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About a month ago I noticed that one of my lightweight wheels was beginning to crack at the spoke and that I needed to replace it. I decided to purchase new rims for the car and at that point decided that I had to get this thing looking good (OEM wheels with snow tires pictured below).
I started my search on another forum specific to the SRT4. I researched Zaino because I have heard good things about it. Pretty much everyone claimed that it was the best thing for our cars. I almost placed a $250 order right before I found one thread that discussed the Zaino System vs the world. A member by the name of ‘Mike-In-Orange’ (Michael Stoops I believe) talked about the difference between proper paint correction and the Zaino system (Z-PC excluded). I decided that I wanted to get my car looking good with permanent results. The thread was from 2007 and mentioned that with a G100, M83, M80, and Yellow & Black Meguiar’s pads I could get done what I wanted. Then I found Meguiar’s Online Forum. Fast forward 2 years worth of product development and information and here we are.
I basically decided I wanted to go with the M105/M205 combination. I also ran into threads that discussed the difference between the G110 and the Flex 3401. Once I read that some guys wished they bought the more powerful Flex I was sold. I gathered up everything I needed and placed numerous orders. I tried to get as many things to my house as quickly as possible so I could start working right away. I ended up getting the old version of M105 (not DA approved) from a very close online retailer. I have shipped that to Meguiar’s for an exchange for the new DA approved version. That’s why I went with Ultimate Compound (bought OTC at PepBoys a block from my house).
I’m rambling on now so I'll get to it.
This is my first attempt at polishing with my Flex 3401 and Meguiar's products.
I apologize for the pictures. I discovered Macro Mode on my camera after I took all the pictures. None of the before pics show all of the swirls and paint imperfections. I have a few that show witness marks from physical contact with other objects. I have before/after shots of those.
My process:
(1) Wash
(2) Clay with Meguiar's Aggressive Clay
(3) Polish with Meguiar's Ultimate Compound with Yellow SoftBuff 2.0 Polishing Pad W8207 (Flex on 6)
(4) Polish with Meguiar's M205 with Black SoftBuff 2.0 Finishing Pad W9207 (Flex on 5)
(5) Two coats of M21 2.0 - 24 hours apart.
A couple things to note. I did the Dawn dish soap to get a thorough cleaning. I also went with the Aggressive Clay because it has never been done before, the paint felt really rough, and I knew I was going to do paint correction so any imperfections caused by the aggressive clay I figured I would remove with my paint correction process.
Before Pictures:
You can see some swirls in this pic, but it's no where near what it really looks like.
Looks like someone leaned against my car while walking through a parking lot and scratched the side a bit.
Here are pictures as I was working.
Drivers Door Before: (rear door already done)
All of these are after one pass with Ultimate Compound:
Rear Door Before (see scuff mark? from another plastic bumber):
Rear Door After #1: (You can see the mark is almost completely gone and only the deeper scratch remains).
Rear Door After #2:
Rear Door Second Half (front half) Before:
Rear Door Second Half (front half) After:
This is a pretty good one.
Rear Quarter Panel Before:
Rear Quarter Panel After #1:
Rear Quarter Panel After #2:
Some crazy oxidation or something. I didn't even notice this until I took the spoiler off.
Top Trunk Before:
Top Trunk After:
One of my favorite pics. I was beginning to clean up around 2:00AM and saw this reflection in the paint. I thought it was a pretty cool reflection shot of the Ultimate Compound. (I should mention this was after one pass with Ultimate Compound only).
This is the first set of pics when I was pretty much done. I didn't clean the rims yet because I swapped them out with a new set. You'll see those in the 2nd set of 'After Pics' below.
And here are the final pics of the car with the new wheels on it. I'm still getting used to them. I think I like them better on a red car, but this is about the paint and not the wheels.
I don't have any before/after pics on me right now, but I detailed the interior as well. I hit the carpets with APC+, aggitated with a brush, and then extracted with the LGM. I washed all interior surfaces with APC+ and followed that up with Quick Interior Detailer for some protection. I used M39/M40 on the rubber surrounds in the door jambs. I used All Season Dressing on some of the exterior trim and Meguiar's Gold Glass Endurance High Gloss to dress the tires. Glass cleaned with Detailer Glass Cleaner.
I would like to thank the entire MOL community for the wealth of knowledge that has been shared. I must have spent over 40 hours reading through this forum in the last 3 weeks (probably 10 times that long now that I think about it!).
I'd really like to thank Michael Stoops for leading me here with his posts on the other forum, all the Mikes, Tim, and Bounty for purchasing a Flex and doing some write ups on his details with it.
I now own more Meguiar's products than I care to admit (consumer line, professional line, and detailer line) and I'm ready with a good maintenance plan for my vehicles.
Thanks for looking.
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