Cambridge Autogleam Car Detailing vs ..... 2008

[jediknight83]

The comment was made that the old thread was getting a bit big so although i have already put a few 2008 details into the old thread i though it was a good time to start a new one. Also i thought my latest 41hrs of madness would be a good start to the thread!

Old thread is here ..... (may take a while to load!)

http://www.tyresmoke.net/ubbthreads/...fpart/all/vc/1

So on with the show...

When i left the house at 7am on thursday morning i wasnt quite expecting be up for so long...

I have had this M3 booked in for a couple of weeks as the owner has it for sale and wants it looking its absolute best. I'd even had a mention on his sales advert so everyone looking at it would also expect the best.. no pressure then!

http://www.pistonheads.com/sales/342228.htm

I arrived with the customer and quickly got the car fully washed, dried and prep'd for the paint inspection.

The car had been fully resprayed around 6 months ago in Diamantschwarz Metallic black and although was stated on the previous owners wite as having 'no swirls' and having been very carefully washed and cared for by the current owner, I was keen to see just how good the paint was. PTG readings showed a nice consistant 180-200um over the car. Swirls to be fair were at reasonable levels with faint buffer trails and hologramming on most pannels.. but i've yet to see a bodyshop that does truely produce a flawless finish so no huge supprises there.

There were a couple of areas around the car with deaper localised marks where bird mess has obviously been scrubbed at, aswell as longer sweeping marks from the water blade i saw hiding on the owners shelves (he has now be properly educated :thumb: ) These were given a more agressive working with the polish or in a couple of cases wet sanded back with 3000grit paper and polished up with menzerna ip3.02 followed by 106FA. The rest of the car received Menzerna 106FA by megs polishing pad which was worked in at 600rpm. then up to 1800pm for several passes and back to around 900rpm to finish.

Some pics..

Dont know why but my pic of the original defect didnt process so just the sanding pic here...



...with full correction here...



Boot before...



... and after



Hologramming and micromaring on the C pillar...



... corrected



And on the front passenger door (remember its LHD and yes i did try to get into the wrong side when moving it back into the garage! :tumbleweed: ) ...



.. and corrected... although for the life of me i could not get 3 tiny marks out which looked like they had been previously wet sanded and not polished up properly.. 3 hits with no change..



What with one thing and another.... more on that in PT2... it was around 9pm before everything had been corrected to a standard i was happy with.

I was then kindly invited into the nice warm house for a nice meal (fish, rice, veg and white wine). Had also been very well catered for throughout the day with tea and buscuits. Thanks to the customer as i know whe will read this! :thumb:

I went with Dodo Juice Lime Prime for the pre wax on this car. the BMW paint proved in a test area it could stand up to the minor abbrasives in this product and it leaves a nice glossy wet finish that slightly enhanced the already gleaming fully polished car.

NOTE.. I have found lime prime to actually leave its own marks on very soft paint (eg aston martin).. For really soft paint I believe Dodo juice lime lite will soon be on the shelves!



It was now knocking 10pm so it was on with the ***** Vintage wax

NOTE.. I am in no way associated with or approved by ***** and do not agree with some of their trading methods.. however some of the products they make are pretty damn good and I am happy and proud to continue using them until such a time that i stumble across something better.

I let the wax cure for over an hour while i vacuumed the interior, cleaned the leather with ***** leather cleaner, cleaned all the galss with ***** HD Cleanse, and then conditioned the leather with Gliptone Liquid Leather. The mats were also shampooed.

Last thing was to buff off the Wax, refit the boot spoiler, dress the tyres and arches and removed dust etc from all shuts and gaps.

The finished car..








I was extremely happy with the result and can honestly say the cars paintwork is about 99% perfect with the odd stubborn RDS remaining. Possibly with a few more hours on correction these too could have been removed but you have to draw the line somewhere. For a car that is now 18years and 90,000 miles old its a real thing of beauty and in absolutely amazing condition.

A reminder again.. this car is for sale... http://www.pistonheads.com/sales/342228.htm. And i've not been nice about it for any other reason than i was impressed with how good it was. Nothing underhanded going on here.

... but that wasnt the end of my day...

Thanks for reading.

Nathan

[jediknight83]

following on from part 1 .....

When i actually arrived to do the M3 i was also asked to take a look at his friends Porsche 964. As the car was filthy dirty i offered to give it a wash down so i could have a proper look.

