A friend of mine recently talked his Dad into trading his Hyundai Genesis in for this low mileage M Coupe. This is a car I've always had a thing for, so when my friend asked if I could detail his Dad's new-to-him car, I was pretty excited. And I made him a deal...help me from start to finish, learn how to care for it, and the detail would be on me. This M Coupe was in pretty good shape, although it had some repainted panels, rock chips, shoddy touch up in one spot, and one REALLY ugly scratch. We got a late start on this car, around midday, and only had a few hours to do what we could with it. He mostly wanted to see if I could remove the large scratch......I couldn't. It was fairly deep and wide, so I could only do so much. Even if he'd had touch up paint, the color and metal flake of the car would have made for one really obvious repair. :roll: We decided due to the color, condition and time-frame, a one-step would be the best course of action. The car was 3 days from the dealership, so it was relatively clean to begin with. It had decent shine, leftover wax around emblems and panel gaps, and a clean (non-greasy! ) interior. Process: Wheels: Sonax FE Tires and wheel wells: Optimum Power Clean 3:1 Foam and rinse: Meguiar's Shampoo Plus/Dawn Wash: Optimum NoRinse Clay: Clay Magic Blue Clay Lube: ONR at QD dilution Windows: Meguiar's D120 glass cleaner Exhaust Tips: Meguiar's NXT Metal Polish (I refuse to spell it "Polysh". That's just stupid. :no Polished: HD Uno on Meguiar's MF cutting pad/ GG6 DA/ Meg G110v2 Wheel sealant: Chemical Guy's Factory Sealant (Got on trade, trying to use it up!) LSP: HD Poxy Door Jambs: Optimum Car Wax Tire dressing: Optimum OptiBond 1:1 As it arrived: clean enough, but could use a little work. I apologize for the overcast pics, not much I could do about it. The scratch! Started with Sonax FE on the wheels Attacking the iron imbedded in the wheel Cleaned the fuel filler door with OPC 3:1, then foamed and rinsed the car, and brought it inside for the rinseless wash. There were some obvious spots where it was repainted. The car read mostly in the 115-130 range, with a couple of exceptions....very high on the resprays (duh) and very low RIGHT at that deep scratch! Nothing's ever easy. I would have thought that someone had tried to sand it before, but the edges of the scratch were elevated and rough, so I don't think that was the case. Just bad luck? Normal Respray Lowest point Sanded with 2k It wasn't much of an improvement, the flash just makes it appear like it was. Polished with HD Uno. I chose Uno since time was a factor. Uno didn't dust at all, and I knew I could go straight to Poxy and skip an IPA wipe or post-polish wash. Win-win! At this point, I had to take the camera away from Sebastian and put him to work! He got the hang of the polishing pretty quickly, and he really helped me get this car done on time. After polishing, I had Sebastian apply Poxy to the paint while I cleaned up the exhaust tips. Finally, we were ready for some after shots. We were going mostly for an increase in gloss and shine instead of correction, and unfortunately the camera couldn't capture the improvement very well. In person, the difference was very noticeable. Mostly though, I just love the shape of this car, so I took as many pics as I could! Thanks for looking!
thats one clean looking Z, love the reflections from the rear glass at the end of the clouds. What kind of foamer/pressure washer do you use?
Mikenap - Great job !!! It looks great !! I bought a new 2002 Z3M Coupe in that color - the last of the bread vans, clown shoes, etc... It was the ultimate rocket though. When I eventually sold it, the people who bought it took a pic of the speedo going through Montana and it was at 170mph, and they said it had more to go, but they got a little scared. Said it handled just as good at 170 as 85.. Those little M coupes are the sweetest !! Thanks for shaing the great pics and write up ! Dan F
Great job Mike!!! The paint looks flawless! I want to work on that car too. I bet it was a pleasure to detail that.
Nice work Mike, very kind of you to take of your friends fathers car, considering 99% of the general public have zero clue upon what it takes to do that kind of work. -Kody-
Those are some nice cars. The convertible's that they use to have were pretty ugly. I use to work for BMW and the hardtops are just incredibly sick. Nice work on the car btw . . . . what kind of pressure washer and foam cannon or lance are you using?
Thanks! The pressure washer is an AR112, and the foam cannon is from MTM Hydro. Thanks Dave, it is a sweet little car! And you don't see too many of them, which I like too. It looks pretty exotic by BMW standards. Thanks man! Thanks Dan! I remember the original M Coupe bread van, a very unique car, and I believe still had the S54 engine that this one has. Right before I sold my E46 M3, I found a Z4 M Couple in black that I thought about trading into, but it was in terrible shape. Still, the thought of the same engine and transmission in a smaller, lighter car was very tempting! Thank you Frankie! Thanks Marc! It wasn't a big correction or anything like that, but I did this one more for fun and because I love these cars. So it really was a pleasure to do it. Thanks! Thank you Kody! My buddy kept asking me "Will it really take that long?", but after it was over, he was blown away and now wants to help me on some upcoming details, just so he can learn more. He's a "car guy", but more into track events and auto-x and less into maintaining the appearance. Maybe this will bring him around! Thanks man. I agree the verts aren't nearly as attractive as the Coupe. Not by a long shot. BTW, the pressure washer is an AR112 and foam cannon is MTM Hydro. Looking to upgrade to an AR610 like Kody (above post) uses.
Thanks Chas! Thank you Brian, I agree these M Coupes are awesome. Thanks P1et. I've seen these with the split 5-spoke wheels, and these CSL (rep?) wheels are just a much better fit to the overall style of the car. They are like the icing on the cake. Thanks Tim!
Awesome Mike! Sweet car and looking good. I will be doing an E85/ 03 Z4 next week and it's not anywhere as sweet as the M. Plus it's in dirty shape than the one you worked on.
