So let me start the detail with those photo’s. 05 Caddy SRX. Black. The owners bought it from a friend of a friend on a car lot. The dealership did not even wash it for them. We know why. So the above photos were taken after the wash, clay, and tape obviously. I did not take before shots as it was pointless to show you all the mud, grime, dust and debris on the vehicle. The wash process was as follows: Spray off/out engine bay, tires, wheels, wheel wells, roof rails, and exterior trim plastics. Pre condition those areas with p21s taw/blitz and Custom Wheel cleaner for the wheels. Brush and agitate those areas using Detailers domains boars hair brushes. The wheels were done with special wheel sponges. Wipe clean with yellow micro. Rinse with pressure washer. Spray down with p21s TAW, yes the whole car. Foam canon with Adams car wash. Wash with wool mitts. Rinse. Clay using custom clay lube, and clay blocks. The whole driver side rear, and bumper was a mass of black over spray. You will see in the photo’s later that the rear bumper cover had been re-sprayed either at the auction or by the dealership. On to the rest of the before shots. The image below shows the taped door jamb. This area had been re-sprayed, when you look at the 2nd picture in the first set up top you will see the damage they left on the door. The edges were super thin, plainly evident to the eye. Hence the tape. Sections of the passenger rear were the same. Continued. Following are the after shots. I do not have any of my shots of during the work. I suffered a raid 0 failure, making me lose about 200 of my most recent photos. What I did recover was the first set. Unfortunately the 2nd set had been in write mode to the drive when it failed. I lost the most crucial 100 photos of this car, and of the c4s to come. What was the process? Well this car was tackled two different ways. First was the driver side. (the first 2 of the photo’s at top) That area was polished with 1z intensive paste on a orange pad at about 1400-1500 rpms. The 2nd half of the rear was mostly repaint so it’s correction was far better than the first half of the drivers side. Why did we choose intensive paste? Well Sip did not correct any area to the degree that the customer was paying for. The passenger side, rear bumper, and most of the hood was done with 1z IP and schelegel number 1 cut wool pad. Most of the side was polished once. The rear passenger door with the heavy scratches, was worked on with that method 3 times. At that point everything you could not feel with your finger nail was removed. About 80+-% of the heavy marring was gone. It was really quite frustrating. From there both sides were finished down with 106ff on green ccs pads. Due to the previous amount of rotary burn and how heavy we had to polish the car in the corners, edges and creases we opted to follow up with 1z metallic on a white ccs pad via flex speed 6. After the metallic 1z glanz was applied via flex on black ccs pad. Continued final shots.
It's not you. It is. Basically the marring in this had about 30% of it through the clear. Around all the creases and body edges it was extremely thin and heavily scratched. see the pic of it above the passenger rear door handle. we removed 90% of the light to moderate marring, and about 70% of the supper heavy marring. Even so that was just about 20 hours of work. (two guys 10 hours +-) What remained was very faint, and rounded over. So that it did not show up well even when a flash was used. The customer wanted it presentable, as best it could be. I got it to a level that was both presentable and safe. The paint has many years of life left on it.
Nice turnaround. You guys did a fantastic job and you got it more than presentable. So what do you think of the clay block? I have one but have never used it.
