SeaJay's Detailing - Nissan Altima

[SeaJay's]

I was referred to this customer by one of my regulars. She was looking to have the vehicle cleaned up (for a reasonable price) so she could sell it to her brother.

The vehicle had not seen an exterior wash since it was purchased in 2007. The interior had be vacuumed and cleaned a few times.

There were two areas of concern on the exterior that she wanted to see if I could correct. She had rubbed her garage walls a few times...the front bumper was bad, but the passenger side wasn't too bad and was able to get almost 100% correction on it. Both areas were hit with D300 and then GPS.

Products Used:
OPC 3:1 - For cleaning the hard surfaces in the interior and the door jambs
Folex - For carpets
303 Aerospace - to dress the interior
Megs Window Cleaner
DP Xtreme Foam - In two buckets and used in foam cannon
Dawn - Mixed with DP Xtreme foam in foam cannon
Iron- X - For wheels and paint decontamination
Poorboys Bug Squash
Speedy Surface Prep Towel
Glide - Lube for the Speedy towel
ONR - Diluted to clay lube strength
Pinnacle poly clay - for the heavily contaminated sections
D300
Optimum GPS
Blackfire Tire Gel
Chemical Guys Stripper Scent
Kleen Keyboard q-tip type things (can't recall the exact name off the top of my head). Use them for cleaning vents and hard to reach areas. Also have some for dressing.

Equipment Used:
Three 5 gallon buckets - 1 for wheels/tires and 2 for the normal wash
Karcher 2000psi Pressure washer
Foam lance
Vapor Clean Gaia - steamer portion only
Chenille wash mitt
Various brushes - stiff brush for tires, wheel well brush, lug nut brush, raceglaze brushes for emblems, door jambs, etc, carpet brushes
Many MFs
Cobro application
Porter Cable 7424
Megs MF Cutting disk - used with D300
LC White pads - 3 for the whole car
Ridge 4 gallon shop vac

Now onto the pics...

As the car arrived

Front Bumper area - notice that some areas were taken all the way to the plastic

This is the other area on the passenger side - not nearly as bad and some of it was just rubber transfer

All the door jambs were pretty dirty

The interior wasn't really bad, just some stains in the carpet that had been there awhile. The drivers side was the worse due to she didn't have mats in the car for awhile...so there are tears and heavy staining in this area. She just asked me to do a quick cleaning on it. I ended up spending more time than expected here cause I kept saying to myself "I know I can get it better" lol.

After the vehicle was washed (sorry no pics, it's hard to do pics when I"m on my own). The paint was sprayed with Iron-X and let to dwell about 5 minutes.

And the afters...interior first

I wasn't completely satisfied with the drivers area carpet...I think if I had spent a little more time on it I could have gotten it a little better. But overall a good improvement.

And the exterior pics

Passenger side where the scratches were - all came out except one or two deep ones.

 

[SeaJay's]

Too many pics so had to do it in 2 posts...

Front bumper - really cleaned up nicely but there were a lot more deeper scratches here that I did not get out.

The customer was thrilled with my work and will be bringing me her new Audi A4 a few times a year to keep up with it.

Thanks for reading!

 

[RhetoricMixes]

Looks good! Suprised at how well the d300 performed. Did you not have an extractor for the carpet?

 

[Porsche Pilot]

Very nice work Jason! I am sure she was thrilled with the results.

 

[SeaJay's]

Looks good! Suprised at how well the d300 performed. Did you not have an extractor for the carpet?

D300 works great on most paints.

My gaia is an extractor as well but it's not very powerful. Normally I can get the same results just using the steamer.

 

[fahoumh]

Looks good. A definite improvement, IMO. :xyxthumbs:

 

[BobbyG]

Hey Jason,

Now that's what I call resurrection from the ground up! The Altima was not only dirty, it was dinged, dented, swiped, and the interior probably hasn't been cleaned since 2007 either!

I'll be she didn't even recognize the car when she came to pick it up.

Quality is job one! rops:

 

[Bates Detailing]

Very nice job Jason!

 

[Gurge]

lookin good. forget the carpet stains. great turnaround.

I assume claying was rough. Anytime I have a car 'bleed' that much from the iron x, it's usually because they've gone too long without a change of brakes somewhere along the line. Eventually that metal on metal contact is just showering the side of the car.

 

[A.P.A.D.]

nice work! couldnt imagine not washing my car for 5 years!

 

[Judge]

" I ended up spending more time than expected here cause I kept saying to myself "I know I can get it better" lol. "

I can relate to this. I find myself falling into this thought process too often

 

[SeaJay's]

lookin good. forget the carpet stains. great turnaround.

I assume claying was rough. Anytime I have a car 'bleed' that much from the iron x, it's usually because they've gone too long without a change of brakes somewhere along the line. Eventually that metal on metal contact is just showering the side of the car.

Using the speedy towel to clay actually made pretty quick work of that process. I did clay the bottom door sills, rear bumper, and trunk lid. They were pretty rough.

" I ended up spending more time than expected here cause I kept saying to myself "I know I can get it better" lol. "

I can relate to this. I find myself falling into this thought process too often

I do the same thing. I usually end up having to tell myself that's good enough and move on. Time is money! Unless the customer is actually looking for as close to perfect as I can get it then that's another story. But on something like this it's just give it a good cleaning.

 

[Ray@Autogeek]

WOW. GREAT turnaround. :dblthumb2: