Mike's Super Post - Detailing/Reviews/How-to - Updated often

[MDetail]

Re: Mike's Super Post - Detailing/Reviews/How-to - Updated often

I don't have any of the process pictures of the polish and sealant, but I do have one before and after of the hood.

Before


After

[Mike Phillips]

Re: Mike's Super Post - Detailing/Reviews/How-to - Updated often

Great thread!

I have to ask Mike to let me edit the first post.

Shoot me an e-mail when you're ready and I'll turn the time limit off...


mphillips@meguiars.com

[Tuck91]

Re: Mike's Super Post - Detailing/Reviews/How-to - Updated often

great work

looks fabulous

[yalerd]

Re: Mike's Super Post - Detailing/Reviews/How-to - Updated often

Awesome work!
Amazing write up and great pictures.

Came out great

[MDetail]

Re: Mike's Super Post - Detailing/Reviews/How-to - Updated often

Next up, trim treatment. I noticed the trim wasn't looking "brand new" so I decided to go ahead and give the trim a face lift.


Items Used:
Meguiar's Trim Detailer ($5.99
Cheap Paint Brush ($0.59)
Microfiber Towel MF ($1 each)
Meguiar's Last Touch Detailer LTD ($8.49 w/spray bottle)
Buff & Shine Boar's Hair Interior Brush ($2.49)
The Edge Detailing Foam Swabs ($9.99 pack of 10 variety)
Old Toothbrush (FREE)
Q-Tips ($$no clue)

1. Start by spraying your LTD around the area you will be cleaning.


2. If the trim you are working with has small divots or hard to reach areas, get your Boar's Hair Interior Brush and agitate the LTD, this should help loosen some of the dirt.


3. Get you foam swab and get in the corners and areas that you can't reach with your fingertips. I usually use the green swab, but you can use any color you feel you need. If the foam swab can't reach the area you are working on, try a Q-tip The foam swab is more aggressive than the Q-tip though so don't be surprised if you have to go over the same area a few times with a Q-tip that the Foam swab knocks out the first round.






4. Clean/Dry off the areas you have just cleaned with your various hi-tech tools


5. Make sure the area you are about to apply your Trim Detailer is clean and dry. Prep all the different areas you will be working with first before you move on to the next step. Also make sure you are not working directly in the sun.

6. Get your MF towel, Trim Detailer, and Paintbrush out.


7. You can either put the Trim Detailer on your Paintbrush or directly on the plastic you will be applying it to. Now with long even strokes brush the Trim Detailer into your plastic.


8. Don't wipe the area off yet. Go find another area you want to treat, and apply the Trim Detailer to that area.

9. Go back the the first area you were working on and use one side of your MF to remove the excess TD, use the other clean side to give the area a final buff.




10. If you happened to get the TD on an area you didn't want it, just get a clean towel and clean it off with the help of some LTD. Here I acheived 2 things. Remove TD from the window, and clean some lines that came about from the plastic rubbing against the window.

[MDetail]

Re: Mike's Super Post - Detailing/Reviews/How-to - Updated often

So right about now this is what the car looks like.


It's down hill from here, I'll start by quick detailing it so I can put a coat of wax on.

Start with your LTD/Quick Detailer


Spray Directly on the car body parts, don't be stingy spray enough to keep your finish scratch free.


Get your SSMF out and wipe with one side, dry with the other.


I had a few choices. Within the past couple of weeks these are the different waxes that arrived.


I decided to go with...


I couldn't pass up buy one get one free with 15% off and free shipping. I am glad I got that deal, this stuff is great. Buy one get one free because of a few measly cracks.


Fuzion is very easy to apply, you can apply panel by panel, and don't have to wait for it to haze/dry. I like my meguiars wax, I just like to have variety. After about 30-40 minutes here are the results.

[MDetail]

Re: Mike's Super Post - Detailing/Reviews/How-to - Updated often

On to the inside of the car where I had a different kind of wax. I used to have soft racks for when I went surfing. The wax from the surfboard had transferred top the straps of the soft rack which then found their way to the interior of my car.


I took the handle off, and here is what I was left with.


The handle by iteself.


Take some APC+ 4:1 spray it directly on the handle, and work the product in with an interior brush. Stick with it, it does take a little while to remove the stains from the handle, but they will come out.


Bata-bing bata-boom


A little final clean up and protection


The stains on the headliner were removed with 409 foaming carpet cleaner, just a quick shot. I let it marinate while I ran the kitchen water until it was hot, got a hot rag, went back and gave the area about a 30second scrub. I think hot water fixes a lot of things in the interior, I have been able to remove many things with hot water. The area where the stain was, it had already been beat up by the surf straps, so when you see the matrial looking worn, that wasn't from scrubbing the area, that was from the straps rubbing in that area constantly.


Final Product.

[MDetail]

Re: Mike's Super Post - Detailing/Reviews/How-to - Updated often

As long as I had the APC+ out I decided to take care of the inner fender, tires, and rims. The following was done because I had already washed the car. I would have done things slightly different if I were washing the car.

Items Used:
APC+ 4:1
Microfiber Towels MF (lots of dirty ones)
Latex (or similar) gloves
Meguiars Hyper Dressing
Cheap Paintbrush
Meguiars Last Touch Detailer LTD
Edge Foam Swabs
Meguiars Endurance Tire Gel Endurance

1. Start with this ugly looking thing.


2. Grab your APC+ and MF towel.


3. Spray APC+ on the rims tires and inner fender (that is the order I spray)


4. Wipe the items in the same order you sprayed. In this part you can use a tire brush and a wheel brush, however if your rims and tires are that dirty you would probably be washing the whole car. When wiping down the inner fender take your time, turn your wheels all the way to one side so you can access most of the inner fender. I used a harder paintbrush to help agitate the APC+ and reach areas I just couldn't quite reach. Repeat spray and wipe down if necessary.


5. Once you are happy with your results Take your Hyper Dressing and spray generously within the inner fender. You want to spray this first so that once you are finished with the wheels and tires you can come back and wipe off excess HD.


6. Spray LTD around your wheels, and wipe down with MF towel.


7. You can use foam swabs, paint brush, or Q-tips to get hard to reach areas.




8. Get your Endurance and paintbrush and apply the endurance to your tires


9. Once you are finished go around your inner fenders and wipe off any excess Hyper Dressing still left with an MF towel, and you should have something like this.


Review:
I used to use PB Bold and bright, but ran out of that. It was a little expensive for me to replenish, so for a while I started using my hyper dressing on the tires. This was the perfect substitute, and it lasts for a few weeks. I wanted to give endurance a try, so far it has only been 2 days so I can't give a durability report, but the shine factor is a little too high for me. But in the last day the shine did seems to die a tad bit. Anyone who wants less of a shine than endurance should give hyper dressing a try.

[Nappers]

Re: Mike's Super Post - Detailing/Reviews/How-to - Updated often

NICE!



Nice thread you have going!

[MDetail]

Re: Mike's Super Post - Detailing/Reviews/How-to - Updated often

I was planning on putting a second coat of wax on, this round I wanted to take off everything I could (without too much hassle)



I removed the rear license plate, the front license plate bracket, and the foglights w/housing.


Removing the foglights makes it easier to clean out these small vents.


Just like before, a little LTD and some tool to help remove the dirt.


Flip it around, add a MF towel, and I have a premo drying tool!


After I knocked out cleaning the small things, throw a second coat on, and it looks like this.

[Andy M.]

Re: Mike's Super Post - Detailing/Reviews/How-to - Updated often

This is a great thread! Thanks for taking the time to document everything step by step and sharing it with the forum!

That is the shiniest back of a license plate I have ever seen.

Keep it up!

Andy M.

[MrCLRider]

Re: Mike's Super Post - Detailing/Reviews/How-to - Updated often

very very nice work!! I really do appreciate the attention to detail that you put into this, people like you is what keeps me going in this hobby of mine.

[J. A. Michaels]

Re: Mike's Super Post - Detailing/Reviews/How-to - Updated often

This is turning out to be a great how-to thread for the newbies. Excellent thread and info.

[MyFirstES300]

Re: Mike's Super Post - Detailing/Reviews/How-to - Updated often

I've been enjoying this thread and it gave me ideas I never thought of before (using paint brush to apply tire dressing) and other things mschoelen used to detail. Now I have more to add to my arsenal

Now, when will Meguiar's make something similar to Optimum No Rinse? I have indeed hard many many good things about ONR.

Hoping Meguiar's makes something similar to this in the future, unless QD is as close as it gets?

[Honda Fit]

Re: Mike's Super Post - Detailing/Reviews/How-to - Updated often

Nice thread and nice SSM GD3! You bring detailing to a whole new meticulous level. I just wish I had a garage so that it would be worth doing. What's your SN on Fitfreak, b/c I know you're on there