So this Saturday past Myself and Grant headed off to the Michelangelo Towers to detail another Benz for the same client who's SLK55 we did a week previously. This week was the turn of a white C220 CDI still on paper plates, although all this clients cars are for whatever reason so I have no idea how old it really is. They say a picture is worth a thousand words so lets get right to it then The Office Our office for the day was to be the underground car park & washbay, quite a nicely lit area but nowhere near as light as working ourdoors. The builders could well have made the wash bay an extra meter or so longer to avoid the water pooling that inevitably occurs when you washing anything longer than a Polo. The car pulled into the small wash area with floor drain. Getting Started The routine for the day was the usual same old, starting with the wheels and arches followed by a thorough rinse, wash & re-rerinse, clay and tar removal followed by a final rinse and dry prior to paint inspection and correction work. The wheels don't look to bad in the 1st pic but the flash hides alot of the brake dust as evidenced by the tell tale purple Sonax run off. Before Sonax Extreme Rim cleaner doing it's thing And after rinsing with the PW After rinsing the car we tackled all the shuts, window trim and emblems, etc with our brushes and a 4:1 solution of water & APC before washing with Duragloss 901. The Duragloss is a nice sudsy wash with good lubricity but not my favourite wash to date. Brushes in action With the wash out of the way we proceeded to clay the car to remove any bonded contaminants from the surface of the paint. We wound up going with the regular Meguiars fine clay which picked up a fair amount of muck from the paintwork! With the claying completed and the car rinsed down we proceeded to dry the vehicle and park it to inspect the paintwork. Into the Light With the car all properly cleaned and dried we setup the 1000W halogens to get a better picture of what we were up against as well as taped up all the bits and pieces with 3M blue painters tape. Photographing the swirls and RIDS proved difficult on the white but I managed to get a few decent pics that highlight the general state the paintwork was in. Some haziness as a result of the fine swirling Some nasty scuffs on the front bumper And some serious scraping on the rear! With the prep work out of the way we got started testing various combinations but eventually settled on a combo of Menz SIP and FA on 3M yellow and green pads along with the various spot pads for the smaller/tighter areas. Unfortunately no pics of the polishing stages apart from the one below. Grant in action with the 3M spot pads The flooding problem due to the small size of the wash bay! A shot of the 'office' at lunch time After lunch we carried on correcting the paint, below are a selection of post correction pics. The Last Steps With the paint correction completed we set about washing the car one last time followed by drying and then the finishing touches. LSP of choice was Poor Boys EX sealant with tyres recieving Meg's Endurance Tyre Gel and trim receiveing 303 Aerospace Protectant. Some final pics before we left for the day. Total work time was around 9 hours. This Saturday we back there again to detail the clients Z4M Coupe. Hopefully I will also be able to get some proper pics of the black SLK55, I got this one when he arrived to collect the C220 but the car was covered in dust and rain spots from having been driven during the week. Thanks for looking, hope you enjoyed this post :wavey:
Nice job once again guys! Great looking Merc. How do you like the Poorboys? I think its a very underrated product. I put two coats on the Harley F350 I always post and it lasted all winter, even with our snow. FYI, Steve at Poorboys recommends putting on two coats, one right after the other to assure even coverage and durability.
Great job by the two of you! South Africa is lucky to have you detailing the cars there. Incredible work on an awesome car!
Very nice David! Awsome car to, like it in white. South africa is lucky to have you guys for sure Gotten any scholl concepts yet???
Thanks guys Thank you Ken The PB EX is really nice IMO, goes on easily and comes off easily as well. I have JL to thank for the sample bottle we've got (thanks again dude ) but I haven't been able monitor it's durability in our climate yet unfortunately. JL and Ketil, what else can I say. I appreciate the kind words, again coming from you guys it really is awesome ! Ketil we waiting for our SIP to runout then we will get some S17 to play with. 106FA will be replaced with S30 or S40 and the 3M FCP will give way to S3+ if all goes well with the S17
Looks great! I know what it's like to detail in an underground parking garage environment. It definitely has some positives and negatives, hehe.
i agree on the poorboys...its been my go to sealant lately...i used it on a portion of my daily driver to test durability in october and its aboutgone now which i think is amazing considering the winter we have had... i love how easily it goes on and off....
Here in SA most new vehicles are issued with temporary registrations (paper plates that are affixed to the inside of the rear windows) until the proper registration gets done, usually within a week
