My First Detail - Tornado Red MKV GTI

[ahflam]

Greetings everyone!

I've been a lurker on and off here for a while and finally this summer I decided to take the leap and commit to buying some stuff and beautifying my car! So, I would like to share with you my first "real" detail on my car

First off,

Products used:

- Pretty much everything from AG!!

Paint Prep:
- Meguiars Gold Class Wash
- IronX
- Chemical Guys Clay/Luber

Engine:
- Detailers Engine Cleaner
- 303 Aerospace Protectant

Wheels:
- Pinnacle Wheel Cleaner
- IronX
- Pinnacle Black Onyx Tire Gel
- Detailer's Wheel Glaze
- Daytona Wheel Brush

Trim/Rubbers:
- Ultima Trim Protectant

Paint Correction/Finishing
- Duplicolor Tornado Red Touchup
- Meguiars Unigrit 2000/2500/3000
- Porter Cable 7424
- Menzerna FG 400 w/ 3.5 Inch foam cutting pad
- Wolfgang Total Swirl Remover w/ Orange Light Cut & also 3.5' Equivalents
- Wolfgang Finishing Glaze w/ White Polish & also 3.5' Equivalents
- Wolfgang Polish Enhancer hand applied
- Wolfgang DGPS hand applied

*WARNING LONGGGGGGGG POST*

So lets get started:

This is my baby, I got her 2nd hand last August:

Overall was in decent shape but there were the usual things like swirls and some rock chips.

Lets start in the engine bay: Dirty and grimey

Intake has swirls and could use a polish

After Polish

After a good cleaning and dressed

Wheels being cleaned and Iron X

After this, car was washed, ironX'ed and then clayed. Didn't take any pictures there.

Exhaust Tips Cleaning

Before:

After:

Think I coulda done a better job here, maybe some steel wool next time? Any suggestions?

This took most of my morning 10am - 2pm, still learning how to be more efficient but I was taking it really slow.

On to the rock chips and the rest of the paint!

I had some rockchips that I filled about 2 weeks ago, did about 3 - 4 coats each to make it level. The car was originally from Vancouver Island which has crappy highways so it had lots of chips on the hood that were really an eyesore so I decided to try to fill in the really big ones (Thanks to all the DIYS on fixing key scratches).

After 2k, 2.5k, 3k sandpaper:

After FG400, WG TSR and then Finishing Glaze
- I didn't take any closeups, the paint didn't match 100 percent. I tested it on a test spot last week but I decided that the slightly mis matching paint was better than those big white spots.

Looks alot better.

Now onto the rest of the car:

The evil B-Pillar on all GTI's

Couple different spots on the car:

After Polish

 

[ahflam]

Some Finished Shots After 2 Coats of WGDGPS, 12 hour cure time

I am not much of a photographer so I just tried to get lots of different angles. If you guys have any tips for taking pictures (I see some sick ones in posts that really show the reflection and depth) that would be awesome!

Total time was ~ 24 hours. I worked really slow and I wasn't very efficient. Garage is pretty cramped so I had to reposition the car alot. Learned a great deal though so I will be better the next time I do this, especially with applying the sealant. Apply thin thin thin and it makes life a ton easier (Learned for the 2nd coat)!! Next weekend I'll try to top with a layer of Souveran and see how it looks like

So in the end, it cost me quite abit for this intial investment, buying the polisher and all the materials. Also took up my entire weekend! But was it worth it? Hell yah!

Thanks for reading and thanks to all the people who write the How-To's and DIY's here! Cheers!

 

[mrgto]

Excellent work. For the engine did you use the product and a brush and then spray the engine down?

 

[ksigna]

Very nice work man. It looks great!
Kyle

 

[charleyh2]

Very nice work !!

I feel you did great with the photos. They each highlighted the results of your efforts.

 

[Chris@AutoCleanse]

I would have to say you did an excellent job for your first time. The products and results you listed achieved great results. The time will get better as you do more details. Keep up the good work.

 

[Mike@DedicatedPerfection]

Incredibly well done for a first time!

Nice work!

 

[Audios S6]

Nicely done!

Good call on the APR carbonio intake; a friend went with the knockoff, took a couple hours with a dremel to get the fitment right, and we still had to buy much longer screws to get it to mount properly, not worth the effort.

What did you use to polish the B-pillars?

I did the B-pillars with menz sf4500 on both of my audis and then opti-coat'd them - totally worth it.

 

[af90]

Nice!

How was the paint to work with? I've heard VW paint can be pretty hard overall.

 

[ahflam]

Excellent work. For the engine did you use the product and a brush and then spray the engine down?

Yup, I had an old toothbrush for some of the hard to reach places

Nicely done!

Good call on the APR carbonio intake; a friend went with the knockoff, took a couple hours with a dremel to get the fitment right, and we still had to buy much longer screws to get it to mount properly, not worth the effort.

What did you use to polish the B-pillars?

I did the B-pillars with menz sf4500 on both of my audis and then opti-coat'd them - totally worth it.

Yeah I was thinking between the Carbonio and some of the others but in the end Carbonio looked the best.

Used the WG Total Swirl Remover and then the Finishing Glaze and then the DGPS to seal it.

Nice!

How was the paint to work with? I've heard VW paint can be pretty hard overall.

It didn't seem that bad? Maybe because I haven't really machine polished anything else before so I can't really compare it to anything. But aside from some of the sanding marks, which I used FG 400, the Total Swirl Remover + Orange Foam Pad combo did a pretty good job.

 

[6supersport7]

Looks great!