Tornado Red Golf 6Gti - Detailed by Lawrence

[lawrenceSA]

I know that the owner of this vehicle (a fellow VW Club SA member - 5p33dy) and I had both been quite excited about this detail. He looking forward to getting his car back looking brand new, and me excited at the chance to work on some red paint for a change - the bulk of my details have been white, black and silver cars with the odd blue car in between and this was only the second red vehicle I have done :crazy:

So the car was dropped off on Friday evening and got to work removing the plastidip from the mirrors (at the owner's request) which was removed relatively easily, except for a the little recess between the mirror frame and cover.

I then removed some stickers from the windows and car itself.

Lastly I removed the laminex off the tail lights.... I struggled a little with the first one, but quickly realized that by leaving the halogens focused on the tail light for a while, it heated the laminex up nicely and made removal much easier. Any remaining glue residue was removed with AF Oblitarate.

Once this was done I got to work on the interior of the car. All the plastic trim, dashboard and leather surfaces were thoroughly cleaned using a 20:1 mix of Cyclo CM30, various brushes and MF towels and obviously a vacuum cleaner (with a handy blower function). The leather was then conditioned using Smartwax Smart Leather and the plastic trim dressed with Smartwax Smartdressing.

Saturday morning saw me start (as always) with the wheels, tires and arches.

The wheels and tires were first cleaned using Meguiars Hot Rims All Wheel and Tire Cleaner

This left them looking a lot better

But after using some Autofinesse Oblitarate to remove the tar residue and then hitting them with Autofinesse Iron Out, you can see that more dirt and iron (evidenced by where the clear liquid has turned purple subsequent to coming into contact with iron particles) was removed.

The arches were the scrubbed using a Mothers Fenderwell brush and Cyclo CM30. Once dried the arches were dressed with Chemical Guys Bare Bones and the tires dressed using Optimum Opti Bond Tire Gel

I then moved on to cleaning up the door/boot shuts. I sprayed on some Cyclo CM30 at 3:1, left it to dwell for a few minutes before agitating with various brushes. I then rinsed them, removed some of the dealer service stickers, clayed them and followed up with some Meguiars Cleaner wax by hand.

Before

After (excuse the terrible pics )

Next up was the engine bay. For this I used sprayed on some Cyclo CM30 at 3:1, left it to dwell for a few minutes before agitating with various brushes. I then rinsed it and blew it dry. The bay was then dressed using Chemical Guys Bare Bones.

Before

After

 

[lawrenceSA]

With most of the dirty work out of the way it was now time to wash the car. First here are a few pictures of what the vehicle looked like - some of these were taken on Friday night, some Saturday morning.

A close up of the previous pic

A bad chip on the roof as a result of stone being flicked up onto the roof.... here you can also see that the touch up paint has not actually been used to fill the chip, but has rather been painted over it.

Some more touched up spots

And now some sun shots from Saturday morning

Once the lamixed had been removed from the tail lights it was easy too see how badly swirled they were. These were corrected using Menzerna PF2500 on a white pad, followed by Menzerna SF4000 on a black pad

B-pillars would be subjected to an initial polish using Menzerna PF2500 followed by Menzerna SF4000 on a black pad

 

[lawrenceSA]

I never used the 2BM method for this one, but instead after pre-foaming I then used the foam cannon to foam up an area, washed it as per usual, and the used the trigger on the end of my hose pipe to 'wash' the mitt clean before continuing with the next section. In my opinion this worked better than a traditional 2BM as I was able to rinse the mitt more effectively, and did not have to drag 2 buckets around. It was however a bit of a mission having to continuously unplug the hose from the HP washer and then clip the trigger back on to the hose.

The paint and all glass surfaces were then fully decontaminated using:
Autofiness Oblitarate
Autofiness Iron Out
Carways Mist and Wipe
Clay Magic Blue Clay

I have worked on a fair amount of VW’s now and know that the mostly have a hard clear coat. I was therefore hoping to get away with a 1-step polish using PF2500 but this never happened. As you can see by this test spot (right of the line compounded, left of the line not) the damage in the clear was very deep and even after 6 passes on a cyan pad with FG400, this is all the correction I managed. Therefore for the most part I had to hit each section twice with FG400 to remove sufficient damage. This was then followed with SF4000 on a tangerine pad and then Chemical guys Blacklight on a black pad.
First attempt

After second hit

This obviously meant a lot more time than anticipated behind the polisher correcting paint resulting in me only finishing up closer to 01:00 on Sunday morning, and then having to recommence on Sunday morning at 06:00 :yawn: and it also meant that I literally finished up 15 minutes before the customer arrived on Sunday and combined with the bad weather and quickly fading light meant that there was very little time to get any decent after shots. The fact that it was overcast the whole day Sunday also meant no sun shots at all….

