the paint appeared to be soaking up the oils from the polish and I had to spray ONR on the panel literally after lifting my polisher off the paint. One thing that contributed to that was the halogens, after I moved them back a little more and turned them down on the low setting I was able to wipe some residue without ONR. So I just stuck to the routine, taking 45 minutes per side.

Great turn around, love the 50/50 shots.

I have been meaning to pick up those Optimum spray products (polish+compound). This post will have me order it today.

Nice work as always.

Thanks! I need a new camera, my iPhone appears to take better pictures at times. For some reason my digital gets a little hazy when used with the halogens. Kind of ruins the shot! I plan to pick up the spray compound and give it another go. When I used it I was using Meguiar's mf cutting discs and not the offering from Optimum. Plus the sample I received from my friend Mark (the artist formerly known as 07zoh6) was in a little 4oz sprayer and the spray head wasn't the greatest.

That's exactly what I was thinking too, WOW! That one overall, 50/50 shot from further back is simply amazing, couldn't even photoshop something like that, LOL! Nice to see that the same tool I use (Griot's DA) can produce results like that, thank God for the soft paint used by Honda for sure!

Thanks for the pics and write up:dblthumb2:

Thanks! I love my Griot's DA and would be lost without it! On this car I had to use speed 4, anything faster and the paint would not finish out clear. I even tried speed 4.5 and it was finishing a little hazy. At first I was a little aggravated because on higher speeds the finish was nasty and wished I would have packed my PC XP. So if you run into a similar situation with your Griot's, try cutting the speed back. It's a powerful little machine!

No Photoshop used here, I used Kodak EasyShare Software and enhanced one picture to better represent the condition of the paint after the trip to the touchless. I tried it on a few of the other pictures and while it did make them look way better, I decided against it because I would have felt guilty.

The CR-V looks as good as new! Excellent work, photography and write-up that will help and inspire others into the future.

When I look at the scratches and swirls on the before side of this picture I just have to wonder what did the owner do to the car?

Very nice work Richard.


:dblthumb2:

Thanks Mike, means a lot coming from you! Your video review of Optimum Hyper Spray Polish featuring Dr. G was the driving force behind this job. I had a couple other all in one's handy but remembered how well the red Civic turned out. I know that I'm not in the same ballpark as you but I figured I would give it a shot anyway! This car obviously did not receive what we would call a proper maintenance routine, and after a few discussions about how the exterior is washed we have agreed to perform a correction then seal it in with Opti-Guard a little later in the summer.

The owner really inspired me to do this write up, he is such a great guy and was really excited about the way his car turned out. Even though it wasn't a full correction and a lot of RIDS remained, he kept going on and on about how it hasn't looked that good since it was new. This write up was rather lengthy and could have been condensed to maintain interest, I just couldn't bring myself to do it for this one even though it's not a show car.

Amazing recovery. Great documentation of your work.

Thank you! I wanted to take a different approach with this write up but I think I may have made it too long. In all honesty I really like Dave's (Flannigan) approach - show before pics of a section followed by the after pic with details.

Great Job Richard! Took that thing from "junk" to "my turn to drive"! Awsome job all round.

Thank you very much! I had a lot of pleasure working on this car. I didn't look at it as just another daily driver or just another wash and wax, this one had a little more feeling behind it.

 

[rwright]

Mind if I ask what product(s) you used on the exterior trim? (and tires?)

No problem! Here's a full list for you and anyone else curious:

Cleaning

Tires/wheel wells/plastic cladding - Optimum Power Clean @ full strength
Washed with Chemical Guys Citrus Wash N' Gloss
Wheels - Iron X followed by CG CWG ^
Glass Interior - Adam's, Exterior - Duragloss Rain Repel topped with Duragloss Aquawax
Interior - 1Z Einszett Plastic Deep Cleaner followed by Chemical Guys Inner Clean, cloth cleaned with Folex
Ventilation system - 1Z Einszett Klima Kleaner
Odor - Dakota Odor Bomb Non Smoke
Clay bar/lube - Riccardo Yellow, Optimum No Rinse @ clay lube strength

Polish

Optimum Hyper Spray Polish on Lake Country 5 1/2" low profile tangerine hydro tech pads via Griot's Garage 6" Random Orbital Polisher on speed 4, medium pressure

Protection

Blackfire Wet Diamond All Finish Paint Protection

Dressings

Tires - Blackfire Total Eclipse Tire Gel
Wheel wells - Meguiar's All Season Dressing
Exterior plastic - mirrors, cladding, grille - Chemical Guys New Look Trim Gel