Pre Sale Cleanup

H

House of Wax

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I wish this was something cool like a Vette or Ferrari, but it's not. I'm sharing anyway because it's probably the nastiest vehicle I've done yet (I'm sure it's nothing compared to what some of you have seen, but I only do this as side work for the past year or two). Back story is my wife's co-worker has an 18 year old daughter that is apparently a lazy slug and she was warned that if she didn't get a job, her mom was going to sell the car. Well, we can see how that turned out. She brought it to me to get it cleaned up, so we decided to give it a good clean inside and out and hit it with an AIO to get the paint shined up a bit without spending a lot of time/money. It didn't take long to figure out why she was spending the money to get it cleaned up to sell......the daughter was obviously a filthy pig. We'll take a look at the interior first:



Gotta admit, I had to waive the white flag on that stain. Seeing as this isn't my full time gig, I can't justify spending a ton of money on a steam machine or extractor, but I did try to spot treat it with about 4 or 5 different chemicals to see if I could get it a little better, but nothing I tried did much of anything. I later on found out the daughter was going to cosmotology school for awhile and the stain was hair dye.




















Let's just say I was glad I put gloves on. They supposedly actually "cleaned it out a bit" before they brought it over. I still found a half eaten cupcake and moldy napkins in the center console under the radio area and was coated it what felt like slime. Gave the interior a good vac'ing and went to work on all the hard surfaces with HD Total and spot treated the seats/carpet with folex. Certainly looks better than when I got it:



















 
On to the exterior. It's obvious from the pictures how dirty it is, but it was the most dry and crusty paint I've ever worked on. Beading??? hahaha. Even after washing it the water just sat on the car like it was stuck when I sprayed it. Here's some before pics of the outside and door jams:
























































Couple quick shots after washing of the swirls that covered the car:



 
Outside process:

2 bucket wash with Chemical Guys Glossworkz Gloss Booster and Paintwork Cleanser
Wheels cleaned with Sonax Full Effect
Tires and wheel wells cleaned with Opti-Clean
Paint decon with Nanoskin medium grade wash mitt (been awhile since I've had to bust out the medium grade lol) with UWW+ for lube
Polished with HD Speed via Rupes21 w/tangerine hydroshred pads
Trim treated with HD Protect
Glass cleaned with stoners
Armor All on the wheel wells
Meguiars Endurance Tire Gel on the tires

Results.....far from perfect, but that wasn't the goal:



I didn't tape a line, but you can see the right side looks better



HD Speed impressed me here. You can see all the scuffs in the before pictures. Speed took em right off. Door is done in this picture and you'll see in a bit it took the rest off the rear quarter as well.







My helper doing a little photo bombing......

























Scuffs are all gone!!
















































Mission accomplished. The customer was thrilled when she picked it up. My wife told me today she's been talking about it to everyone all week at work. All work was done in the evening after my regular job so i didn't get the chance to get any pictures outside. Overall I was pretty happy with the outcome. All things considered, Speed did an excellent job on the paint. Thanks for looking
 
Just thinking, isnt it going to be harder for her to get a job without transportation?

Nice work though, that was nasty.
 
Jaretr1 said:
Just thinking, isnt it going to be harder for her to get a job without transportation?

Nice work though, that was nasty.
Click to expand...

That's funny you say that because that was the first thing I asked my wife lol
 
Nice work...added quite a bit to the value of that car.
 
I've flipped quite a few cars over the years and projects like these while gross are always my favorite. You come out with a night and day difference and you don't have to worry about damaging anything when your buffing or scrubbing.
It's amazing what a little hard work will do.
 
Very difficult to imagine how it would end up after seeing initial pics, but you did exactly what was needed to get this car bad condition much more presentable. Your results overpass all expectations.

Congrats on hard work, and thanks a lot for sharing your process.

Kind Regards.
 
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