The vehicle: 2002 Acura 3.2TL This vehicle belongs to a co-worker who was going to get his vehicle detailed at a dealership but instead phoned me and asked if I was interested on detailing his vehicle. It was quite the compliment of the owner of this vehicle to consider me, so I wanted to insure this vehicle was done right. Well on to the job, here is the vehicle and what I was up against: Interior was quite dusty and the leather was in desperate need of some moisturizing. Floor mats had quite a bit of dirt on them Well nothing that I hadn’t seen before, the vehicle wasn’t that bad to be honest. So I first made sure that the temperature inside my garage was ideal for me to work in, got my heater started after a few minuets here is the temperature Nice Well, on with the show. I first started with the interior of this vehicle. Removed all the floor mats and remember how I said it has a bit of dirt…um…well here is a picture of how much dirt the vehicle had. So it had quite a bit of dirt :righton: just makes the detail more interesting Well gave the interior a good vacuum As I kept on vacuuming the vehicle I was finding lots of goodies Nice tip huh $3.75 man I could buy a coffee with that, but I don’t drink coffee so I put it back in the ash tray. Didn’t realize I was getting a tip so quickly Vacuumed the entire vehicle and since the vehicle was so dusty I gave it a complete wipe down as I normally do. Here are some action shots: With the help of my Swissol brush I’m able to do all the vents and all those hard to reach spots. Once I finished of the wipe down I moved on to the leather, leather needed some cleaning. For the leather I got some hot water in teh bucket, a applicator with Lexol PH Leather Cleaner and went to work. Now what I do is a get the applicator wet and just keep it moist, then I apply the Lexol PH Leather Cleaner on the applicator: Then agitate the leather with it: Then with a MF towel I dip it in the hot water bucket and give the leather a nice wipe down to remove all the loose dirt. The head rest of this vehicle were looking bad too so they were treated the same way: Once I had the interior completely clean it was time to protect it and moisturize the leather. With the help of a micro fiber towel and Meguiar’s #40 I protected all vinyl and rubber. Once I was done protecting the vinyl and rubber areas it was time for the leather. For the leather I got a really usefull tip from Clark and Rich from Polished Bliss UK and I put the tip to practice. What I did was put my 1000W and 500W lights to heat up the leather, once the leather was nice and toasty I massaged in Lexol Leather Conditioner by hand. Well here are some pictures to better illustrate: 1000W light on one side 500W light on the other side Once leather was nice and hot, I placed the Lexol Conditioner I my hand Oh here is a video clip too: [/URL][/IMG] I left he conditioner on for a few minuets and then removed what was left over, I have to admit though there was hardly anything left over to remove, majority was absorbed on to the leather. Here are some before and after of the interior: Before: After: Before: After: Before: After: Sorry for the blurry picture but I didn’t want to sit on the leather, you’ll see why shortly Before: After: Before: After: Before: After: Before: After: Before: After: Before: After: Before: After: Before: After: Wipe down water before: After: Wipe down water of leather with Lexol PH Cleaner before: After: As you can see the leather was quite dirty. The leather finished of quite nicely though: I spent quite a bit of time in the interior and that was enough for one day. Next day, it was time to check out the engine bay. I fist gave the engine bay a quick rinse: I used Meguiar’s All Purpose Cleaner diluted (4:1) on this vehicle: Sprayed it on let it sit for a few minuets, got my Meguiar’s brush to give the engine bay a good scrub: For those hard to reach areas I used my other Swissol brush: Here is the entire engine bay scrubbed down: It was ready to for a rinse now: Here are a few before and after of the engine bay: Before: After: Before: After: Before: After: Once the engine bay was done and I was satisfied with it, the rims were next on the list. I as quite pleased with how well the Meguiar’s All Purpose Cleaner was working that I decided to use it on the wheel wells as well. Here are the tools for utilized on the rims, wheel wells and tires: Started off by spraying the wheel wells with Meguiar’s All Purpose Cleaner: Then used my favorite P21S Wheel Gel formula: I let the Gel work it’s magic: Wile I got my long brush to work away on the wheel wells: Once the I finished off the wheel wells it was time to agitate the inside of the rims. This time around I went with my EZ brush: Making sure to get all the way inside the rim: Then with the help of my Swissol brush it was time to agitate the face of the rim: Now on to the tires, got my Meguiar’s wheel brush to give the tires a good scrub: On to the rinsing now: This process was done to all the rims, tires and wheel wells. Now on to the rest of the body of the vehicle, I noticed the vehicle had a few bugs stuck on it so I got the Bug Squash out and sprayed it all over the vehicle: Wile I let the Bug Squash do what it does best I started getting my buckets ready to wash the vehicle: Two bucket system with my CR Spotless System of course. As you can see I used Pinnacle Body Work Shapoo with the Zymol Sponge. On to the wash: Once the entire vehicle was washed it was time to clay the vehicle, now as I went along washing the vehicle with the help of the gloves I was able to feel how bad the surface of the vehicle was and to be honest the surface of this vehicle felt like sand paper, so I knew I had to use my aggressive clay: Red Magic Clay with Pinnacle Clay Lubricant. I’m always amazed at how much the clay bar helps the surface of a vehicle, makes it so smooth and preps it for the next step, inspection and polishing. Now the color of this vehicle made it really difficult to get good pictures of what I was up against but I managed to get the odd reasonable picture out of the 100 pictures I took. The vehicle had some scratches, some deep and some not quite so deep. These were the worst scratches and they were situated on the hood. The vehicle had swirls but like they were quite difficult to capture with my camera. Oh one thing I should point out is that notice how I didn't mention about drying the vehicle off, well I didn't. After I had washed it I had to take the family to church and well the vehicle just air dried, no water spots. I'm quite pleased with the CR sytem. Well wile I was doing the inspection I already knew what combo I was going to use, so I had placed my Menzerna 85RD3.02 in front of my heater to worm up and keep worm so it didn’t act up on me: The combo: 3M Blue polishing pad with my Makita at 1800RPM and 85RD3.02, yes finished this vehicle with the Makita as well, didn’t pull out my Metabo. I’m starting to get quite comfortable with the Makita. I taped up the vehicle and got the test panel ready, I did some 50/50 areas and when it came to taking pictures…well regretfully that’s where my none picture taking skills really came up. I found out that Silver is quite difficult to take pictures off, I tried, took lots but they just didn’t turn out as great as I had hoped. Here is a 50/50 of the hood: Left side/light was not polished, right side/light had been polished…can you tell the difference? If your standing right in front of the vehicle you would but like I said pictures just weren’t working for me on this vehicle and it’s color. Well once the entire vehicle had been polished it was time to protected it: Jetseal 109 applied with foam applicator and left on over night (even though it’s not required but I did anyways) and then finished off with Victoria Collector applied by hand and both were removed with Tornado micro fiber towels. This is after removing a part of Jetseal 109 I was quite happy with the results of Jetseal. Rims also received Jetseal 109: Now for the end results, I couldn’t get any pictures outside for two reasons. One it was dark out side and two it just snowed and well it could get dirty: I can actually see my reflection, for silver that’s quite something…even I was surprised. Here is a walk round the vehicle video: [/URL][/IMG] Well owner just picked up the vehicle and was quite pleased with the results. I was quite pleased with the results my self, I wanted to make sure that I blew the owner of this vehicle away and this comment was quite satisfying “…the results are better then I expected…”. When I heard that I was pleased because that’s exactly what I was going for :thumb: As always any feed back is always welcome, hope you enjoyed the detail.
stunning as always. I love reading your write up. i love the avril in the backround of the video.. and it looks hot in that garage. Almost to hot to detail. i would be dying
I hate doing interiors. I hate it so much that I dont offer to do them at all. LOL. I just do exterior details now (When I have time). You did a great job though!
That TL looks great. I think you are the first person I have seen apply lexol by hand on coated leather. Most people only do that for uncoated hides. I am 99.5% sure that the TL uses coated leather. I knew you would come to love the makita. The using it is so laied back and relaxing.
haha Carlos, I didn't know your radio stations play the same music as down here, that's pretty cool. I guess it surprises me cause you live outside the U.S. . That's a really good tip, warming up the leather with the lights. The leather looks really supple. Again, I love your write ups and looking at the abundance of pictures. Oh yeah, that was a lot of DIRT...I think my car has that much I haven't vacuumed the inside forever. So how come u're using the Makita again?
very well done, Nica! I see you are using Pinnacle Bodywork shampoo, I bet you like it, huh? I love all Pinnacle products so far. Clay lube is awesome...And speaking of this maybe you should try some Pinnacle leather condtioner, and vinyl/rubber protectant. Both of these products rock!!!:righton: I had a TL myself (mine was 2000)sold it with 87k miles and got myself RL. Love the detailed engine also.
Sweet work Carlos Love the reflections, thats nice for a silver car! And the leather is just amazing, very nice!! Oh, guess who is getting a big ass vaccumer
Massive respect Nica, beautiful work as usual! That silver is just glowing. What I like best about your Show 'n Shines is that I always learn something as opposed to just seeing a quite before and after. And it's much appreciated. I must pick up some of that Megs #40 and get some Lexol too!
Carlos..as usual, very, very nice job there bro!! You are going to build a loyal following of customers!!
