Some of you may have already seen this detail in Show and Shine - I'm proud of it, so I thought I'd throw it in here for a January entry to the monthly competition. This car belongs to a buddy of mine who I know through club racing. Jeff races a Triumph TR8 in SCCA's Improved Touring S category. In July of 2008, he bought this Imola Red BMW M5 at Carmax, wanting a nice daily driver. He got the car at a good price, but as we'll soon see, it was in need of a serious detail. This particular detail was especially fun because JL, of JL's Detailing, joined me for most of the first day. I'd gone out to his place in December to help him with a big black Suburban, and we had a great time, and decided we'd do it again. JL's got some toys that I don't yet have - a CR Spotless, a foam cannon, a truckload of pads, and of course, a LOT of experience. I owe JL a lot - I've learned a great deal from him. Another thing some of you may have noticed is that JL and I are both big fans of Majestic Solutions, a detailing supply place here in Raleigh, NC that makes many of their own chemicals. This detail showcases some of their products in action. Anyway, I picked up the M5 on a Friday night, and Saturday morning, we set to work. First up, we tackled the wheels, wheel wells, and tires, and the exhausts, all of which looked seriously neglected. In fact, I'd say the wheels were about as bad as could be imagined! BMWs, as I'm sure many of you know, are famous for generating lots of brake dust, and this one was no exception. In addition, on the right rear wheel, there was some sort of goo near the valve stem. JL and I figured this had to be some of that "Fix A Flat" stuff that had leaked out. Not even Majestic Solutions Wheel Brite could touch it! The wheels got Majestic Solutions Wheel Bright (4:1), my arsenal of brushes, and a handful of spare Costco microfiber towels. Yet, the goo remained. Some Majestic Solutions Auto Body Solvent was the fix - strong stuff! After all these strong chemicals, the wheel lips were treated to some Autosol metal polish, which really set them off. I've been using Mother's metal polish for years, but the Autosol that JL brought is just much better. Once I'm out of the Mother's stuff I'll be getting some. Tires and wheel wells got Majestic Solutions' "Super Green Stuff" APC at 3:1, along with more brushes. SGS is a great APC. Finally, the exhausts got #0000 steel wool along with more Majestic Wheel Brite. Once they were clean, we set to work with more Autosol, and they came out great. Next up was the engine bay. The power washer was used to blast out the considerable "collection" of leaves and pine needles. Then, the method I learned from JL worked like money. Rinse off the cold engine with low pressure water. Soak with Majestic Solutions Super Green Stuff (3:1) and agitate where needed. Rinse, then blow it dry with the leaf blower, and treat with Meguiar's Hyper Dressing (3:1). Run the motor for 20 minutes to set it up, and wipe off the excess just before delivery. It works great. The car's body and paintwork needed a LOT of help. First, a pre-soak of the front with Majestic Solutions' Bug Off, which is great stuff. Once the pre-soak of the front end and the rockers was complete, 2 oz. of regular Dawn blue went into JL's foam cannon. Wiped that down with microfiber mitts, rinsed with the CR, and dried with the leaf blower and some of Justin's "Amazing Dryer" towels. Justin has won me over for my microfiber business - I like his towels a lot, and he's pretty much always got a great sale running. Confident the paint was free of any remaining LSP (ha!), it was time to clay. This was done using Riccardo clay and ONR clay lube. This was my first time using Riccardo and I really liked it. Nice and pliable, and it didn't try to break apart on me. I like using ONR as a clay lube mostly because it's cost effective. Now it was time for polishing. This car was with me to be made to look as perfect as it could, so however many stages of polish were necessary, that's what it was going to get. Out of curiosity, we put JL's paint thickness gauge on the car. Driver side of the car was showing about 140, the roof about 100. Now the hood...showed as much as 340! So we went down the passenger side of the car, and it looks like that whole side has been in an accident and repainted! A good repaint, but a really thick one. JL had brought a huge selection of pads. I've figured out the problem with my prized Meguiar's Solo backing plate - a lot of other pads don't fit on it well. So I used one of JL's 3M UK backing plates on my Makita, and he another on his Metabo. We went to work. The hood was, by far, the worst panel on the car. It was like the rest of the car had been washed with a brillo, but they saved the brick for the hood! :yikes: I'd asked JL to bring his Meg's 105 and a wool pad, and we didn't have a lot of luck with that it - it flashed super fast (it was pretty warm out that day). So, the eventual combo for the hood was 3M Perfect-It II 1200-grit rubbing compound with an orange pad - the most aggressive stuff we had between us. We then put Menzerna Power Finish PO203S to work with another orange pad. The results were amazing - but still, some minor defects showed. We both decided that since it was a repaint, they were definitely under the clear. Time to move on. The rest of the car was done with Power Finish and orange pads, JL working one side, me the other. We'd decided early on that I'd be following up with PO85RD, but upon examination of our results, didn't think it necessary. Power Finish is AMAZING stuff. I think JL would agree that there wasn't much left on the table after Power Finish. The one downside of Power Finish, like with all of the Menzerna polishes I've tried, is that they generate a fair amount of dust. Overnight, wedged into the small garage, I went to work on the interior...and what an interior! Most of it is swathed in leather! Obviously the seats, but also the center console, the door panels, even the dashboard! I wasn't sure, so I poked around on the web, and sure enough, it's the real thing. As usual, I gathered up all the owner's loose items, and placed them in a box to get them out of my way. I'm sure most of you do this, but it's something that people comment on to me that they really like. So, first the mats were removed and brushed, then dry vacuumed. Same brush and vac for all the interior carpets, including the trunk. The mats got Folex, scrubbed with my carpet brush, vacuumed again, and set aside. I couldn't tell if Folex was any good or not. The carpets on this car are deep black, and if they were dirty...I couldn't really tell by looking. Still, I cleaned them anyway, because I'm a detailer. The interior plastic, vinyl and leather all got Majestic Solutions Leather and Plastic Cleaner, 1:1. The only thing I don't like about this stuff is the smell - very chemical. Otherwise, it's great stuff, and cleans extremely well. There's a fix for the smell though. Phil, one of the owners of Majestic, gave me the okay to add about an ounce of one of their scents to it. I chose "Clean Cotton" as it smells like a dryer sheet, and is quite strong, so just an ounce did the trick! Majestic LPC has always been a favorite of mine, and now that I can make it smell nice, it's even better. In one of the photos, you may notice a dark spot on the driver's seat. This is something the owner of the car did. He spilled his drink on the seat, and cleaned it up...with 409! :yikes: It's ruined. The only fix for it is to have it refinished. I tried and tried, but really, the stain penetrated the leather and there's just no fix. Now clean, the leather got Chemical Guys Pure Leather Conditioner. JL gave me this stuff, since he's an Einszett guy now, but I really like this one a lot as well. The almost gel-like thickness makes it easy to apply with getting it all over, it smells nice, and just a quick wipe down and you've got a nice, natural looking finish, but one where you can tell the leather's been treated. Which is what the customer wanted - "not too shiny." The rubberized plastic bits got Vinylex, and the button consoles, gauge cluster, and nav screen got Einszett Cockpit Premium. I even took a dry microfiber and "combed" the alcantara headliner so it was all laying in one direction when I was done, just before delivery. The final touch was to put a Yankee Candle leather-scented "Car Jar" freshener in the driver side map pocket. While I was poking around with the interior, the first layer of LSP went down. This car's owner wanted the best, so he got it. First, I put down a layer of Jetseal. This was my first time using Jetseal, and can I just say the stuff is incredible. And removing it is the easiest thing in the world! While it was curing, I fiddled around in the interior some more, the car safely in the garage and out of the coming rain now. The following morning, the car got a coat of Rubbish Boy's Original Edition, and as others have said, this combination is money! :worship2: It actually looked like a different color car. I'm always tempted to try another carnauba, but every time I use RBOE, I come away thinking...why bother? Anyway, I applied the RBOE by hand, using Ben's suggested method with the teaspoon and rubbing it in my palms. This technique is a bit fussy, and probably not for everyone, but I find it very precise. By using just my hands, I find I can get wax exactly where I want it, even in little tiny areas that I might miss with an applicator pad. With the LSP down and buffed, I started detailing the black plastic trim and the weatherstripping. The rub strips down the sides of the car got Lexol Vinylex. The black underspoiler, and the black mesh grill, both got Stoner Trim Shime. I say this a lot - Vinylex is great stuff. Sometimes, Trim Shine just isn't practical - the aerosol spray gets all over. Vinylex, in its trigger bottle, can be applied to a microfiber towel and carefully applied to trim, without getting it all over the paint. And if some does get on the paint, a quick wipedown is all that's needed. I really like Vinylex a lot. All the glass got Stoner Invisible Glass and Majestic Solutions microfiber window towels, which I really like. These towels last forever! Good for the planet, and they work great too. Just before delivery, I grabbed some Majestic Solutions "Spray Shine" QD and some of Justin's Super Fly microfiber towels, my can of Invisible Glass, and some window towels, and delivered the vehicle to the owner's house. Anyway, here are some photos. The car as I got it: Shots of the nasty wheels: Here's the wheel with the mystery goo on it: Shots of the hood. The car is stored outside, in a very wooded area, and near as we can tell, washed with either steel wool or bricks: Driver side hood: More hood: You can see here that the paint needs help, but has the potential to be beautiful again: Gas filler area dirty, pine needles all over, nasty wheels: Driver side exhausts: Passenger side exhausts: There's a spider nest in the M5 badge on the trunklid! And lots of scratches too: Another shot of one of the wheels. This one close up to show some weird staining that we figure was someone having used the wrong kind of wheel cleaner, and/or leaving it on too long: A close-up of the hood. The chips are goners... And now, some after shots...engine bay: Paint looks a million times better, and so do the wheels: Trunk. Those are the owner's trash bags, so I left them where I found them: The exhausts are actually made of stainless - not metal painted with BBQ grill paint! Fuel filler area, wheels, and the paint in general actually looks Imola Red now. And there's no pine needles coming out of everywhere! Some interior shots: Yep...this is the same hood, on the same car, as before: A quick profile shot just before it started to sprinkle rain again :sorry: : Thanks again to JL for the help, and for letting me learn some of his many tricks. JL, I'm Luke Skywalker to your Yoda! The owner was beside himself. In fact, I just got finished doing a quick detail on his 2007 Dodge Ram tow vehicle, and the Ford Lightning you may have seen in Show and Shine was a referral from this guy as well. Next in line are a Volvo that belongs to the M5 owner's girlfriend, and even a couple of vintage muscle cars.
great find!!! sounds like that client is hooking you up and you'll get some reliable business out of it!!
great write up!!car looks amazing.I have a question though about cleaning the engine bay.I have yet to try this because i fear or messing up the electronics.But i noticed that you didnt say anything about rinsing the engine bay after you agitated the APC.so you just blow dried the engine bay shortly after agitating the product??
Thanks, guys! Really rewarding to get that car back to its former glory. Thanks! This job is really coming good for me. It has resulted in: - 2004 F150 Lightning (friend of the M5 owner) - Volvo S40 (this week - belongs to girlfriend of the M5 owner) - 1970 Dodge Charger 440 (M5 owner's car) - 1972 Ford Torino (Lightning owner's car) - 2006 Acura TL Type S (wife of the Lightning owner's car) Hopefully, the Volvo owner will be back in town this week so I can set to work on her S40...
Sorry, I guess I'll go back into the original post and clarify. I do rinse the engine bay down afterwards, then dry it. Thanks for the catch.
krshultz, this is one of my favourite details on here! Well written/described. Car obviously looks great, everythings perfect! Good luck, I'm rooting for you