The car was pretty filty. Wheels were cleaned twice with Autoglym acid free wheel cleaner and i actually did resort to Autoglym wheel cleaner which is quite acidic but does a fantastic job on cleaning. Personally i feel repeated regular use of this 'could' be a bad thing on some wheels... however i used this on my own cars for years before i started detailing as a business with no adverse side effects... so for a one time application one these dirty wheels i felt it was the right call.

The car was pre foamed with a mix of Meguairs Hyperwash and Autoglym PM3. This was pressure rinsed off. Then i sprayed Autoglym Tar and Adhesive removed over most of the car, allowed this to dwell a bit before foaming the car again and pressure rinsing off again. The car was then ready to be shampooed with Megs Hyperwash and a Megs MF wash mit. The car was then dried and moved inside to assess the paint.

All of this was inbetween me detailing the M3.. partly why i didnt actually finish the M3 until around 11pm.. which is when the main bulk of the polishing work started on this car. I wasnt intending to detail the car at this time but as the day went on i was doing more and more little bits to the car inbetween doing the M3 and it seemed silly to let it drive back out and home now only to have to return in a few weeks and start washing from scatch again.

Throughout the day I also clayed the car, checked paint depth and did a couple of test polish areas.

Now flat black single stage paint is porbably my worst nightmare. I hate it with a passion. The car was showing very obvious signs of various polishing atempts before. Even under the stip lighting the paint was dull and flat with the swirls and holograms showing up. In the spot lights it was breathtaking for all the wrong reasons. Paint depth was around 100-130um with an area that was already burnt through showing 80um. Initial tests with Menzerna 106FA showed that it was enough to correct most marks without running the risk on inflicting more damage. It was however made clear to the owner that even after entensive detailing by myself it still woulnt look perfect. He was more than happy to return it to a 'presentable' appearance though and pursuaded me to stay the night and get it done now.

Major polishing on the car started around 11:30pm. As you can hopefully appreciate, working at this time of the evening meant I was slightly more focused on just getting the work done rather than taking lots of eduactional photos... so just a couple of correction pics on this one.

Bonnet before



...and after polishing with Menzerna 106FA


As you can see alot of pitting, stone chipping and deep brid mess etching in the paint still after polishing which i wasnt happy to chase. However polishing did remove the swirls and bring the blackness back to the paint.

Rear wing before..



..and after polishing, ***** HD Cleanse, ***** Vintage wax



Polishing was all finished by around 4am.. yes 4am. The car was then treated with ***** HD Cleanse.

NOTE.. I am in no way associated with or approved by ***** and do not agree with some of their trading methods.. however some of the products they make are pretty damn good and I am happy and proud to continue using them until such a time that i stumble across something better.

It was at this point i actually had a quick nap... so yes the title isnt 'technically' true...

Awake and working again by 7am.. feeling fresh as a daisy :wall: :wall:

The car was waxed with ***** Vintage wax and left to cure while the interior was vacuumed. Leather was cleaned with ***** Leather cleaner, Glass cleaned with ***** HD Cleanse, Leather conditioned with Gliptone Liquid Leather.

Time to buff all the wax off, dress the tyres and arches and brush out any dust etc from the shuts and other gaps.

I was then offered some breakfast and a cup of tea and had a chat about snowboarding and traveling, packed all my bits up and then (about an hour later) gave both cars a final wipe down.

Photos of the Porsche..











Very rewarding in a way to make such a difference to this car but also hugely annoying that i knew there were parts i just couldnt correct.

This car is also for sale now and you can contact the owner on

steve.horwood@hartresource.com

Despite the paintwork the car is in excellent mechanical working order and has just had a £4k suspension overhaul.



The time sponsored by Cambridge Autogleam was now about 10am... time to drive to the next job

Thanks for looking.. PT3 coming up.

[jediknight83]

Following on from Part 2.....

It was now 10:45am on friday.. 27hrs 45mins after leaving the house and having had a couple of hours sleep... although feeling suprisingly fresh.

I was back at a customers who i had visited last year

http://www.detailingworld.co.uk/foru...ad.php?t=26493

The car was booked in to be assessed and and re-waxed.

Out of the garage..



Wheels cleaned with Autoglym Acid Free and then foamed with Megs Hyperwash..



Then pressure rinsed and shampooed, rinsed and dried..



I knew this was very soft paint and was fully expecting there to be swirls marks again. It was also clear that the recent dealer visit had seen the car polished with lots of polish reside left in the shuts. I checked the paint over and although there were marks the owner and myself decided it probably wasnt the best use of my time to re machine the car at this point... maybe in another year if he decides to keep it.

