Divine Detail- 2005 Nissan Altima

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Well this vehicle was booked for our Ambassador Detail, this is our outmost, meticulous detail. A complete interior detail, with a full exterior paint correction, with engine bay. This vehicle was booked for a full three day detail. The vehicle:
2005 Nissan Altima
Here is the vehicle as it was delivered:

The speedometer along with the rest of the gauges were going to be interesting to detail as they have some tight spots to get into.

Vents were going to require a little extra.

Well this is how day one went.
The first day was spent strictly on the interior of the vehicle, so first up was to give the vehicle a full wipe down. For this a diluted Meg’s APC was used:

With the help of a yellow micro fiber towel the entire interior was given a wipe down:

All vents were treated with our interior Swissvax brush:

Followed up with air compressor to insure all dust/wipe down water is completely removed:

This process was done to all vinyl trims within this vehicle, this process took a few hours. Once the wipe down had been completed and satisfied with the end results it was now time to give the interior a full vacuum, first all floor mats were removed from the vehicle:

Once the entire vehicle had been completely vacuumed it was time to use our HP-60 extractor and extract the entire interior, including the seats of the vehicle:

 

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The interior is just about done now, having the carpet extracted and the wipe down completed a final wipe was given to the interior to insure no water was left over during the extraction process from our heated extractor. Once the final wipe down was done the interior was dressed with Meg’s #40:

With the help of another yellow micro fiber towel, the interior was dressed and a final wipe down was also given with yet another yellow micro fiber towel. All that is left is the windows, windows are left for last.
This completes the interior and several hours have now gone by, before calling it a day the exterior is to be given a wash and clay including the rims.
For this the CR Spotless System is connected to insure we use nothing but pure Deionized water:

First up where the wheel wells, for the wheel wells P21S Total Auto Wash was sprayed:

The rims where then given a healthy coat of P21S Gel:

 

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The tires received Amazing Roll Off (ARO):

Now it was time to go back to the wheel wells, with the help of Meg’s long handle brush the wheel wells were agitated:

Once the wheel wells were agitated to satisfaction it was time to move on to the rims, with the help of another Swissvax brush the rims were agitated:

Once satisfied with the rims, it was time to give the tires a good scrub. For this, a tire brush was used:

Here is how all that agitation looks like:

All that is left is to rinse everything off and inspect the results. This process was done to all the wheel wells, rims and tires.
Once satisfied with the wheel wells, rims and tires it was time to move on to the engine bay. First up, all delicate parts inside the engine bay were covered/protected followed up with a quick rinse. The entire engine bay along with the roof of the hood was given a healthy coat of P21S Total Auto Wash:

P21S Total Auto Wash was applied several times on the engine bay and left to sit for 10minutes. Then another coat of P21S Total Auto Wash was given and agitated with another Swissvax brush:

Once the engine bay along with the hood of the roof was scrubbed to satisfaction it was time to rinse the entire engine compartment and inspect the results. Once completely satisfied it was time to move on to the body of the vehicle.
To wash the body of the vehicle the two bucket method was used with grit guard, a Zymol sponge and shampoo of choice was Meg’s Gold Class Shampoo:

Once the entire vehicle was washed and rinsed off it was now time to clay the vehicle. The clay of choice was Ricardo:

 

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Here is how the clay looked like after claying the entire vehicle:

Clay bar was discarded after this vehicle as there is no way such a clay bar would be used on another vehicle.
Once the vehicle had been clayed the vehicle was given a final rinse with Deionized water the vehicle is now ready to be dried off. First, as much water as possible is removed with the help of a air compressor and water that is left over is removed with our waffle weaved micro fiber towel:

Now it was time to take some paint gauge readings, fist up the PosiTector 6000:

Here are the readings taken with the PosiTector 6000 graphed:

Now it was time to take readings on the bumper with the PosiTector 200

Here are the readings taken with the PosiTector 200:

Now as you can see we have plenty of clear coat/paint on this vehicle, now to see what paint correction was going to be required on this vehicle. Now the following pictures were taking to show the state the vehicle was in, usually the 3M Sun Gun is brought out for inspection but there was no need to use the Sun Gun as the vehicle was modeling some incredable imperfections:

The worst spot was on the truck, well so far.
Now with the help of the 3M Sun Gun it was time to inspect the rest of the vehicle:

A nice long scratch on the hood of the vehicle.