Thank you for the feed back buddy, got to have the music when detailing...I can only take so much silence :rollinglaugh: Too hot!! No way You know I should give detailng outside a try though..mmm...but I'll wait till summer :rollinglaugh: You know I used to be the same way about interior, I used to hate doing it...but then I started thinking. Regular owners don't really care about the exterior so the best way to blow them out of the water is by doing a bang of a job in the interior as well. Well I now spend the same amount of time in the interior as I do in the exterior. The expresion from the owner was great, interior and exterior was done to impress. A coworker put it this way to me "...when you drive down the street the exterior is for the people to see but the interior is for the owner to admire..." I have to admit there is some truth to what my co-worker said. Thank you for the compliment though...tell you what I'll do the interior for oh I don't know a few goodies :rollinglaugh::rollinglaugh: You know what, I agree with you. There is no question about this Acura having coated leather but even with coated leather the Lexol Leather Conditioner was absorbed like crazy. The heating of the leather really helps and as you saw from the pictures/video the leather was brought back to life..even the owner was blown away with the results. As for the Makita, yup I like it has a nice feel to it once you get the hang of it...I still prefer the Metabo on the door panels though...I think I'll just start using both of them :buffer: The readio station I listen to is Vibe 98.5...not sure about the radio stations in the US but the radio station that I really like is the SIRIUS - Rumbon has wicked Regeaton. I mostly listen to Latin music. Glad you enjoyed the write up buddy...oh as to why I used the Makita, just to try to get the hang of it to be honest, that and I'm starting to see why the UK guys love the Makita...it has some nice features to it, I'm starting to like it....but still prefer my Metabo. I like some Pinnacle products, I haven't tried the Pinnacle Leather Conditioner, but I remember Gary from AG saying it's quite nice. May have to give it a go one of these days. These TL's are quite nice, I like the curves it has...one part that I really liked about this particular TL was the side view mirrors...man they look wicked. You sold your 2000 TL with only 87K Miles on it...man that's low Miles...hope you got good $ for it. Thank you buddy, glad you enjoyed it.....so how big is the vacum? Got any pictures Thank you for the kind words my friend, really appreciate it. To be honest though I've been learning lots fromt he UK guys...they sure do know how to detail. Rich and Clark have been very kind with me, sharing a bunch of tips with me and things I've never even thought of doing/trying. So I'm more then happy to pass the tips along. I like Meg's #40 but if you prefer a mate look I would stick with Optimum or 303, this particular customer wanted the vehicle to be shiny...so he got it and he was very pleased with it :thumb:
Thank you for the kind words richy, very much appreciated. Apperently there were a few people at work that wanted to see this vehicle and depending on the results they wanted me to detail there vehicle. So far no calls yet :rollinglaugh::rollinglaugh: but actually I'm starting to get recognized for the work I do around work which if I really think about it our office consists of over 2000 employees that's a lot of car to detail :righton::righton: :rollinglaugh::rollinglaugh:
Top notch work as always! Interior Question: While you were using your brush for the initial "wipe down" it appears there is a solution of some sort that you are using the brush to apply...what is the solution?
Nica I wish I could do write ups as well and as informative as you do. That is some awesome work and I agree with P1et, I always come away from one of your Show and Shines learning something new. After this one I have a neat trick for leather and I want some swissol brushes. I also agree with eShine in that I hate doing interiors but you make them look so easy. And where do I get some swissol brushes?
oh man Carlos, it's reggaeton country down here haha it's pretty much all over, reggaeton playing in the clubs, radio etc. I think you'd love it down here people love reggaeton .
Thank you buddy for the kind words, as for the wipe down. I always use Meg's APC diluted with water, now as for the ratio....I'm all over the place with it. It all depends on the condition of the interior. Every time I try to explain the mixing ration I confuse my self :rollinglaugh: but it's usually 8 parts water 1 part Meg's APC (8:1) I have to explain this way for my self otherwise I'll just confuse my self :rollinglaugh: I have used it One part water and One part Meg's APC (1:1) and that's strong....a bit dangerous if you ask me but it works well to say the least :rollinglaugh: That's not a vacum, tha's a generator :righton: man hope your carefull with that bad boy you could suck the entire vehicle inide the facum Look forward to picures buddy, I've been looking for a stronger vacum as well but this one I picked up localy is dong great...so far. Thank you my friend, glad you enjoy the write ups...happy to share any information I get, that's what we are here for. Two heads are better then one :thumb: There are many ways to get the job done, I do it my way and I learn something new and if it works great if not well try something new . I'd be curious to hear what your thoughts/opinion is after you try the tip that I picked up from Rich and Clark...let me know what you think. I still prefer the exterior rather then the interior but I usually do a detail over two or three days, so one day I dedicate for the interior and then the rest of the days I dedicate for the rest of the vehicle. I can't wait to get my extractor it will make interior a walk in the park. As for the Swissol brush, they are cheap....well the ones I purchased cost me about $10 each....I consider that cheap....you can just go to there website www.swissvax.com and get them there they come in handy...I got a few of them now oh and you know what I've used two so far and they have lasted me a long time...one for th interior and one for the exterior (rims, engine bays..ect..ect) :righton: my wife introduced me to reggaeton, I don't really care for the lirics (sorry for spelling) but I love the beat...well on some of them that is. I bet that's all you here down where your at....your reggaeton city buddy :rollinglaugh:
I see where Phil at Detailers Domain has the wheel brush. Is the one you use on the interiors the same as the wheel brush or is there a different one? You are right man they are cheap and I plan on ordering a number of these from Phil if you use them on both inside and wheels.
Yup same one, they say wheel brush but they work great on the interior...but what's impresive about these is the durability on them...I lost count how many vehicles I've detailed with these two brushes so far...well over 10 vehicles though that includes fire trucks too.
