Java Black Pearl Subaru Impreza WRX - Detailed by Lawrence

[lawrenceSA]

Ever since I was a kid I have always had a strong attraction to Scoobies - The sound, their rally heritage, their presence on the street... they just seem so damn right! and so I was thrilled when the owner took me for a (short) drive around the block in it :driving: ... certainly not enough to stretch her legs and exploit the more than 250wkw available, but enough to let me know I would LOVE to own one. The closest I will come though is probably the 28.5 hours I spent detailing it this weekend

:hurray:

I knew before the detail even started that this Java Black Subaru would be soft.... just how soft.... well that I was not prepared for but more on that later.

So the vehicle was dropped off on Friday and I got to work trying to remove some serious hard water spots from the windows of the vehicle. These have been present for a long time and are a real sore point for the customer.

I had done some research into the removal of water spots and the preferred method is to use a product called cerium oxide in combination with a felt pad on a machine polisher. Unfortunately I was unable to secure these products in time for the detail and had to try some alternative methods, none of which worked. These included soaking paper towel in white vinegar and pasting it on the window and allowing it to dwell overnight (the vinegar helps to break down the minerals in the water spots) using a glass cleaner, a dedicated glass polish from Autoglym, claying with fine grade and medium grade clay and even Meguiars cleaner wax.



Saturday morning started at first light with getting the car up on jack stands and the wheels off.

The usual surface dirt was present and this was first rinsed off before the tires were scrubbed clean using Cyclo CM30. Various brushes were then used to clean the wheels using Turtle Wax Intensive Wheel Cleaner.

The barrels of the wheels contained a lot of tar deposits and these were cleaned off using Autoglym Intensive Tar Remover - the faces had minimal tar deposits and these too were removed.

I then set about removing the iron deposits using Iron-x from both the faces and barrels of the wheels (and the wheel nuts) and was impressed with how little iron contamination was present.

I now had perfectly clean wheels and began polishing them using a Lake Country uniball attached to a drill, with Meguiars All Metal Polish. The rims were then sealed using 2 coats of Collinite 845.

The wheel arches were then cleaned out using various brushes and Cyclo CM 30

Rear before

Rear After

Front Before

Front During

Front After

Brake caliper cleaned

The amount of tar (and rubber) present in the wheel arches was perhaps indicative of some hard launches :lol: )

The wheels were then refitted ending stage one of the detail some 6 hours after it commenced.

I then gave the engine bay a very quick 'spruce up'... no serious washing, certainly no water - mainly just a lite wipe down and treatment of all the plastic bits with Chemical Guys Bare Bones

I then set about taking some pics of the condition of the paint

Surface dirt

Swirl Marks

A very deep scratch

 

[lawrenceSA]

Additional RIDS

Swirl Marks and Water Spots

Faded plastic trim and surface dirt

I then set about cleaning around all the badges, in and around the petrol cap, along all the seams and rubbers etc

I then sprayed the entire vehicle down with Autofinesse Citrus Power to help loosen and bugs/grime

This was then followed with multiple foaming sessions using Chemical Guys Maxi suds (I wanted to try and remove as much of the surface dirt as possible prior to touching the soft paint.

I then proceeded to wash the vehicle using the 2BM with 2 Brand new Chenille Wash Mitts (1 for the top, 1 for the bottom), Meguiars Gold Class Shampoo mixed with some ONR for added lubricity. The vehicle was then dried using 2 x Waffle Weave drying towels (1 for the top, 1 for the bottom)

I then removed all of the tar and iron deposits using Autoglym Intensive Tar Remover and Carpro Iron-X - no pictures were taken as it was quite difficult to capture either of these processes at work on the black paint.

It was at this point that I got my first taste of how soft the paint on this car really was... :fear:

I usually mix up my own clay lube at the recommended dilution ratio and have never had a problem with its lubricity, but after conducting a test spot with a brand new piece of fine grade clay, it marred the paint, so I mixed up a batch at twice the recommended dilution ratio, and used more than twice as much (Usually I'll go through a 500ml bottle per car, but went through 1.25l on this car) lube as I usually do, and it still marred the paint....

The marring from claying can be seen toward the top right of the bonnet here.

In preparation for this detail I had purchased some new finishing pads made by Menzerna specifically for use with their Final Finish polish, which has now been renamed to SF4000 and is the least aggressive polish I have.

As can be from this test spot, the combination of least aggressive pad and least aggressive polish was more than strong enough to deal with the defects in the Subaru's paint, really making the flakes pop, and leaving behind only the really deep RIDS and a tiny % of the original swirl marks (remember that the goal here was not perfection, but rather to bring the paint back to an acceptable level of depth, gloss and clarity whilst maintaining as much of the clear coat as possible to allow for any future 'damage' to the clear coat, which on this car, really does seem inevitable.