 

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These tail lights are going to require some good TLC
Well after the paint inspection it was decided to call it a day and this concludes day one, day two is going to be quite a long day based on the inspection.
Day two:
First on the list was to tape off the vehicle.
Several sections were taped off to test the pad/polish combo. Now having done several Nissans in the past, the clear coat was expected to be on the medium hard level but you just never know with these new vehicles. Well first up Menzerna 106FF with a blue 3M (UK version) foam pad with Metabo, partnered up with a 3M backing plate at 1500RPM. This combo didn’t do much which, was expected.
Next combo was Menzerna 85RD3.02 with a black 3M (UK version) foam pad with Metabo partnered up with the 3M backing plate at 1500RPM, this combo finally gave some noticeable difference, but it wasn’t good enough, here is the test area before polishing:

Here is how the first pass with 85RD3.02 with black 3M (UK version) pad combo finished off:

As you can see it made a significant difference but not completely satisfied with it, so a second pass was given and these were the results:

Much better results and this was the combo of choice. Certain areas required three passes but for majority of the part two hits with 85RD3.02 was doing the job.
Well on with the show, here are some 50/50 pictures of the paint correction:

Front passenger fender

Rear ¼ passenger panel and a closer look:

Now for those tail lights, before:

After:

 

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Now the trunk was one of the worst areas of this vehicle so the process was a tad different, here is how the trunk was done:

First Menzerna Power Gloss with a black 3M (UK version) pad with Metabo at 1500RPM, followed up with Menzerna 85RD3.02 with a blue 3M (UK version) pad with Metabo at 1500RPM, finished off with Menzerna 85RD with a blue 3M (UK version) pad with Metabo at 1800RPM. This process gave the following results:

Very satisfying results.
Now to clean the pads, System 2000 was used:

This made cleaning the pads and that’s a good thing because all pads were cleaned quite frequently.
Now you remember this rear driver side pillar:

Well this is how it turned around:

Here is a 50/50 of the driver side door:

This completes the long paint correction process. Now one thing to note is that Menzerna behaved remarkable, no issues what’s so ever and the controlled ambient temperature was set at:

However, I don’t know what the humidity was like though.
All the tape on the vehicle was removed and it was time to remove all polish residue on the vehicle. The rest of the dust was removed with the Zymol duster:

This completes day two and the paint correction process.
Day three:
Now it was time to apply the LSP on the vehicle, the LSP of choice is Victoria Concors. First Victoria Light Cleanse was used, applied via foam applicator to the entire vehicle and removed with several micro fiber towels.
Followed up with Victoria Concors, applied by hand left on the surface of the vehicle for several minutes and removed with various micro fiber towels.
Windows were finished of with Stoners Invisible Glass with a glass micro fiber towel.
Engine bay was dried with our waffle weaved micro fiber towel and dressed with 303.
Tires and wheel wells were also finished off with 303.
Well now for the end results:

Trunk finished off quite nicely, very proud to see the turn around in this section as it was one of the worst areas.

Now for the engine bay.
Before:

After:

Before:

After:

Before:

After:

Here is how the interior finished off:

 

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Here is a walk around video:

This concludes this detail, hope you enjoy.

 

[Beemerboy]

Why 3 days?

The work is real good just wondering about the amount of time you spent

 

[Stephan]

Nice job restoring that altima...I am also interested in the air compressor attachment that you have, I like how it fits right into the vents...

 

[CalgaryDetail]

Why 3 days?

The work is real good just wondering about the amount of time you spent

three days,, to be honest becasue we had the time :rofl.... last weekend was super busy for all us, the person was out of town so we did it when we had time,,, there was no need or desire to rush so we didnt :bigups

Nice job restoring that altima...I am also interested in the air compressor attachment that you have, I like how it fits right into the vents...

thanks...the compresor works really wel.. saves lots of time

 

[Stephan]

three days,, to be honest becasue we had the time :rofl.... last weekend was super busy for all us, the person was out of town so we did it when we had time,,, there was no need or desire to rush so we didnt :bigups


thanks...the compresor works really wel.. saves lots of time

I use one as well, I was just curious where you got that attachment, I am not sure I have seen anything like that...

 

[budman3]

I use one as well, I was just curious where you got that attachment, I am not sure I have seen anything like that...

Home Cheapo and Lowe's have them ... I think I got mine at HD -- less than $10 I believe

 

[Stephan]

Home Cheapo and Lowe's have them ... I think I got mine at HD -- less than $10 I believe

excellent thanks:bigups

 

[Old Pirate]

Great correction process Mike, the Altima came out wonderful and your write up is top notch!:bigups

 

[Clean Dean]

Another beautiful detail CalgaryDetail !!! :bow

three days,, to be honest becasue we had the time .... last weekend was super busy for all us, the person was out of town so we did it when we had time,,, there was no need or desire to rush so we didnt

Three days !!! Wow !!! I hope you hit him hard for that one. The owner will be happy, and I only hope that he does not let it get back to that original condition. Try to get them to bring it back more frequently.