Tato
New member
- Nov 27, 2013
- 2,157
- 0
Dear Friends,
This week I had the pleasure to work on an Audi A1 dual tone (Blue / Silver).
It was a very extensive work (compiled in 3 full days) but I believe the results worth the effort at the end. My process included interior / exterior detail followed by coating of all surfaces.
To polish this car I've used the Rupes 21 Polisher and Microfiber Discs (cutting step), followed by the Flex 3401 and Hybrid pads (polishing and finishing steps), everything 'powered by' Menzerna Polishes, FG400 and SF4000.
Don't be fooled by what may look like a 'small Audi'. This car has a large painted metal area, and like the vast majority of Audi cars, HARD paint to work with. However, the quality of the paint makes it a pleasure to polish, apart from the 'extra-effort' needed to correct imperfections.
Let's take a look,
Arrived
No time to waste, I've started inspecting the vehicle thoroughly to define what would be needed to restore it to 'like-new' condition.
Inspection
Embedded dirt and bugs attached to the finish
Visibility was not optimal due to windshield contaminants (not well shown by bellow picture). This called my attention when parking the car inside.
Front view:
Paint was inspected under the sun to better visualize defects
Here you can notice some transfers at the rear bumper:
The upper part of trunk lid presented heavy swirls and scratches
and I was also able to find the presence of Holograms, indicating this paint was polished in the past by unskilled hands...
although the holograms were not present throughout the whole vehicle, they were very noticeable at driver's side and whole extension of the trunk.
Silver roof undergoing inspection
Silver pillars presented a gross finish at some parts
TOGWA (The Other Guy's Wax)
Excuse me, Please!, let me coin a new term: TOGRA (The Other Guy's Rag!)
Poor 'Black Piano' Finish... it was not needed to use any 'special lighting' to see it's condition
Passenger's side, with inspection light:
In between doors pillars
Interior
Not even close to the nasty interiors I've seen, but a lot of room for improvement
After:
Before:
Door Jambs were also worked and coated to match the whole detail proposed
**Customer Only Exclusive Before Picture
Sorry to say, I couldn't find my after picture for the engine bay detail. However, I must say costumer was thrilled by it, and in respect to them I'm placing the before picture here. I've spent some hours working from cleaning, polishing and coating and it turned out really nice! (yes, I know, worthless without pics, but...)
------------
After working interior and engine bay, it was time for the wheel work.
Wheels
Before:
During:
I'm relying on Chemical Guys Premium Wheel Cleaner for preparing wheels. It's very powerful yet safe and approved by brands for use on any wheel finish.
After Washing the Wheels:
Whenever you're dealing with neglected wheels, washing will rarely be enough to bring them back to a very good condition.
The following pictures shows contaminants that will need further work to be (not only removed, but) safely removed.
Fast Forward, here are the wheels at the completion of the job.
Front Wheel:
Rear Wheel:
Wash and Decontamination
Just after the wheel work, it's time to start cleaning the paint.
For this I've used (basicaly) a foam cannon, buckets and grit-guards, many brushes, Meguiar's Hyper-Wash, CG Bug-Tar Wash, CarPro Iron-X and Spotless, everything followed by NanoSkin Medium Grade Clay Mitt.
Wet Look
The Bellow Picture shows the final rinse, at the end of the wash + decontamination process. I always look at the wet car and 'mentalize' the way I want it to come out at the end...
GlassWork
Although Spotless did an awesome job removing water spots on glass, I've polished afterwards using BL Cleansing Polish and applied the first layer of BL Glass Coating.
Before (sample area that represents general aspect):
After:
'Soft' Black Finish
Very soft paint + heavy defects = hard to correct and finish
After (notice some residual product and dust), I went really careful on the wipe-off here to avoid re-instilling defects, letting the full area cleansing for the final polishing oil-removal stage).
Although I've not worked those pillars to perfection, I was looking after the best improvement I could safely achieve,
leading me from this:
to this.
More Details
After washing, the paint must undergo another thorough inspection since everything will become much more noticeable when not covered by dust. I could find and safely solve the following issues:
transfer at passenger's rear fender:
After (for the second pic)
Even after claying, you can notice persistent marks above surface at rear bumper's upper part:
At the same section (rear), I still had that holograms to deal with:
This week I had the pleasure to work on an Audi A1 dual tone (Blue / Silver).
