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Finally, I was able to test out my Festool Rotex, and do a proper full detail on a car! And what a first job - 14 hours all up over 2 days!!
This car is a black 2007 Holden (GM) WM Caprice - read luxury barge for commuting company execs around town and to and from the airport etc...
My girlfriends' father runs a chauffeur car service - being Easter, things were quiet and this car had the whole weekend off - he was quite happy for me to attack it with the Rotex and see what I could do!!!
It has done about 250,000kms in just over 2 years of service, and is washed regularly at cheap car wash cafés - never been given any proper love! As such it had all the regular RIDS and swirls from having regular washes from people who use inferior products and don't care for what they are doing!!!
First was the wash:
* Pre-soak using Gerni pressure washer and Armor All Car Wash
* Washed using Meguiars Hyperwash, Meguiars Lambswool Washmitt and 2 bucket method
* Dried with a Mothers Waffle Weave Drying Towel
Didn't come up too badly for just a wash, but upon closer inspection under halogen lights, the full extent of the swirls was revealed - it's blurry but you can still see just how bad it was:
As you can see, the surface is quite heavily swirled, and the majority of the car was in a similar condition - except for the bonnet which had recently been resprayed, but even that too had some deep RIDS...
After bringing the car back under cover, I clayed the entire car using QD as my lube. As this car is very regularly washed, for a car that had done 250,000kms and NEVER been clayed before, it didn't actually pick up all that much off the surface - in fact the horizontal panels (boot, roof, bonnet) were all in pretty reasonable condition. Suprisingly I pulled a lot more contamination off of the doors!!!
Correction was achieved by 1-2 passes of Ultimate Compound on LC Orange, followed by 1 pass of SwirlX on LC White to remove some slight micro-marring left behind by the UC/Orange combo. I found this combination to be good for removing on average 95% - 100% of the swirls, whilst only leaving behind some of the deeper RIDS, which was OK.
Funnily enough, all four doors needed a second pass with UC/Orange to remove the swirls before polishing with SwirlX/White - the horizontal panels only took 1 pass!
There was one major defect to take notice of, just below the driver's side mirror on the edge of the door panel, not sure how this got there:
Before:
After (note picture rotated 90deg right):
After finally having completed paint correction (this is a BIG sedan), I wiped the whole car down with #34 Final Inspection, before hitting it with two coats of Gold Class wax, giving the first coat around 3 hours to cure before applying the second coat. Job done!
I really like Gold Class wax, the banana smell is quite pleasant and I find it easy to apply and remove. It beads up nicely and lasts long enough, especially if you give it two coats!!!
The morning after, before the driver came back to collect it, I gave it a final wipedown with Last Touch to give it a bit more gloss before it left!
The fleck had returned in the paint and I couldn't be more stoked with my first detail results!!!
After shots:
Thanks for reading!!
Dave
This car is a black 2007 Holden (GM) WM Caprice - read luxury barge for commuting company execs around town and to and from the airport etc...
My girlfriends' father runs a chauffeur car service - being Easter, things were quiet and this car had the whole weekend off - he was quite happy for me to attack it with the Rotex and see what I could do!!!
It has done about 250,000kms in just over 2 years of service, and is washed regularly at cheap car wash cafés - never been given any proper love! As such it had all the regular RIDS and swirls from having regular washes from people who use inferior products and don't care for what they are doing!!!
First was the wash:
* Pre-soak using Gerni pressure washer and Armor All Car Wash
* Washed using Meguiars Hyperwash, Meguiars Lambswool Washmitt and 2 bucket method
* Dried with a Mothers Waffle Weave Drying Towel
Didn't come up too badly for just a wash, but upon closer inspection under halogen lights, the full extent of the swirls was revealed - it's blurry but you can still see just how bad it was:
As you can see, the surface is quite heavily swirled, and the majority of the car was in a similar condition - except for the bonnet which had recently been resprayed, but even that too had some deep RIDS...
After bringing the car back under cover, I clayed the entire car using QD as my lube. As this car is very regularly washed, for a car that had done 250,000kms and NEVER been clayed before, it didn't actually pick up all that much off the surface - in fact the horizontal panels (boot, roof, bonnet) were all in pretty reasonable condition. Suprisingly I pulled a lot more contamination off of the doors!!!
Correction was achieved by 1-2 passes of Ultimate Compound on LC Orange, followed by 1 pass of SwirlX on LC White to remove some slight micro-marring left behind by the UC/Orange combo. I found this combination to be good for removing on average 95% - 100% of the swirls, whilst only leaving behind some of the deeper RIDS, which was OK.
Funnily enough, all four doors needed a second pass with UC/Orange to remove the swirls before polishing with SwirlX/White - the horizontal panels only took 1 pass!
There was one major defect to take notice of, just below the driver's side mirror on the edge of the door panel, not sure how this got there:
Before:
After (note picture rotated 90deg right):
After finally having completed paint correction (this is a BIG sedan), I wiped the whole car down with #34 Final Inspection, before hitting it with two coats of Gold Class wax, giving the first coat around 3 hours to cure before applying the second coat. Job done!
I really like Gold Class wax, the banana smell is quite pleasant and I find it easy to apply and remove. It beads up nicely and lasts long enough, especially if you give it two coats!!!
The morning after, before the driver came back to collect it, I gave it a final wipedown with Last Touch to give it a bit more gloss before it left!
The fleck had returned in the paint and I couldn't be more stoked with my first detail results!!!
After shots:
Thanks for reading!!
Dave
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