This was my second eye opener on just how soft the paint is…. After conducting the test spot, I used a brand new MF cloth (I purchase a new set of 10 specifically for this detail) to remove the polishing residue, and the cloth itself left behind micro-marring…. I then tried to used a damp one, same result, I then mixed up 5l of ONR and soaked a couple of the new MF’s in their for a while and tried to use those to remove the polishing residue, same result…. I was beginning to stress just a little as each time I attempted to remove the polishing residue I would re-inflict scratches that needed to be polished out…. I was simply going around in circles…

I eventually decided to take some of use my existing MF cloths – they are called Chincillas and are widely regarded as one of the most plush Microfibre Towels available - and bomb them in the wash to rinse them in fabric softener to make them even softer.... now this is the LAST thing you are supposed to do in terms of the MF towel retaining its absorption efficiency but I was getting desperate. So after the rinse and spin they were dumped into a fresh solution of ONR and left to soak while I paced up and down scratching my head :crazy:

I then used the now well soaked cloth to remove the polishing oils and waddayaknow... it worked.... and even though I took over R300 worth of MF towels and added fabric softener to them, it was a lot better than chasing my own tail all day :crazy:

So I was finally able to continue buffing out the car, however with the increasing humidity, it meant I could only work really small sections at a time and polishing took me the better part of 12 hours

Notice in one of the few 'in progress pics' I captured how the swirls are starting to disappear and the main scratch in frame is starting to become less obvious between the 2 reflections of the lights and just above the reflection on the right light.

Once I had completed with all the polishing but before BL/V7/845

The vehicle was then snowfoamed again to remove any polishing dust etc and I then laid down a coat of Chemical Guys Black Light and V7 and topped this with Collinite #845.... and finished off the smaller things like polishing the water spots off the exhaust and dressing exterior plastic trim etc

 

[lawrenceSA]

And now finally onto some after shots

Notice how the black seems to turn to gold when exposed to direct sunlight

My favorite shot

So this was by far the most difficult detail I have done to date but I am grateful for not only the opportunity to have expanded by skills and learned some invaluable lessons about soft paint, but also simply just to have been able to spend so much time up close with a car I have always had a soft spot for :drool:

Thanks to the owner, and thanks for looking

 

[hoyt66]

Nice work and nice before and after pics!

 

[lawrenceSA]

Thank you very much

 

[steamshooter]

Very nice indeed! I had to look up CM 30. I had no idea Cyclo made chemicals.

 

[lawrenceSA]

Thanks steamshooter

And yeah man, for me over here in South Africa it just seems to be one of the more affordable APC type products that I find actually works for me.

And you know what Mike always says - find something that works, and stick with it

 

[cartman57]

Stellar results!
Nice combo of BL, V7 and 845.
What was the final product with cleaning the windows?

 

[lawrenceSA]

Stellar results!
Nice combo of BL, V7 and 845.
What was the final product with cleaning the windows?

Well none of the products I had in my arsenal did the job, so I will try and get some cerium oxide and felt pads, or at the very least some ceriglass and see if that will make a dent on the water spots.

So unfortunately the car left with the windows looking much the same as when it arrived, much to my disappointment

 

[cartman57]

That's too bad, all the work on the paint but the windows wouldn't come clean.
What kind or rain/water do you have in SA that would be so difficult to remove?

 

[lawrenceSA]

Yeah it was a real pity - and so difficult for me to release the car back to the customer knowing I couldn't do anything for him.

I am honestly not too sure why they are so bad, except to say that the car is already 10 years old now and presumably the previous owner did not look after it very well. The current owner indicated that the water spots were already there when he got it. And the car has been without a garage up until now so I assume it is a case of neglect more than a specific issue with the water causing spots.

Anyway, it certainly gives me the ideal test platform for removing bad water spots off glass, and all I need to do now is find the right products and get them here so I can ask the customer to bring his car back so we can have another go at the windows, which he is more than happy to do.

If only it wasn't so expensive to land stock here in SA (and unfortunately the only local 'store' where we can purchase from, does not carry a huge line of products as detailing in itself is not really a big thing in our country yet) Sure there are loads of places offering a 3-4 hour 'polish' type set up, probably doing aggressive cuts with rotaries and wool pads and following up with glazing...but I know of only maybe 10 people doing actual detailing across the country (I am sure there must be more?) in a population of like 50 million people....

 

[WRXINXS]

I have a 2003 WRX and yes a soft microfiber will actually Marr the paint. Its crazy how soft the clear is on Subarus!! Drives me crazy. I'm going to get mine Opti-Guarded in the spring to add some hardness because it just gets swirled up so fast after I polish even with proper wash methods. BTW you really made the flake in that paint pop! Great Job!!

 

[JSou]

Just flat out great. Really enjoyed the detail and pictures. Thanks for sharing and I too love the Subarus.

 

[vet]

Great job, Lawrence! Cleaning South Africa, one car at a time!

 

[wgilles]

Well done, nice turnaround. Also, very nice photography.

 

[RLucky82]

obp looks great ! I wish they used it for more then one year :/

did you wash your MFs before you used them?

 

[Mike@DedicatedPerfection]

Incredible work with well documented pictures and write up.

The finished product looks outstanding.

 

[Pinpoint_Precision]

I call it, Perfect Achievement! Amazing work, superB pictures (before/after) and wow that color is so pretty. I feel your pain, these colors beig so soft, anything will scratch it so easily. Did a brand new Nissan GT-R 2013 black edition, the paint really played tricks on me to the point that it gave me a headache as well. Anyway, great job and thanks for sharing your work with us.

 

[lawrenceSA]

WOW - thank you all so much for your comments - it is really humbling.

@RLucky82 - no I didn't - they all arrived in a sealed pack and I made the presumably incorrect assumption that they would be good to go.... but lesson learnt...:xyxthumbs:

 

[Big Boi]

Just the thread I was looking for!