BMW 320d (Metallic Black)

Dave KG · Oct 26, 2008

A BMW 320d made for another great opportunity to try out the Valentines Concours Wax - though this one needed some more serious machine polishing attention first to bring the paintwork up to standard.

Bryan started off preparing this car by washing and claying (so I have no pics of this stage, as I was working hard in the lab!! ) .. But Bryan did manage to brave managing to use my camera - and of the photos, one was sort of in focus :lol: (sorry Bry, couldn't resist!!) - the state of the clay after one panel!

After Bryan did sterling work on the washing and preparation stages, I went for the machine polishing stage, and this is what we are facing here:

Bonnet was used as a test section, and working up through the grades of polish and pad, I found Menzerna PO85RD3.02 Intensive Polish to be giving good correction but still left a lot of RDS on the paint... With paint thickness readings healthy in most places, I decided to go for a two stage polishing process of 3M Fast Cut Plus for correction then followed with Menzerna PO85RD Final Finish for refining and getting the best out of the paint.

Fast Cut Plus (with a dab of Ultrafina to keep dust down and work time up) was worked as follows:

Spread at 600rpm

Begin working around 1500rpm for two or three passes

Work at 2000rpm until defects removed

No refining was carried out here, the compound was simply worked until I was happy the defects had been removed (or until I felt enough paint had been removed safely). Refining was left to the dedicated finishing polish, Final Finish, applied using a 3M Black Waffle pad as follows:

Spread at 600rpm

Begin working at 1200rpm, couple of passes

Work at 1500rpm until residue goes clear

Refine at 1200rpm for a couple of passes

Burnish at 900rpm for a couple of passes

(Stereotypical Zenith Point technique here!!)

The results of the process:

So we have gone from:

to:

Moving onto the passenger side, the wing was looking distinctly grey rather than black:

and this is why:

After correction I spotted some deeper RDS on the arch:

Assessed the thickness and decided that with an average of 140um here I was safe to go for a second hit of 3M Fast Cut but this time on a 4" SFX-1 Restore cutting pad to localise my cutting to reduce this defect further...

And then refine the whole wing:

Moving onto the doors before:

and after:

Rear 3/4 before:

and after:

50/50 on the pilar above the door:

Moving onto the driver's side before:

After correction, here's the front wing of the car... these shots are after refining using Final Finish and for me just show how much can be achieved with the machine polishing finish alone in terms of clarity, depth and gloss to the finish! Got gloss?:

More after shots on the driver's side:

The car then recieved two layers of Valentines Concours Carnuaba wax, applied 12 hours apart, trim was treated with Black Wow. Bryan treated the wheel arches with ASD, glass, and waxed the wheels using Wheel Wax and the tyres with Meguiars Hot Rims... Rolled outside quickly to avoid the rain showers for some after pics:

Again, hugely impressed with the Valentines wax with ease of use and that I felt like it did top off all of my machine polishing efforts just a treat.