Nickc0844
Owner and Tech. Rep
I was blessed to be able to detail this caliber of a car. However, with it only having 500 miles on it, it was a painter/detailer nightmare. :angry
The finish, in the complete sunlight, was a mess. AM of ATL subbed out the detailing of this when it was ported. AM's are hand painted to reduce orange peel. Apparantly, whomever cleaned up the car decided it would be good to wetsand some areas and not completely buff them out. Not only were there marks left, they finished it off with a coarse wool pad. Buffer swirls, holograms, and wetsanding marks galore. I was going to have a field day on this one.
I started off by washing the car with TOL prep-wash. This removes any silicones, wax, polymer sealants that are on the finish. I often start my full details with this to properly see what defects I am working with. Whatever wax they used on it, it was a miracle wax. It filled a ton of the swirls up, and upon my discovery, there were 10x as much after it was stripped off.
I have found it extremely hard to capture pictures of holograming in my experience. These pictures simply do not do the duty justice. There are also a couple pics of the fabulous tire spray they used....3 weeks later. I guess this is the quality you get when you buy a $200,000 car with a V-12 engine :nono Here are the pictures after drying a preliminary masking of the car:
After drying and taping, I began the journey to a swirl free finish. It started with Menzerna Intensive polish on an Edge 2000 Green light cut pad on my Makita rotary at 1200 RPM's (recommended). The wetsanding marks needed Meg's Diamond Cut Compound on the otherside of the pad. While the IP on the Green pad was a great first step, I expected this and it left a medium amount of marring behind. However, the buffer swirl content was greatly reduced.
From there, I went onto using Adam's Polishes Revive and Scratch Out on the PC with an Edge Blue pad. The speed setting was on 5 for this step. The color was vividly expressed upon buffing the residue off, as well as a swirl free finish. I moved the car 5 times through these steps to make sure that what I was seeing was what I was really seeing.
Being a dark blue/navy color with an absolute ton of metallic flake, I decided to use Adam's Brilliant Spray Glaze to enhance the finish before waxing. This added a ton of wetness and reflectivity to the paint, as well as really brightening the glass and grille. The grille was polished with Adam's Metal Polish #2 prior to the Brilliant.
From there, I put on a coat of Butter Wax using a MF applicator. I decided against using the PC for this car because of the size and all the intracrecies of the vehicle. I applied BW to the entire car in the full sun before removing the residues with a MF towel. I've used BW on over one hundred vehicles and it ceases to amaze me what it does for finishes.
To add to the flawless finish, I topped BW with Trade Secret paste.
The Wheels were cleaned with TOL's Power Wheel Wash, and the tires with Simple Green--both diluted at 1:1 and used with foaming sprayers. They were then polished with Revive and glazed with Brilliant to bring out the metallics within them. The tires were dressed with Adam's VRT and the wheel wells with Knockout.
The interior was very nice and plush as well. Didn't take very many pictures of it, however, the center console is quite appealing (push button start and direction, then tiptronic paddle shifting on the steering wheel).
Here are some of the end results:
The car is washed weekly by the gentleman's personal assistant and I am there monthly/bi-monthly. And yes, the car is a dream to drive :naughty
The finish, in the complete sunlight, was a mess. AM of ATL subbed out the detailing of this when it was ported. AM's are hand painted to reduce orange peel. Apparantly, whomever cleaned up the car decided it would be good to wetsand some areas and not completely buff them out. Not only were there marks left, they finished it off with a coarse wool pad. Buffer swirls, holograms, and wetsanding marks galore. I was going to have a field day on this one.
I started off by washing the car with TOL prep-wash. This removes any silicones, wax, polymer sealants that are on the finish. I often start my full details with this to properly see what defects I am working with. Whatever wax they used on it, it was a miracle wax. It filled a ton of the swirls up, and upon my discovery, there were 10x as much after it was stripped off.
I have found it extremely hard to capture pictures of holograming in my experience. These pictures simply do not do the duty justice. There are also a couple pics of the fabulous tire spray they used....3 weeks later. I guess this is the quality you get when you buy a $200,000 car with a V-12 engine :nono Here are the pictures after drying a preliminary masking of the car:
After drying and taping, I began the journey to a swirl free finish. It started with Menzerna Intensive polish on an Edge 2000 Green light cut pad on my Makita rotary at 1200 RPM's (recommended). The wetsanding marks needed Meg's Diamond Cut Compound on the otherside of the pad. While the IP on the Green pad was a great first step, I expected this and it left a medium amount of marring behind. However, the buffer swirl content was greatly reduced.
From there, I went onto using Adam's Polishes Revive and Scratch Out on the PC with an Edge Blue pad. The speed setting was on 5 for this step. The color was vividly expressed upon buffing the residue off, as well as a swirl free finish. I moved the car 5 times through these steps to make sure that what I was seeing was what I was really seeing.
Being a dark blue/navy color with an absolute ton of metallic flake, I decided to use Adam's Brilliant Spray Glaze to enhance the finish before waxing. This added a ton of wetness and reflectivity to the paint, as well as really brightening the glass and grille. The grille was polished with Adam's Metal Polish #2 prior to the Brilliant.
From there, I put on a coat of Butter Wax using a MF applicator. I decided against using the PC for this car because of the size and all the intracrecies of the vehicle. I applied BW to the entire car in the full sun before removing the residues with a MF towel. I've used BW on over one hundred vehicles and it ceases to amaze me what it does for finishes.
To add to the flawless finish, I topped BW with Trade Secret paste.
The Wheels were cleaned with TOL's Power Wheel Wash, and the tires with Simple Green--both diluted at 1:1 and used with foaming sprayers. They were then polished with Revive and glazed with Brilliant to bring out the metallics within them. The tires were dressed with Adam's VRT and the wheel wells with Knockout.
The interior was very nice and plush as well. Didn't take very many pictures of it, however, the center console is quite appealing (push button start and direction, then tiptronic paddle shifting on the steering wheel).
Here are some of the end results:
The car is washed weekly by the gentleman's personal assistant and I am there monthly/bi-monthly. And yes, the car is a dream to drive :naughty