***** HD Cleanse did a great job in cleaning up the general haze in the paint and did knock out a few minor marks and left the paint glossy black and wet again.

Car was waxed with ***** Vintage which was left to cure while the interior was vacuumed, leather was treated with Gliptone Liquid Leather and the galss was cleaned with ***** HD Cleanse. The exhaust was given a polish with Autosol.

NOTE.. I am in no way associated with or approved by ***** and do not agree with some of their trading methods.. however some of the products they make are pretty damn good and I am happy and proud to continue using them until such a time that i stumble across something better.

With the wax buffed off an hour later it was outside for a couple of pictures.





It was now about 5pm and whats that amazing earth shattering sound i can hear in the background.... ooh its coming down the drive... flipping heck!!!

PT4 coming up

[jediknight83]

And lastly.... following on from part 3...

The earth shattering sound was emanating from a lovely orange 57 plate Lamborghini.

The car had JUST been driven straight from the dealers and honestly wasnt that dirty.. Just needed to clean the inner part of the wheels properly.. which was a mission with the MASSIVE ceramic brakes. Car was then covered in Megs Hyper wash foam and left to dwell.



After being pressure rinsed the car was shampooed and rinsed and dried.

Inside the garage the paint was carefully checked and found to be in excellent condition. Just a small area on the roof that was a little bit swirly which was corrected with Menzerna 106FA.

Whole car was treated with ***** HD Cleanse before being waxed with ***** Vintage.

NOTE.. I am in no way associated with or approved by ***** and do not agree with some of their trading methods.. however some of the products they make are pretty damn good and I am happy and proud to continue using them until such a time that i stumble across something better.

Interior was immaculate and just needed a vacuum to get dirt out of the footwells and off the huge expanse of alcantara. The interior Carbon Fibre was also waxed and buffed off.

Not a complicated detail but still time consuming to get it perfect.

I must say another thanks to the owner... second night running i was invited into the house for dinner, roast, yorkshire puds and veg this time.

The finished pics of my new favorite car!









Lovely.

I also wanted to make a point of mentioning the stone chip film applied to this car.

This car had all the leading edges covered in Ventureshield. This can be applied by a number of places in the UK i believe but this is now the 3rd car i have seen first hand that has had the film applied by Nick Phelps based in Tring, Heartfordshire. From 6ft is impossible to see it even has any film on atall.



The fitting is really key with these systems and Nick seems to put about as much love and care into making it fit right as I do making sure my details are at a high standard every time.

The Ventureshield is also a much better looking thinner more reflective system than say.. paintshield and even with closer inspection under the lights its still difficult to tell which panels have the film and which dont.

Close up of the bonnet with the film applied



If your looking at getting film applied and what to know who will do a great job i highly recommend dropping Nick a line

nick.phelps@ami-models.co.uk

And that was it. I arrived home at just before midnight and fell into bed. Cant say i will work this hard again but atleast i can say i did it.

Thanks for looking.

[steelwind101]

Great work! Seems you got lucky with the food as well!

Great to see some wet sanding in action as well. The protective film looks very good. I have seen my fair share of those in the states but that is pretty much invisible. We need them here with all the pot-holes and rain making the roads full of gravel.

With regard the Lime Prime, certantly by Cyclo i have used it to as a last step polish/finishing glaze on my Jazz. I havent tried it on anything else yet or any other method but it has some obvious cut to it.

I hope 08 pans out well for you!

Geoff

[maersk]

Brilliant!

Thanks for the new thread and swift load. [img]/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/169144-ok.gif[/img]

[techieboy]

Superleggera. [img]/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/heart.gif[/img] [img]/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/notworthy.gif[/img] [img]/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/heart.gif[/img] [img]/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/notworthy.gif[/img] [img]/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/heart.gif[/img]

[Busby]

[ QUOTE ]
Superleggera. [img]/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/heart.gif[/img] [img]/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/notworthy.gif[/img] [img]/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/heart.gif[/img] [img]/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/notworthy.gif[/img] [img]/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/heart.gif[/img]

[/ QUOTE ]

I'll second that [img]/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/169144-ok.gif[/img]

[maersk]

How far north from Cambridge do you get?

[Rachel]

Awesome (as usual)! [img]/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/169144-ok.gif[/img]

I love the orange paintwork on the LGS