Hi everyone,
Although I've been on here for quite some time, amazed and truly stunned by the incredible detailing work all of you, this is my first Click and Brag. You guys/gals have provided so much knowledge and I am gratefully thankful.
Here was my previous equipment to detail/polish my cars: Walmart/Retail car wash concentrate, and one of their washmits. A K-Mart random orbital buffer with nice terry cloth bonnets, using Meguiar's Gold Class polish. And some old bath towels and/or my kids' old outgrown onesies (with the snaps removed thankfully) to buff the car and remove the polish. Now? a PC7424, Gilmore Foam gun, Cobra MF towels, Menzerna, ClayMagic, Zaino, Sheepskin washmits, Detailer's Pride, Lake Country Pads, etc. What a change, and thanks to all of you I am far more knowledgeable in the art of detailing, and my vehicles look amazingly better. Oh, and I'm also broke now. But it's all good.
Well, not sure if this is worthy or not, but here is my second full detail using all my current equipment. This was done back in mid-July. My first detail was my wife's 98 Subaru Forester, which I'll probably post soon. But for now, here is my car.
It is a 2005 Mercedes-Benz C230 Kompressor with about 32,000 miles on it. I bought it used about 2 years ago from a M-B dealership in California, and had it car-carried over 2600 miles to me in RI. When I got it, it had about 13,000 miles on it, and looked brand new. The car was previously a Corporate Fleet Lease, and it appeared to be well taken care of (more than likely driven by a VP or middle manager, and chances are, no kids/animals, etc).
Last year, I had claybar'd and Zaino'd it, but now, with my PC in hand, I was ready to do some paint correction.
Like all recent Mercedes-Benz vehicles, this one has the Ceramiclear super hard clearcoat on top of a Capri Blue Metallic paint. And, not surprisingly, there were few swirls and very minor RIDs. But you can tell the Ceramiclear clearcoat is doing its job protecting the paint below.
My process was as follows:
Preparation:
- Dawn wash with sheepskin mitt and 2 bucket method to remove all waxes/polishes and cleaners
- Clay entire car with ClayMagic Blue clay bar
- Wash entire car with Detailer's Pride Xtreme Foam Shampoo using Gilmore Foam Gun and sheepskin mitt
- Dry with Cobra Supreme Guzzler Green Waffle Weave MF towels
Correction:
- PC7424 with Menzerna SIP on a 6.5" CCS Orange Pad
- PC7424 with Menzerna PO106FF on a 6.5" CCS White Pad
- Buffed out with Cobra Deluxe Jr. Lavender MF towels
LSP:
- ZFX'd Zaino Z2-Pro by hand using Zaino's application pads
- Final buffing using Cobra Super-Plush Gold MF Towel
Wheels, Wheel Wells, and Tires (in some/most pics, the wheels/tires were not yet done):
- Purple Power 6:1 concentration, Simple Green 3:1 concentration
- Wheels finished with Detailer's Pride Wheel Glaze
- Wheel Wells finished with Black Magic Tire Foam
- Tires finished with Zaino Z16 Perfect Tire Gloss
Windows:
- Stoner's Invisible Glass
Sorry about the lack of full before shots, as I was concentrating my pics on some isolated areas with significant imperfections/scratches.
Also, the after pics were taken the following day because by the time I finished, it was too dark. So the car did have some minor pollen/dust on it.
Being my second detailing job with a PC, I had some concerns I'd like to bring up. Both with my car and my wife's Subaru, I noticed that there were still some minor scratches present on the finish. I didn't think this would be the case, especially after using an orange CCS pad and SIP. I would have thought this was an aggressive enough combination, especially on what I believe to be a soft paint on the Subaru. I would have expected this more (and substantiated this) on my Mercedes.
I was initially spreading the SIP at about 2500 on the PC, then bumped it up to about 5000, spending about 1 1/2 minutes per section. Not sure if this was too fast on both speeds or not. I was also making sure I wasn't pressing down hard enough to prevent the PC from moving around freely. In most cases, I only went over the panel one time. But there were a few spots I went over twice, and did notice further scratch reductions. It does seem as though I'm breaking the SIP down enough.
Any suggestions on improving my scratch/swirl reducing steps? I'm thinking slower initial and polishing speeds, a yellow CCS pad, and multiple applications of SIP.
