2007 Ford Edge

Well this vehicle belongs to a coworker, I’ve actually detailed this vehicle when it was first purchased…but it’s been a full year or more since I’ve seen it so I’m sure there will be lots for me to correct this time around. The vehicle was scheduled for a minor paint correction, here is the vehicle upon arrival:







Looks like my coworker has done his best to maintain the vehicle and by doing so has created a big job for me, the entire vehicle was covered with wax residue, lots and lots of residue.





Well like all details I begin with the shoes of the vehicle, first the tools for the rims:

For the rims I decided to use my Menzerna Gel, tires I went with Meg’s APC same goes for the wheel wells. With various brushes here is how all that agitation looked like:

Well one down, three to go :thumb:

Next, was to wash the exterior of the vehicle:

Two bucket method was used of course and the shampoo of choice was Meg’s Gold Class. Once the entire vehicle had been washed, next was to clay the vehicle. The vehicle was clayed with the help of Riccardo Yellow Clay bar and boy did it ever need claying :shakehead:

Well now to see what I was up against:



The side view mirrors had lots of bug etching.








Well as you can see the vehicle was loaded with swirls, scratches and some deep scratches. It’s funny how if you look closely at the swirls you can detect a pattern oh I don’t know like say brushes at car washes, just a guess :whistle:

Well before I begin the polishing it was time to check to see how much clear coat/paint I had to play with, first up my PosiTector 6000:



Next, to check all the plastic section I used my PosiTector 200, sorry I forgot to save the readings on the gage :sorry:

Moving along, time to find a suitable polish and pad combo to deliver best results with a single pass, well at least that was my plan originally. Well this combo has proven it’s self to me, so I gave it a go:

That is Menzerna Intensive Polish:

with Menzerna Polishing foam pad and Metabo.

Now for a test panel, I decided to go with the passenger fender, before:


After a single pass:

As you can see not perfect but pretty darn good for a single pass :thumb:

Well I’ve found my combo time to have some fun polishing, before:


After:

If you look close you’ll see some deep scratches, so a second and in some cases three passes was required.

Here is a 50/50:


A closer look:


Before:


After:

Again that’s after just one pass, it took three passes to get it looking just right.

Before:


After:

Lots of deep scratches.

Now for some wicked swirls/scratches, before:

I mean come on just look at how uniform they are:

It’s like a good painting, you just can’t help but stare and admire it :thumb:…but they had to go.

After:

This was after two passes, as you can see a nice deep scratch on the far right and many random ones.

Before:


After:


Here is a 50/50 pictures of the rear panel:




Well this has lead me to the trunk now, before:


After:

That’s just one pass, it took two more passes to get it looking reasonable.

Before:


After:


Before:


After:

Don’t mind the polish residue, I hadn’t given the section the final wipe down as it took another pass to get it looking just right.

Before:


After:


Here is a 50/50 pictures of the rear passenger quarter panel:


Another 50/50:


Now for the rear passenger door before:


After:

Now this door took four passes to get it looking just right, I know what some of you might be thinking why didn’t I just step up the polish or the foam pad but it’s just that every time I gave the panel a pass with Menzerna Intensive Polish and the Menzerna foam pad it kept improving and improving and I wanted the paint correction to go smoothly meaning finish of with as little holograms or buffer marks as possible, besides my coworker is on holidays and I had all the time I needed to work on the vehicle, having said that I didn’t go to aggressive because my coworker will keep this vehicle for as long as possible so saving clear coat was on top of my priority..up there with removing as many swirls/scratches as possible

Any who moving on before:


After:


Before:


After:


I’ve made my way all around the vehicle, I’m now at the passenger fender, before:


50/50:


now for the pillars, 50/50:


Before:


After:


Before:


After:


Before:


After:

Boy this vehicle had lots of pillars and with bunch of scratches as well.

Well the paint correction was done, remember how I said I was only going to do a single stage paint correction well there was no way I could let this vehicle go with a single stage, not with out refining the finish. For this I decided to use Menzerna 85RD with a Blue 3M UK Finishing pad. For all the smaller areas I went with a red Ultimate foam pad. This process took several hours but very much worth it :thumb:

Well that concludes the paint correction and the finishing process, now time for a final wipe down with Menzerna Top Inpsection. Now remember all the wax build up on this vehicle, well I had the task to remove it all, how, well I got several qtips, dipped them inside Menzerna Top Inspection:


And got to work:


Here is a good example of what I mean:

Lots of wax residue. After a couple of minutes on one of these sensors here is how I was able to finish it off:

Sorry for all the fuzzy stuff, just came of the micro fiber towel I was using :shrug: but the point is all wax residue was removed :thumb:

Well as you can imagine removing all the wax build up was tedious but it had to be done :nod:

Now to finish of some other minor details, such as the exhaust tips which were taken care of by Autosol, before:


After:


Before:


After:


Well that about does it, all exterior plastic trim received a coat of Black WOW. Now for paint protection including all door shuts, seeing as this vehicle is driving on a daily basis I decided to go with a sealant, DuraGloss 601, followed by 105 and here are the end results:










































Well that concludes this vehicle and hopefully my coworker will be pleased with the end results when he gets home from his holidays, boy wouldn’t that be something…you go on holidays and you come back to a nice clean vehicle :thinking: not bad huh any who hope you enjoy this detail as much as I did eace:

 

Lovely work Carlos, that black paint is blindingly bright!

 

love the depth of the paint on this one, i see you're getting creative with your pictures lol as usual great work on the correction

 

Thank you, DG sure makes the vehicle shinny that's for sure :thumb:

Yea, my neighbors must think I'm odd or something, I mean you don't see many people outside taking pictures of a vehicle :shead: any who I've been experimenting with different angles, settings, lenses..:bla2:...:bla2:...I take so many pictures but I'm always amazed how some turn out and some don't, well you know what they say practice makes perfect :thumb: Glad you enjoyed it and thank you for the feed back eace:

 

Great job, I may have to use that tip about Top Inspection, does it work better than some IPA on a Q-tip or you never really tried that?

 

Well to be honest Top Inspection vs IPA in my opinion they are about equal, I mean with the IPA you can make it as strong as you'd like so I'm sure it will get the job done just as well as Top inspection but that's just my opinion. Hope this helps.

 

Great save Carlos. That's a great reminder of why I will never buy a black car.

 

lol yea but come on the end results are worth it, completely worth it :thumb: The only draw back is maintaining it :shrug:

 

Great job. As always a black car is so much more work.

 

Looks great CArlos. Your co-workers are very lucky to have you around!

 

Car looks amazing, Carlos. Tell him not to go through a car wash again.

 

Not sure how much free time you have, but I typically offer a cheap valet service to keep people from going to the car wash. Eventually theres not enough paint left to correct. Nice work Carlos, especially on black.

 

Nice work and documentation Carlos :thumb:

 

i love your details its seems like they get better and better each time . if thats even possible .. thanks for posting

 

Fantastic work Carlos

 

That SUV is huge! Nice work there compadre!

 

Thank you for the feed back, very much appreciate glad you enjoyed it eace:

You know sometimes I wonder if they are the lucky ones or if I'm the lucky one, I mean I enjoy detailing and I would get bored detailing just my vehicles so it's really a win win situation here :thumb:

When he gets back from holidays I'm sure he'll come by to chit chat about maintaining his vehicle

You know what's funny, I didn't realize but where we moved a bunch of my co-workers live so form time to time I get a phone call saying 'what are you doing today? Want to wash my car?' I enjoy those, just makes the weekend or week day a bit more enjoyable for me. I could be detailing every day but I have to balance things at home, work, fun..ect..ect..so all my coworkers and all those I detail vehicles for I extend some sort of maintenance and most accept it so we just work out a time and date that works with both of us, most of the owners like to do at least once a year or twice a year (summer and winter) but it really depends on vehicle owners, I leave it up to them.

Thank you, glad you enjoyed it eace:

You know that white Mercedes I did made me feel bad and I felt as though I did a sloppy job on the write up..but to be honest the whole detail left me with a bad taste in my mouth so this vehicle was a picker upper sort of speak. Glad you enjoyed it and thank you for the feed back, very much appreciated eace:

Thank you sal :chest:

Hey compa, thank you for the feed back..you should see the SUV I'm currently working on :thud: Almost done with it aranoia: Glad you enjoyed it eace:

 

Beautiful work Carlos! You gotta love black when the finished product looks like that.:thumb:

 

Vehicle looks great Carlos.

 

Very nice work Carlos! I sure looks GOOD.