BMW 1 Series: 5 day Full Correction Detail.

This week, I had a White 2008 BMW 1 Series book in for a Full External Correction and Interior Detail. The car had been well looked after by its new owner but was suffering from dull lifeless paint and RDS and the interior was generally quite grubby. The new owner has clayed the car and has a careful regular wash method but wanted the car detailed so they could maintain the shine. This is the car on arrival:









As usual I used my normal wash methods as stated below. The wheels were not taken off as access was sufficient to totally clean both them and the arches by just jacking the car up. The sound deadening was removed to avoid getting too much water into it and damaging it. Engine totally degreased and washed. Also the exhaust was cleaned and polished using Britemax Twins and various cloths and wire wool grades.

Wheels:








Arches:


















Exhaust:












Transport wax residue 2 yeas after the car was made!!




Engine Bay:


First we must carefully remove the wildlife!!






After washing the car was moved into the studio, dried and this is what greeted me once the lights were switched on!!!















Deep horizontal scratches:




Now onto the correction:

Firstly its out with the paint gauge to check everything is in order and no surprises. The car was showing healthy factory consistent readings so its on with the correction!. Firstly I taped up all areas that need protecting and decided on how best to tackle this beast.


Taped up and ready to go:


Finally I got a perfect combo of

• 3M Yellow waffle pad with Maguire’s #105 (2 pea sized blobs and for nasty areas I used 3M Fast Cut Plus again on a 3M yellow waffle pad.
• By routine for correction was:
Spread at 600rpm
Begin working at 1200rpm, light pressure to get residue evenly spread to start correction.
Work at 2000rpm, medium pressure working up to heavy pressure towards the end.
As residue began to go clear, reduce pressure for a couple of final passes at 2000rpm.
Reduce speed to 1200rpm.
• Then for perfecting the finish, 3M Yellow waffle pad with Maguire’s #205 worked until all marks were taken care of.
Finally to sharpen the Finish I used 3M Perfect-it Machine polish on a Blue 3M waffle pad using the following method.
Spread at 600rpm
Start at 1200rpm, light pressure and slow movements evenly spreading the polish
Work at 1500rpm, medium pressure with steady movements. Then finally reducing pressure whilst speeding up machine movement
Refine at 1200rpm, light pressure and slow to medium movement.
Finally, burnish at 900rpm, with slow machine movements, with very light pressure.
Here are my Pictures.

Rear Quarter P/S:













Bonnet:














Door P/S:


RDS after first pass:


Removed:




Wing P/S:






After correction:






Bootlid:








Rear Quarter D/S:








Deep RDS Before:


After:


Deep RDS Before:


After:


Very Deep RDS:


After, Not totally removed but I would rather feather it out than leave a panel with a low spot:


Roof:


Engine Bay finished:



Interior:

Now the correction is finished, My attention turned to the interior. Generally it was clean with the 2 front seats being slightly grubby so here is my process:

• Initial vacuum to remove dirt.
• Then all surfaces steam cleaned and scrubbed
• Test patches checked. All ok!
• Roof lining wiped with dilute Megs APC and a cloth then dry foam interior cleaner used and vacced with extractor.
• Carpets scrubbed with Autosmart interior cleaner and wiped clean then wet vacced and re wiped.
• Stubborn patches worked with steam cleaner and re-extracted and wiped clean.
• All leather cleaned with Gliptone leather cleaner and then fed with Gliptone leather conditioner.





After driver seat and foot well:














Once everything was completed the car was dusted down and every panel was IPA wiped, inspected and any remedial work was carried out and rechecked. Then it was outside and given a quick wash to remove all dust and then LSP was added. Today the LSP was a full Zaino treatment which consisted of:
• 3 layers of Z2 with ZFX
• Z^ wipe down between coats
• Z8 final wipe down.
• Clear seal applied to wheels and panels.

Here are the final pictures.









































Thanks for looking and as usual all C&C welcome.
Rollo.

 

what a turn aournd, look fantastic! May i ask what you used to make the lines in the carpet? looks great

 

that's a lot of hard work! Love your process! Very nice job!

 

It's hard to make white look wet, but you did a phenomenal job of doing just that. Car looks wonderful!

 

Amazing outcome! Great work, thanks for posting this up.

 

cheers guys. for the comments. the lines are made by brushing the pile of the carpet with a stiff brush in oppostie directions as you would striping a lawn id the carpet is very slightly damp it woks better so I normally do it after wet vaccing or steaming.

 

Great job and the white looks like a pool of milk right now. I am really liking the car as well as the phenomenal work you did.

 

Great looking example of a proper 1-series, stunning work making Alpine White looks so wet.

 

thanks very much for the great comments. I find Zaino works soo well on white cars...

 

looks great. never seen a 1 series like that before though. Pretty neat little car.

 

Beautiful job, very thorough in the wheel-well's and around the struts.

 

Super job! I have a soft spot for BMW's so I am always interested when they are detailed. Great reading the steps you took with products used and machine settings :thumb: