My mom has been complaining that her car was dirty...And she knew that I'd gotten all of these detailing products recently...So, she pushed me today to wash her car for her (in return for a really good pasta dinner).
I started with Meguiar's Gold Class car wash, which helped me to knock off the dirt and bring it to this stage (sorry, no pics before this stage; I forgot to break out the camera until after I'd washed):
As can be seen in this shot, I had the Meguiar's mild pro clay, QD, and a MF towel, and I was just getting ready to clay the hood. NASTY. It was so covered with bonded contaminants that it felt like I had about 80 grit sandpaper on the hood instead of paint. After about 2 hours of work, I was ready to move on to polishing, because as is shown in this picture, the yahoos at the car wash down the street that charge $20 for their "hand wash" are really good at instilling scratches in the surface of the clearcoat:
Here's several passes with Meguiar's M80 and my PC 7424 on the same area of the trunk:
As you can see, it is HIGHLY possible to get swirl marks out of the paint - it just takes time, patience, a DA polisher, and the right products!!!
Here's some more after I finally finished up the car; I covered the polish with NXT 2.0 (and it REALLY made the car's paint POP).
All in all, it was an 8 hour day: I started it at about 9:30-9:45 am, and I finished at 5 min. to 5pm (and that was just for the exterior; fortunately the interior didn't need to be done). The swirl removal and the claying were the most time consuming things; I must've made 3-4 passes over just the hood of the car, getting all of the contaminants off.
The polish/swirl removal took longer than expected as well, but that was due to me trying to really just take my time and make lots of very small passes. I felt very proud of myself in one spot, as there was a long scratch along the driver's side, where it looked like either someone had rubbed up against the car or a shopping cart had grazed it. I managed to get that scratch out through due diligence.
I didn't do a "perfect" job (I consider "perfect" to be a show car job where the car's going to be in a museum or is a trailer queen going to a car show), but it's a daily driver, and my mom is ecstatic over it all...Which is all that matters, right?
I started with Meguiar's Gold Class car wash, which helped me to knock off the dirt and bring it to this stage (sorry, no pics before this stage; I forgot to break out the camera until after I'd washed):
As can be seen in this shot, I had the Meguiar's mild pro clay, QD, and a MF towel, and I was just getting ready to clay the hood. NASTY. It was so covered with bonded contaminants that it felt like I had about 80 grit sandpaper on the hood instead of paint. After about 2 hours of work, I was ready to move on to polishing, because as is shown in this picture, the yahoos at the car wash down the street that charge $20 for their "hand wash" are really good at instilling scratches in the surface of the clearcoat:
Here's several passes with Meguiar's M80 and my PC 7424 on the same area of the trunk:
As you can see, it is HIGHLY possible to get swirl marks out of the paint - it just takes time, patience, a DA polisher, and the right products!!!
Here's some more after I finally finished up the car; I covered the polish with NXT 2.0 (and it REALLY made the car's paint POP).
All in all, it was an 8 hour day: I started it at about 9:30-9:45 am, and I finished at 5 min. to 5pm (and that was just for the exterior; fortunately the interior didn't need to be done). The swirl removal and the claying were the most time consuming things; I must've made 3-4 passes over just the hood of the car, getting all of the contaminants off.
The polish/swirl removal took longer than expected as well, but that was due to me trying to really just take my time and make lots of very small passes. I felt very proud of myself in one spot, as there was a long scratch along the driver's side, where it looked like either someone had rubbed up against the car or a shopping cart had grazed it. I managed to get that scratch out through due diligence.
I didn't do a "perfect" job (I consider "perfect" to be a show car job where the car's going to be in a museum or is a trailer queen going to a car show), but it's a daily driver, and my mom is ecstatic over it all...Which is all that matters, right?
