--- I am currently working on this car every day after work. I have the car for up to two weeks. Decided to start posting progress now and will continue the thread whenever I have time to update. --- I was told the owner passed away, the BMW X3 client brought the car to me as the surviving family needed help getting the cars sold. 37k and a very hard life sitting in between those miles. Sap and bird droppings absolutely everywhere...oh and pine needles. Lots of pine needles. Paint in very bad condition. Hard to believe this car was actually waxed at some point. Wheels were in fairly decent nick with low mileage. Caked grime everywhere! So much sap. I had to have a helper come and assist in removing the hardtop. Vehicle was dropped off late sunday night, so this ends day 1. Day 2 Had to spend very little time on the interior to save the budget for exterior work. Just did a light wipe down/scrub and vacuumed. Interior was so beat I wasn't getting really stellar results. A couple hours of interior work and day 2 was over, had a birthday dinner to attend. Day 3 Learned how to manually operate the spoiler with help from other Porsche owners. Removed the airbox to access the engine bay. Good idea. More on the engine later, this was just the first wipedown. I had to "clean what I could reach" due to the tightly packed bay. I feel disappointed...a lot of dirt is clearly visible but can't be reached. Dumped out the airbox and steamed away leftover gunk. 50/50 Removed the cooling fan to allow for easier cleaning underneath the spoiler. Unclipped the spoiler trim to vacuum and scrub away debris. I used trash bags to cover the engine bay underneath while I did this. Redirected the water down safely to the ground. Sap in the spoiler jamb. Taillights were so easy to remove, found a wasp nest in the driver side pocket...thankfully it was empty. This concludes day 2. Day 3 Thanks to German engineering I was able to remove the headlights in seconds. Removed the battery and trim to clear more pine needles and debris. Clogged water drains under the cowl were also cleared. You can see the hardtop chilling in the background. I laid down a moving blanket and placed some old 6in lake country pads under each corner. Hand picked and vacuumed. Steam was used to loosen any caked gunk it could reach, vacuumed again and wiped down. I was about to reinstall the battery tray, but I couldn't put it back like this. I remembered I had some product I bought for my own car. Gave it a good coating and left out to cure. Tape was to cover the electric harness when I cleaned the headlight bays. Jacked up each corner one by one as I cleaned each wheel, allowing much easier access to degrease the arches. This concludes day 3.
I don't think I posted the BMW X3 on here, check out the album if you like: http://imgur.com/a/JfioU#0
Spare was degreased before reinstallation I was unable to correct the original window sticker I had to pull back the arch liners and clean out tons of old pine needles, leaves, and other gunk which kept running out the door bottoms. sidemarkers removed Headlights polished and protected with 3 coats of Wolf's Hard Body. Left the lights out during the polishing stage. Physical debris deep inside the front bumper was removed...awaiting the wash cycle to finish the job. CR Spotless again provided nice 000 PPM water. Foam bath and high pressure rinse, followed by traditional 2 bucket wash. Apart from tree sap, decontamination was straight forward and went without issue. A Nanoskin fine grade mitt got the paint nice and smooth again. 2nd paint inspection after the decon wash. Heavy sun damage present on many areas of the car. I taped off a test section to plan my attack. Considering the severity of many defects, my goal was to achieve about 60-70% correction. I used my Rupes LHR21 polisher with a Rupes brand yellow pad and Menzerna FG400. Griot's Garage 3in polisher was used for tighter areas. Super tight areas were done by hand. Up next are some 50/50 comparison photos of the polishing process. Polishing was done all day Saturday. Fender got some clarity Sunday morning I pulled the car out to inspect the polishing results. The battery was completely flat and charging was unsuccessful. I resorted to removing the battery from one of my personal cars and temporarily installing it into the Porsche. I instructed the client to bring a new battery at pickup time. The next time I do a Porsche I may completely remove the engine. This would allow me to do a much more thorough job. Pinnacle Signature Series 2. Wolf's Rim Shield applied to the wheel faces. A mechanical fault with the car did not allow me to raise and clean the soft top...or search for any more hidden debris. Plastic and rubber trim treated with Sonax Trim Restoration Gel. Some trim did not turn out as well as this lovely rear spoiler. I was able to restore some gloss inside the jambs via hand polishing. Auto Finesse Satin Tyre Gel applied to the BF-Goodrich rubber. Thanks for viewing.
Really excellent job! I'd love to see the expression on the owners face! I'm just really curious to know what a car like that could get after a detail like this. Either from the dealer or private party I'm sure it doubled in value from the previous condition!
You totally rocked this !!!! Beautiful, careful, detailed, work here !!! I can relate completely with everything you did.. Beautiful job ! I saw a lot German and other cars like this for 11 years in Bellevue, WA, the tree sap Capital of the World.. The Pine needles are the Bonus along with the sap from those pine and fir trees.. A lot of cars were so bad, there were little trees growing in the trunk jambs the most, from all the crap that had gone down in there and composted after years of neglect.. Thanks for saving this car - owner had to be stunned !!! Dan F
Thanks, I've done two cars for this client after this one. He's got a few more as well. car still needs a repaint some of the damage was way too severe..but it's more presentable now. Not sure if he found a buyer yet.
