I am very excited to post this car. As some of you know I had my knee replaced 3 months ago so this is my first job in a few months. What a way to break back in! This is the longest I have ever spent detailing a car: 23.5 hours. This car was so heavily scratched and had many chips as well. I had originally thought it would be about a 14 hour job until I had clayed it and saw the real condition. I called the owner and he said "I don't care how long you take; just make it mint". His wish was my command. He had just put a new set of rims on the car so luckily it did not have the usual BMW brake dust. There was a little but it cleaned up relatively easily. There was a fair amount of wet sanding involved in this one as well. Here we go: THE PROCESS: First Things First: As any nutritionist will tell you, you need to have your 3 main food groups....here are mine: In Need of a Wash?: INSIDE CHALLENGES: I believe this car belonged to a female before; there was makeup all over the headliner and on the sunvisor: WHEELS/TIRES/WELLS: The tires were cleaned with Zep Purple and a stiff tire brush. The wheels were cleaned with DG All Wheel Cleaner and an RG brush on the face and an EZ detail brush for the barrels. The wells were cleaned with Zep Citrus and a brush. BEFORES: DURING: The car was then clayed with CM blue and ONR as lube. This revealed what was in store for me: DEFECTS (LOTS OF THEM): EXHAUST TIPS BEFORE: PAINT CORRECTION: As you can see, I had my hands full with this one. The trunk lid was terrible as was the back bumper. There was about a 6" long scratch that had been touched up and not well. I ended up wet sanding about 50% of the trunk lid and the vast majority of the rear bumper as well. I found that using my Fenix helped show what the paper was doing. As for removing the sanding marks, I first tried M105 with a PFW pad. Waste of time. I then used my brand new Megs burg wool pad...a bit better but not much. I then broke out my old (not as in old, but not used in a long time) double-sided white 3M wool pad. I had purchased an adapter on Dana's advice. (I used to have a buffer dedicated to those pads but it broke). That finally did the trick. I followed it up with Presta UCCL on a white LCC pad. Here are some pics of the sand marks and then with how I finished it down with just the wool and finally with the UCCL (You can see the bottle in those pics). FINISHED WITH JUST WOOL: FINISHED WITH UCCL: When it came time to do the bumper, I will admit that I was nervous. I hate having to work plastic b/c of its heat sensitivity. How I usually do it is run the buffer for short periods of time at the lowest speed with the trigger depressed. I did something different this time that worked LIKE A CHARM! Instead of keeping a constant speed, I kept barely feathering the trigger so it was hardly moving. I found that not only did I not generate heat this way, I could work the area until the sand marks disappeared. It was actually faster, safer and more effective. I was using a 3" white wool pad for this stage with M105. As far as correcting the rest of the car, I either used my PFW pad with M105 or an orange flat LCC pad. I followed that up with UCCL and a white LCC pad. The numerous chips got filled after the UCCL stage with a tiny paint brush and some black spray paint I had. (Paint sprayed on a piece of cardboard and then the brush was dipped in that and then dabbed into the spot). The advantage of the spray paint is its fast drying time. The paint was then treated to DG 501 both applied and removed by hand. I wanted the car to have killer protection so after the 501, I applied DG 601 and then 105 into it. That was removed and then followed up by a coat of Colli 845. Every stage brought some improvement to the look it seemed. The head and tail lights were treated with Autosol and left to dwell. They were then buffed with a 3" pad with DG plastic polish. One tail light had a scratch that was wet sanded out and then polished with UCCL and the 3" white wool pad. That was followed by the DG plastic polish. The exhaust tips were cleaned with Autosol and 0000 steel wool. I followed that up with Collinite metal wax. The interior stain was treated first to DG foaming upholstery cleaner. It did not remove the stain so I used some Magestic Solutions Carpet cleaner (witchcraft in a bottle as Karl calls it). That did it. I followed it up with the DG foaming cleaner to remove as much soap as possible. The rest of the interior was steam cleaned, including the carpets. The plastic was cleaned with Zep glass cleaner and treated with 303 Aerospace. The jams were cleaned with ONR. The glass was cleaned with Zep glass and my 2 mf method. The wheels are so special on this car I wanted to make them look great and stay that way. I sprayed the barrels with DG AW after cleaning them and applied DG 501 by hand and followed it up with a coat of Colli 845. They will have excellent protection now! The tires were treated with DP gloss tire gel. The grille was polished with DG 501. Now, for the results. AFTER SHOTS: NICE CLOSEUP OF THE FLAKE: NOT ALL BUMPER SCRATCHES CAME OUT, BUT THEY WERE DRAMATICALLY IMPROVED. THE LONG ONE IS JUST TOO DEEP. Sorry, I actually forgot to shoot the headliner. Trust me, it did come out. Thanks for taking the time to view this long post!!!!
Thanks Sergei! Sorry to make you read so much on this one. I wanted to share the technique on the bumper though. Me too...thanks! Thanks Gianni. Great to be back. I'll be posting a Mustang tonight. Gonna be really, really busy for the next month I think. Thanks, I think they make the car stand out. Since they're painted and not chrome, I wanted them to shine as much as possible. Thanks very much Chas! Keep your eyes peeled for upcoming ones..including a gorgeous 2010 Cobra in this awesome blue. Thank you very much. Great to be back. Marcus..thanks very much bud. Doing better every week. Still walking with a cane for now but it's getting better.
Great job Richy! The write up is fabulous. can't wait to see some more details. this bmw was just HAMMERED!
GREAT work, richy! I've started not liking black cars, I had 2 back to back lol. Side note... what kinda cigar is that? I just got done with a genuine Cuban Cohiba. I can't find anything around here that matches it for smoothness/flavor.
Thanks Waseem. Check out the Mustang...gorgeous colour of blue. They're Punch brand. Get them at the border. About $85 for a box.
