Driven Auto Detail
New member
This car belongs to a friend of mine. He bought it to replace a Grand Prix that his daughter totaled in the last snow storm. This is an '08 G6 GT with 18K on the odo that was previously a rental car. Apparently, it had been detailed by the company it was purchased from. It was a piss-poor job, that's for sure.
The exterior didn't appear to be in THAT bad of shape...until I washed and clayed it. Once I pulled it out in the sun, it looked like it had been washed with one of those wheel brushes at the local DIY wash. The paint was a non-metallic black paint and from what I've heard, it supposed to be crazy soft, which would have made sense. However, it was the complete opposite. The paint was hard as a rock which made the damage even more astonishing. The pictures don't do the swirls justice. This car kicked my butt, big time. I started around 10am and finished around 6pm.
After washing and claying, I tested the paint. Nothing I threw at it did much. I decided to go with the Makita (1700), Edge green light cutting wool, and OC. This knocked down some of the damage but definitely left marring. I followed this up with the Makita (1500), an LC grey finishing pad and OP. This seemed to remove the damage from the wool & OC combo. Even after these two steps, the paint was still in need of a lot more work. I just didn't have the time to do anymore so two steps was all I could do.
After polishing, I applied OCW v2 and then a final wipe down with OID. Tires received Optimum Tire Shine.
The inside was vac'ed, carpets and upholstery were treated with Folex and then steam cleaned, the plastics/vinyl were cleaned with Simple Green (30:1) and then treated with OPP. The carpet GM used in this car was awful. It was like trunk carpeting. It reminded me of the carpet in my Mazda3.
Engine was cleaned with Simple Green (forget dilution) and then treated with Meg's HD (2:1).
By the way, I'm still learning the rotary so I'm not sure if the polishing steps I used were the best options so I'm open to constructive criticism.
Also, disregard the residue on the trim around the bottom of the car. I forgot to tape that area before I got started polishing. I got it cleaned up after I took the pics.
Before:
This was after claying the trunk lid and the rear bumper cover. The rest of the car didn't need much claying.
Remember, this car was detailed before I got it. Apparently, they used one of those aerosol bombs to get rid of the smokey smell inside the car:
After washing/claying:
Final results:
These pics are deceiving, but it's the best lighting I had at the time:
The exterior didn't appear to be in THAT bad of shape...until I washed and clayed it. Once I pulled it out in the sun, it looked like it had been washed with one of those wheel brushes at the local DIY wash. The paint was a non-metallic black paint and from what I've heard, it supposed to be crazy soft, which would have made sense. However, it was the complete opposite. The paint was hard as a rock which made the damage even more astonishing. The pictures don't do the swirls justice. This car kicked my butt, big time. I started around 10am and finished around 6pm.
After washing and claying, I tested the paint. Nothing I threw at it did much. I decided to go with the Makita (1700), Edge green light cutting wool, and OC. This knocked down some of the damage but definitely left marring. I followed this up with the Makita (1500), an LC grey finishing pad and OP. This seemed to remove the damage from the wool & OC combo. Even after these two steps, the paint was still in need of a lot more work. I just didn't have the time to do anymore so two steps was all I could do.
After polishing, I applied OCW v2 and then a final wipe down with OID. Tires received Optimum Tire Shine.
The inside was vac'ed, carpets and upholstery were treated with Folex and then steam cleaned, the plastics/vinyl were cleaned with Simple Green (30:1) and then treated with OPP. The carpet GM used in this car was awful. It was like trunk carpeting. It reminded me of the carpet in my Mazda3.
Engine was cleaned with Simple Green (forget dilution) and then treated with Meg's HD (2:1).
By the way, I'm still learning the rotary so I'm not sure if the polishing steps I used were the best options so I'm open to constructive criticism.
Also, disregard the residue on the trim around the bottom of the car. I forgot to tape that area before I got started polishing. I got it cleaned up after I took the pics.
Before:
This was after claying the trunk lid and the rear bumper cover. The rest of the car didn't need much claying.
Remember, this car was detailed before I got it. Apparently, they used one of those aerosol bombs to get rid of the smokey smell inside the car:
After washing/claying:
Final results:
These pics are deceiving, but it's the best lighting I had at the time:
