(I'm reposting this from my other forum, M3Forum.net's detailing board)
I spent 6 hours on Friday, maybe 8 hours on Saturday, and two or three hours on Sunday detailing my car. I finally convinced myself, like the others have said before me, that it's better than 99% of the cars on the road and I should be satisfied. I swear I feel like I should've earned a badge saying I'm an official detailing OCD nutcase.
This was my first weekend to get to use my PC and I was stunned at the results! Took a bit more work than I expected but not too bad really. Got TONS of scratches and swirls out, though some still remain, was running out of time with other things I had to get done.
Friday:
Meguiar's Hot Rims All Wheel cleaner
Meguiar's Deep Crystal car wash
Gold Class Leather Cleaner & Conditioner on all seats + steering wheel + lux trim
Porter Cable + SSR2.5 + Edge Blue pad (switched to green pad after trial and error)
Saturday
Tide to Go Stain remover on the steering wheel stitching followed by another round of conditioner (blue/red stitching is brilliant now!)
Nevr-Dull Wadding Polish on the exhaust tips + about 1" inside
More PC + SSR2.5 + Edge Green pad
PC + SSR1 + Blue pad
Meguiar's NXT Tech Wax
Cleaned the windows
Dusted interior
[rush to the clean car concours BMW Iowa meet in town and find out it's SUNDAY, not Saturday. Come home with a free can of engine degreaser from the mechanic that hosted]
Detailed the engine with degreaser, sprayed everything down, wiped everything down, used the Nevr-Dull on some misc metal parts, got absolutely anal about getting the brake fluid cap and dipstick top perfectly clean.
Black Magic on all engine compartment hoses
[8pm grocery run and WHAM huge devastating door ding... *sigh*]
Sunday
Black Magic on all exterior plastic trim
Touch ups on windows and main body panels
Cleaned doorjams, door edges, trunk edges, hood edges
Pulled the K&N filter and cleaned/oiled, slightly stronger and definitely smoother acceleration now
Fixed a loose kidney grill
Fixed a loose air intake
[10 minutes to clean wife's black Explorer lol]
Off to the meet! Quick detail and dusting
[got a glowing recommendation for a mobile dent removal service from the guy who won the M class trophy with his M5 *rock* \m/ ]
I'd say at this point the only thing I'd like to see is a little bit more on the scratch removal for some spots I didn't get as well as I'd like to. Also, the shine I've got isn't quite as deep/wet as I'd like. I'm guessing this is a possible combination of two things, I think I need to ssr1 again a bit more thoroughly and I probably need something a bit more than a single coat of NXT Tech Wax to finish it. Any suggestions?
images:
before
before
before
after
after
after
after
after
(more below)
I spent 6 hours on Friday, maybe 8 hours on Saturday, and two or three hours on Sunday detailing my car. I finally convinced myself, like the others have said before me, that it's better than 99% of the cars on the road and I should be satisfied. I swear I feel like I should've earned a badge saying I'm an official detailing OCD nutcase.
This was my first weekend to get to use my PC and I was stunned at the results! Took a bit more work than I expected but not too bad really. Got TONS of scratches and swirls out, though some still remain, was running out of time with other things I had to get done.
Friday:
Meguiar's Hot Rims All Wheel cleaner
Meguiar's Deep Crystal car wash
Gold Class Leather Cleaner & Conditioner on all seats + steering wheel + lux trim
Porter Cable + SSR2.5 + Edge Blue pad (switched to green pad after trial and error)
Saturday
Tide to Go Stain remover on the steering wheel stitching followed by another round of conditioner (blue/red stitching is brilliant now!)
Nevr-Dull Wadding Polish on the exhaust tips + about 1" inside
More PC + SSR2.5 + Edge Green pad
PC + SSR1 + Blue pad
Meguiar's NXT Tech Wax
Cleaned the windows
Dusted interior
[rush to the clean car concours BMW Iowa meet in town and find out it's SUNDAY, not Saturday. Come home with a free can of engine degreaser from the mechanic that hosted]
Detailed the engine with degreaser, sprayed everything down, wiped everything down, used the Nevr-Dull on some misc metal parts, got absolutely anal about getting the brake fluid cap and dipstick top perfectly clean.
Black Magic on all engine compartment hoses
[8pm grocery run and WHAM huge devastating door ding... *sigh*]
Sunday
Black Magic on all exterior plastic trim
Touch ups on windows and main body panels
Cleaned doorjams, door edges, trunk edges, hood edges
Pulled the K&N filter and cleaned/oiled, slightly stronger and definitely smoother acceleration now
Fixed a loose kidney grill
Fixed a loose air intake
[10 minutes to clean wife's black Explorer lol]
Off to the meet! Quick detail and dusting
[got a glowing recommendation for a mobile dent removal service from the guy who won the M class trophy with his M5 *rock* \m/ ]
I'd say at this point the only thing I'd like to see is a little bit more on the scratch removal for some spots I didn't get as well as I'd like to. Also, the shine I've got isn't quite as deep/wet as I'd like. I'm guessing this is a possible combination of two things, I think I need to ssr1 again a bit more thoroughly and I probably need something a bit more than a single coat of NXT Tech Wax to finish it. Any suggestions?
images:
before
before
before
after
after
after
after
after
(more below)