The only other things done on Sunday were the polishing of the exhaust tips using a Mothers Mini-ball and Mothers Mag and Aluminium Polish; the cleaning of the glass using Autoglym Fast Glass and the dressing of all the exterior trim using Smartwax Smartdressing.

Before

After

So I guess I will need to wait until the next red car makes an appearance to see some perfectly polished red paint glistening on the sun but nonetheless here are a few 'after' shots I managed to snap quickly.

Total time spent = 30 hours

Thanks for looking and as always any feedback is welcomed.

 

[ken tuep]

Awesome job! I'm always so amazed with your attention to detail in the door jambs.

I use apc and a tornador and various brushes, and they don't end up this nice unless I use the pressure washer for rinsing.

What's your secret?

Sent from my SAMSUNG-SGH-I777 using AG Online

 

[silverfox]

Did you have anything more aggressive that FG400 and cyan pad (like perhaps M105/MF combo)?

Looks great! I wasn't aware that some VWs had such hard CC. I like your choice of Blacklight as well, as it really makes a nice post-correction product.

 

[sproketser]

Wow , great job again mate ! Always learn new stuff from you guys .

 

[vet]

Stunning! Great job, as always, Lawrence!

 

[lawrenceSA]

Awesome job! I'm always so amazed with your attention to detail in the door jambs.

I use apc and a tornador and various brushes, and they don't end up this nice unless I use the pressure washer for rinsing.

What's your secret?

Sent from my SAMSUNG-SGH-I777 using AG Online

Firstly, thank you.

Secondly, I really dunno :dunno: what my secret is?

What brand of APC are you using? Maybe it is that, or possibly that the 'type' of dirt in the door shuts you are doing is somehow 'worse' than what I am dealing with?

The only problem I sometimes have with using a pressure washer (I do use it sometimes too) is that it tends to shoot a lot of 'over-spray' into the interior

Did you have anything more aggressive that FG400 and cyan pad (like perhaps M105/MF combo)?

Looks great! I wasn't aware that some VWs had such hard CC. I like your choice of Blacklight as well, as it really makes a nice post-correction product.

Unfortunately not.... I have pretty much always used Menzerna products and the only Megs stuff I have used is UP/UC. Read a lot of post re: how 'finicky' 105 can be, and so have steered clear of it and stuck to FG400 instead, which for the most part has worked.

I do struggle though with ceramic clears obviously, but more so than the product, I think it is the tool that is the problem. I currently only have a PC type DA (branded over here as a Shield DA machine) - probably even less powerful than a Megs DA.

I am not interested in getting a rotary at this stage, but am very VERY keen on a Flex..... just trying to save some money for one.... also given that I only do this on weekends and am not in it for the money as such (I do this because I love making people fall in love with their cars again), taking a few hours extra is not normally an issue for me....

Wow , great job again mate ! Always learn new stuff from you guys .

Thank you very much.

I think the one of the great things about detailing is that you are always learning... be you a complete 'noob', someone like me who has only been doing this for a couple of years, or a maestro like Mr Phillips.

Stunning! Great job, as always, Lawrence!

Thanks vet - always appreciate you taking the time to read through my posts

 

[JSou]

Awesome as always. Such a beautiful car.

 

[LatinFG2]

Awesome results!

 

[noslef]

Nice work! Even without the sun that red still pops. You removed the film from the rear lights but left the front lights...were they in better shape or was it customer preference?

 

[lawrenceSA]

Awesome as always. Such a beautiful car.

Awesome results!

Thanks very much guys

 

[lawrenceSA]

Nice work! Even without the sun that red still pops. You removed the film from the rear lights but left the front lights...were they in better shape or was it customer preference?

Thank you

Yes, the customer still wanted the front on. In fact, part of the reason he wanted me to remove the rear was that a) there were a lot of swirls under the film and b) the initial application of the film was not up to his standard and he is planning on having it redone.