Recently I'd talked a friend of mine into letting me OptiGuard his wife's one-year old Toyota Venza. I've helped apply OptiGuard a couple of times before, and currently have it on my wheels and glass, but when I've used it in the past it's always been for customers of other detailers. This would be the first time I'd be able to get direct feedback of the product and I was excited to use it. To start off, the Venza was washed with ONR and clayed with CM Blue clay. No pics of that since time was also a factor here. The condition of the paint was fairly swirled. Unfortunately, my camera struggles a little with reds, especially metallics, but the overall condition was probably a bit worse than the pictures would lead to believe. As a note, I was going to coat the glass but their was some kind of protection on it already. We're talking heavy beading and sheeting almost as good as OG does. They couldn't remember what was done to the car before purchase and hadn't applied anything themselves, so for the time being we skipped the glass. Since time was an issue, I thought I'd try D300 and MF cutting pads on the Venza. Here is the sun trying to poke through some trees. I did a corner of the hood with M205 and a crimson HT pad to show the difference it would make, but it was minimal at best. My friend said that to his untrained eye, he couldn't see any real improvement so we decided to just one-step it with D300. I really can't say enough good things about the MF system. My friend had never picked up a polisher in his life, but after talking him through the hood area, he was good to go on the rest of the car. In the end, I believe we got maybe 85%+ correction out of just the D300. It definitely could have used a second round, but my buddy was thrilled anyway. Here are the results after OptiGuard. A couple of notes: We were going to pull the wheels and coat them, but thanks to a half-size metric lug, my friend rounded out a lug nut and wasn't able to remove even one wheel. They will be done later. I used a MF applicator instead of foam this time. It seemed to spread easier, and the OG flashed off quickly. There were only a few places where it left high spots, and the applicator easily leveled those. Overall, on the paint alone I think about 4-5cc of Opti-Guard was used. I've seen it done with a lot less before, and I think maybe the MF app was soaking up more than a foam app would have. But it seemed to lay down easier, so it could be a trade off. Or it could all be in my head. Thanks for looking!
It really lived up to my expectations. There was so much hype around it that I really had my doubts, but once you use it you'll love it.
