As I ramp up development of new products here at AP again I've been seeking out cars for detail service that will make good testers for specific products. This 2014 Subaru Forrester was perfect for what I needed this week. Purchased recently, new, right off the lot it was the perfect candidate to test a variety of new products including new soap formulations, a one step polish, different pads, coating primer spray and of course a coating. I'll be following the progress on this car pretty closely over the coming weeks. We have a good amount of snow in the forecast and the owner plans to run it thru touchless washes a few times before it heads back for a refresh so I'll see exactly how the coating is holding up to the abuse. The interior needed nothing more than a quick dry towel wipe to remove some light dust. It may be getting more substantial treatment in a subsequent visit, but the owner is going to enjoy the new car smell for now. Started the detail out as you would with any, a thorough cleaning of the wheels, tires, undercarriage, and a wash. The tires/fender liners were sprayed with full strength APC and scrubbed. Wheels were hit with Deep Wheel Cleaner and then agitated with a wheel brush. The wheel woolie was used for the inside of the wheels. I used a pressure washer to help speed things up and tested a new formulation of car wash that I've started working on. Stay tuned for updates on this... After the wash was complete, the exterior was decontaminated using a 1:1 dilution of Deep Wheel Cleaner to remove ferrous metal particles from the finish, surprisingly next to no rail dust was present. After that had a chance to do its job I clayed with the big blue clay bar to remove the remaining contamination. I did a fast secondary wash to remove the residues from claying I dried the exterior with the master blaster and a great white drying towel, then moved onto inspection. There were a few isolated RIDs that needed to be addressed, otherwise the finish was a perfect candidate for a one step polish as the swirls were minor. The customer requested we remove the dealership stickers, so before polishing those were addressed. As you can see on this up close shot, the isolated RIDs weren't anything horrific, but they were more than your average swirl. We identified about a dozen marks of similar depth all around the car so these were marked with tape and addressed first just so they weren't overlooked. Went to work with the prototype one-step polish and an orange pad. I was pleasantly surprised to see that even the deeper RIDs were able to be removed with this combo on the Flex so I would be able to take on the entire car with one setup. Once the polishing was complete it was time to test our prototype coating primer/paint cleanser. This product is designed to remove polishing oils, waxes, sealants, and anything else on the surface prior to applying a coating. It also deposits a quartz primer that should, in theory, equate to easier application and better performance from our coating. Testing continues. After inspecting the paint and completing the primer wipe-down I moved to the actual coating application. It went on very effortlessly and aside from being difficult to see on this silver metallic paint was great to work with. Durability tests will continue in the coming months. Since this product is still in the testing stages it was applied to all paint, glass, wheel faces, and trim to test durability on the various surfaces. Wrapping things up I dressed the tires with Tire Shine and addressed the wheel wells with Invisible Undercarriage Spray. As we were running out of light we couldn't resist playing with the hydrophobic properties of the coating - I'll add videos to this later... the water flat refused to stick and this was all on a hood that was parked on an UPHILL ramp, making it only a few degrees from level. Lastly we rolled out to the front to get some final shots as the sun set, just in time for the owner to take delivery of their clean, polished, and coated rig - just in time for a winter storm to hit us this weekend too! Even the boss was floored by the gloss when he was leaving - Dub Magazine pose for good measure Thanks for reading. I'll update this thread with durability info as we see this car again.