It was a very extensive work (compiled in 3 full days) but I believe the results worth the effort at the end. My process included interior / exterior detail followed by coating of all surfaces.
To polish this car I've used the Rupes 21 Polisher and Microfiber Discs (cutting step), followed by the Flex 3401 and Hybrid pads (polishing and finishing steps), everything 'powered by' Menzerna Polishes, FG400 and SF4000.
Don't be fooled by what may look like a 'small Audi'. This car has a large painted metal area, and like the vast majority of Audi cars, HARD paint to work with. However, the quality of the paint makes it a pleasure to polish, apart from the 'extra-effort' needed to correct imperfections.
Let's take a look,
Arrived
No time to waste, I've started inspecting the vehicle thoroughly to define what would be needed to restore it to 'like-new' condition.
Inspection
Embedded dirt and bugs attached to the finish
Visibility was not optimal due to windshield contaminants (not well shown by bellow picture). This called my attention when parking the car inside.
Front view:
Paint was inspected under the sun to better visualize defects
Here you can notice some transfers at the rear bumper:
The upper part of trunk lid presented heavy swirls and scratches
and I was also able to find the presence of Holograms, indicating this paint was polished in the past by unskilled hands...
although the holograms were not present throughout the whole vehicle, they were very noticeable at driver's side and whole extension of the trunk.
Silver roof undergoing inspection
Silver pillars presented a gross finish at some parts
TOGWA (The Other Guy's Wax)
Excuse me, Please!, let me coin a new term: TOGRA (The Other Guy's Rag!)
Poor 'Black Piano' Finish... it was not needed to use any 'special lighting' to see it's condition
Passenger's side, with inspection light:
In between doors pillars
Interior
Not even close to the nasty interiors I've seen, but a lot of room for improvement
After:
Before:
Door Jambs were also worked and coated to match the whole detail proposed
**Customer Only Exclusive Before Picture
Sorry to say, I couldn't find my after picture for the engine bay detail. However, I must say costumer was thrilled by it, and in respect to them I'm placing the before picture here. I've spent some hours working from cleaning, polishing and coating and it turned out really nice! (yes, I know, worthless without pics, but...)
------------
After working interior and engine bay, it was time for the wheel work.
Wheels
Before:
During:
I'm relying on Chemical Guys Premium Wheel Cleaner for preparing wheels. It's very powerful yet safe and approved by brands for use on any wheel finish.
After Washing the Wheels:
Whenever you're dealing with neglected wheels, washing will rarely be enough to bring them back to a very good condition.
The following pictures shows contaminants that will need further work to be (not only removed, but) safely removed.
Fast Forward, here are the wheels at the completion of the job.
Front Wheel:
Rear Wheel:
Wash and Decontamination
Just after the wheel work, it's time to start cleaning the paint.
For this I've used (basicaly) a foam cannon, buckets and grit-guards, many brushes, Meguiar's Hyper-Wash, CG Bug-Tar Wash, CarPro Iron-X and Spotless, everything followed by NanoSkin Medium Grade Clay Mitt.
Wet Look
The Bellow Picture shows the final rinse, at the end of the wash + decontamination process. I always look at the wet car and 'mentalize' the way I want it to come out at the end...
GlassWork
Although Spotless did an awesome job removing water spots on glass, I've polished afterwards using BL Cleansing Polish and applied the first layer of BL Glass Coating.
Before (sample area that represents general aspect):
After:
'Soft' Black Finish
Very soft paint + heavy defects = hard to correct and finish
After (notice some residual product and dust), I went really careful on the wipe-off here to avoid re-instilling defects, letting the full area cleansing for the final polishing oil-removal stage).
Although I've not worked those pillars to perfection, I was looking after the best improvement I could safely achieve,
leading me from this:
to this.
More Details
After washing, the paint must undergo another thorough inspection since everything will become much more noticeable when not covered by dust. I could find and safely solve the following issues:
transfer at passenger's rear fender:
After (for the second pic)
Even after claying, you can notice persistent marks above surface at rear bumper's upper part:
At the same section (rear), I still had that holograms to deal with:
