lawrenceSA
New member
- Feb 7, 2012
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One of the members of the local vw club was up from CPT on holiday (its about 1000 miles away) and wanted me to detail his dad's car for Christmas. They arrived on Friday night and we chatted around the history of the car, current 'maintenance', inspected the car and set some realistic expectations about what needed to be done, both for the detail, and after.
As with any silver car, they tend to look 'better' than most for longer - or appear to 'scratch' less. Really it is just that scratches which appear a silver/white'ish color to our eyes don't have any contrast against silver paint so are harder to distinguish than say against the perfect backdrop of black paint.
It had the usual surface dirt, and dirt ingrained into all the little places where inferior washes don't get - spend the extra few minutes each wash cleaning these areas out and you won't need to, at some point, throw multiple hours at it...
The exhaust tips were looking very sad
The paint did have some fairly deep swirling (improper washing/drying) and a lot of holograms/buffer trails (from the previous person's poor attempt at polishing)
The defects were hard to capture on camera
The swirls can be better seen in the B-Pillars and the Tail lights.
Now focus slightly more toward the camera lens and the hologramming shows up
The interior was also in need of attention - here you can see only one panel has been cleaned of the dirt/body oils/otherstuffIdontwantothinkabout
uke: :lol:
So early Saturday morning the engine bay was tackled
Engine bay
-Blow loose dust off with compressor
-Clean with APC, MF Towels and various Brushes
-Clean/Polish/Protect (AIO) using AF Tripple by hand
-Plastics dressed with Aerospace 303
Then it was on to the wheels. On the way home from the airport the A7 had a blow out, so the spare was on , leaving one of the wheels in the boot - perfect for documenting a nice through wheels cleaning :thumbup:
What you start with
After washing it
You remove the remaining embedded iron
A detailers attempt at creativity behind the lens
Then you remove the remaining tar residue
Clay off any remaining contamination and you are left with this
Then it was time to tackle the arches and wheels on the car.
Arches, Tires, Wheels
-HP rinse arches, tires and wheels.
-Clean arches with a Cyclo APC using a Mothers Fenderwell Brush
-HP rinse
-Clean tires with Valet Pro Billbery Wheel Cleaner @ 1:6 and a Mothers Tire brush.
-HP rinse
-Repeat tire cleaning
-HP rinse
-Wash wheels and brake calipers with VP Bilberry Wheel Cleaner @ 1:6, Daytona and Daytona Jnr brushes and Valet Pro Boars Hair Brushes
-HP rinse
-Dry
-Remove tar using Autoglym Intensive Tar Remover
-Spray with APC and HP Rinse
-Dry
-Remove bonded and embedded ferrous contaminants on wheels and brake calipers with Valet Pro Dragon's Breath Daytona and Daytona Jnr brushes and Valet Pro Boars Hair Brushes
-HP Rinse + flood rinse
-Later the tires would be dressed with Optimum Tire Sheen and the wheels sealed with Menzerna Powerlock and the arches dressed using Shield Sheen
After this it was head down to wash the car, decontaminate it, and get it ready to start polishing - there is a lot of ground to cover on a car this size.
Wash
-HP rinse
-Applied Valet Pro Citrus Pre-wash via a spray bottle, left to dwell
-HP rinse
-Applied Valet Pro ANSF via a MTM Hydro, left to dwell
-HP rinse
-2BM wash using lambswool wash mitts and
-Flood Rinse
-Dried using ONR and WW drying towels
Decontamination
-Tar removed using Autoglym Intensive Tar Remover
-Iron removed using Valet Pro Dragon's Breath
-Remaining contamination was clayed off using Shield Heavy Duty clay with ONR as lube.
Paint correction
- Paint readings were pretty much all healthy (avg 140) with only a few spots dropping down to the 90µ range.
- Flex 3401 / Menzerna FG400 / 6" Purple Foamed Wool Lake Country pad followed by Flex 3401 / Menzerna SF4000 / 5.5" Flat Green Lake Country Polishing pad. For the smaller areas 4" Orange and White Lake Country CCS pads were used with same polishes on a Shield DA and for the remaining tight spots, polishing was done by hand
Before
After
Paint protection
- Optimum Optiseal
Glass
- Autofinesse Crystal
Exhaust Tips
-Cleaned using APC, MF towels and various brushes
-Polished and protected using Meguiars NXT All Metal polish
Door rubbers, window rubbers, exterior plastic trim
- Cleaned using Shield Heavy Duty Vinyl and Rubber Cleaner
- Protected using Aerospace 303.
As with any silver car, they tend to look 'better' than most for longer - or appear to 'scratch' less. Really it is just that scratches which appear a silver/white'ish color to our eyes don't have any contrast against silver paint so are harder to distinguish than say against the perfect backdrop of black paint.
It had the usual surface dirt, and dirt ingrained into all the little places where inferior washes don't get - spend the extra few minutes each wash cleaning these areas out and you won't need to, at some point, throw multiple hours at it...
The exhaust tips were looking very sad
The paint did have some fairly deep swirling (improper washing/drying) and a lot of holograms/buffer trails (from the previous person's poor attempt at polishing)
The defects were hard to capture on camera
The swirls can be better seen in the B-Pillars and the Tail lights.
Now focus slightly more toward the camera lens and the hologramming shows up
The interior was also in need of attention - here you can see only one panel has been cleaned of the dirt/body oils/otherstuffIdontwantothinkabout
uke: :lol:
So early Saturday morning the engine bay was tackled
Engine bay
-Blow loose dust off with compressor
-Clean with APC, MF Towels and various Brushes
-Clean/Polish/Protect (AIO) using AF Tripple by hand
-Plastics dressed with Aerospace 303
Then it was on to the wheels. On the way home from the airport the A7 had a blow out, so the spare was on , leaving one of the wheels in the boot - perfect for documenting a nice through wheels cleaning :thumbup:
What you start with
After washing it
You remove the remaining embedded iron
A detailers attempt at creativity behind the lens
Then you remove the remaining tar residue
Clay off any remaining contamination and you are left with this
Then it was time to tackle the arches and wheels on the car.
Arches, Tires, Wheels
-HP rinse arches, tires and wheels.
-Clean arches with a Cyclo APC using a Mothers Fenderwell Brush
-HP rinse
-Clean tires with Valet Pro Billbery Wheel Cleaner @ 1:6 and a Mothers Tire brush.
-HP rinse
-Repeat tire cleaning
-HP rinse
-Wash wheels and brake calipers with VP Bilberry Wheel Cleaner @ 1:6, Daytona and Daytona Jnr brushes and Valet Pro Boars Hair Brushes
-HP rinse
-Dry
-Remove tar using Autoglym Intensive Tar Remover
-Spray with APC and HP Rinse
-Dry
-Remove bonded and embedded ferrous contaminants on wheels and brake calipers with Valet Pro Dragon's Breath Daytona and Daytona Jnr brushes and Valet Pro Boars Hair Brushes
-HP Rinse + flood rinse
-Later the tires would be dressed with Optimum Tire Sheen and the wheels sealed with Menzerna Powerlock and the arches dressed using Shield Sheen
After this it was head down to wash the car, decontaminate it, and get it ready to start polishing - there is a lot of ground to cover on a car this size.
Wash
-HP rinse
-Applied Valet Pro Citrus Pre-wash via a spray bottle, left to dwell
-HP rinse
-Applied Valet Pro ANSF via a MTM Hydro, left to dwell
-HP rinse
-2BM wash using lambswool wash mitts and
-Flood Rinse
-Dried using ONR and WW drying towels
Decontamination
-Tar removed using Autoglym Intensive Tar Remover
-Iron removed using Valet Pro Dragon's Breath
-Remaining contamination was clayed off using Shield Heavy Duty clay with ONR as lube.
Paint correction
- Paint readings were pretty much all healthy (avg 140) with only a few spots dropping down to the 90µ range.
- Flex 3401 / Menzerna FG400 / 6" Purple Foamed Wool Lake Country pad followed by Flex 3401 / Menzerna SF4000 / 5.5" Flat Green Lake Country Polishing pad. For the smaller areas 4" Orange and White Lake Country CCS pads were used with same polishes on a Shield DA and for the remaining tight spots, polishing was done by hand
Before
After
Paint protection
- Optimum Optiseal
Glass
- Autofinesse Crystal
Exhaust Tips
-Cleaned using APC, MF towels and various brushes
-Polished and protected using Meguiars NXT All Metal polish
Door rubbers, window rubbers, exterior plastic trim
- Cleaned using Shield Heavy Duty Vinyl and Rubber Cleaner
- Protected using Aerospace 303.
