Paint Correction, Leather and a Dinan E46 M3 by Greg Gellas of Signature Detailing

Greg Gellas · Apr 27, 2014

I was contacted by an old client to give his M3 some love. We discussed some options, and during drop off we added some services that were needed. This car had almost every Dinan part you can purchase, including an inter cooled supercharger, larger throttle bodies, exhaust, brakes, suspension, pretty much everything. Really a cool car!

I began with a nice wash using some Dawn and CG Citrus wash and clear.

I followed this up with a much needed Iron-X treatment. You can see here, after a light spray of water, the amount of iron that was being pulled from the paint.

One service we added during inspection was a complete Leatherique treatment. Not only was the leather stained, it was starting to get rigid and wasn't up to par for this car.

Every inch of leather was slathered with the Rejuvinator Oil and left to sit in the sun for most of the day. This creates a steaming effect, allowing the pores of the leather to open and help pour the dirt and oil out.

While the rejuvenator oil was doing its thing on the leather, I pulled the car in and began see what sort of correction I could get from the paint.

After a couple of test spots and considering the fact that the client wanted as much correction as possible I decided that M105 with a MF cutting pad was perfect for defect removal. Additionally, it wasn't leaving a ton of DA haze after correction. Although this single step would have been enough, we went ahead and followed up with a Rupes White pad and some M205 to really bring out the gloss. While I did use my LHR21 for the larger areas, a 3" bp on a PC, and my 2" air powered machine was used for tighter areas.

Now that the paint was corrected I could move back to the leather. Using warm water, a brush, and some MF towels and Prestine clean I remove the rejuvenator oil and a ton of dirt! Once all the dirt was out there were some areas that were missing dye, and had some scrapes.

We decided to fill and re-dye these areas to bring back the appearance.

After another bath to remove polishing dust and any oils, the entire car got an Eraser wipe down to further ensure that I was down to paint. I then coated all the painted surfaces with Cquartz Finest. The results of 2+ days really stand out in the "after" pictures. We shot the car beside a 911 turbo that was also just coated with Finest.

As always, thanks for reading. Greg Gellas