Overall, I was very pleased with the results, but would have expected 95% scratch removal vs what I got, which I'd say is about 85% removal. Especially since these scratches were minor and didn't penetrate the clear coat. Since this detail, I picked up a CCS Yellow pad and a CCS PFW wool pad. Maybe these might improve SIP's performance.
Any comments and suggestions are definitely welcome.
Thanks,
Cintoman
CDS, LLC
Now, on with the pics. Here are the befores. As you can tell, not too bad for swirls:
Some areas with issues:
Just one 50/50 shot. Sorry, sun wasn't cooperating too well:
And now the afters....
Here's the after shot of one of the suspect areas (yeah..thums up for the jail cell shirt :laugh: ):
And finally....the obligatory reflection shots:
On some of the shots with the sun hitting the paint, I see some red circles. Not sure if this is some holograming or just the glints from the sun on the camera lense. Again, any and all comments and suggestions are welcome and much appreciated. I still have much to learn from all of you fine people. And I :bow to all of you and your exceptional work.
Thanks again for looking.
Cintoman
Although I've been on here for quite some time, amazed and truly stunned by the incredible detailing work all of you, this is my first Click and Brag. You guys/gals have provided so much knowledge and I am gratefully thankful.
Here was my previous equipment to detail/polish my cars: Walmart/Retail car wash concentrate, and one of their washmits. A K-Mart random orbital buffer with nice terry cloth bonnets, using Meguiar's Gold Class polish. And some old bath towels and/or my kids' old outgrown onesies (with the snaps removed thankfully) to buff the car and remove the polish. Now? a PC7424, Gilmore Foam gun, Cobra MF towels, Menzerna, ClayMagic, Zaino, Sheepskin washmits, Detailer's Pride, Lake Country Pads, etc. What a change, and thanks to all of you I am far more knowledgeable in the art of detailing, and my vehicles look amazingly better. Oh, and I'm also broke now. But it's all good.
Well, not sure if this is worthy or not, but here is my second full detail using all my current equipment. This was done back in mid-July. My first detail was my wife's 98 Subaru Forester, which I'll probably post soon. But for now, here is my car.
It is a 2005 Mercedes-Benz C230 Kompressor with about 32,000 miles on it. I bought it used about 2 years ago from a M-B dealership in California, and had it car-carried over 2600 miles to me in RI. When I got it, it had about 13,000 miles on it, and looked brand new. The car was previously a Corporate Fleet Lease, and it appeared to be well taken care of (more than likely driven by a VP or middle manager, and chances are, no kids/animals, etc).
Last year, I had claybar'd and Zaino'd it, but now, with my PC in hand, I was ready to do some paint correction.
Like all recent Mercedes-Benz vehicles, this one has the Ceramiclear super hard clearcoat on top of a Capri Blue Metallic paint. And, not surprisingly, there were few swirls and very minor RIDs. But you can tell the Ceramiclear clearcoat is doing its job protecting the paint below.
My process was as follows:
Preparation:
- Dawn wash with sheepskin mitt and 2 bucket method to remove all waxes/polishes and cleaners
- Clay entire car with ClayMagic Blue clay bar
- Wash entire car with Detailer's Pride Xtreme Foam Shampoo using Gilmore Foam Gun and sheepskin mitt
- Dry with Cobra Supreme Guzzler Green Waffle Weave MF towels
Correction:
- PC7424 with Menzerna SIP on a 6.5" CCS Orange Pad
- PC7424 with Menzerna PO106FF on a 6.5" CCS White Pad
- Buffed out with Cobra Deluxe Jr. Lavender MF towels
LSP:
- ZFX'd Zaino Z2-Pro by hand using Zaino's application pads
- Final buffing using Cobra Super-Plush Gold MF Towel
Wheels, Wheel Wells, and Tires (in some/most pics, the wheels/tires were not yet done):
- Purple Power 6:1 concentration, Simple Green 3:1 concentration
- Wheels finished with Detailer's Pride Wheel Glaze
- Wheel Wells finished with Black Magic Tire Foam
- Tires finished with Zaino Z16 Perfect Tire Gloss
Windows:
- Stoner's Invisible Glass
Sorry about the lack of full before shots, as I was concentrating my pics on some isolated areas with significant imperfections/scratches.
Also, the after pics were taken the following day because by the time I finished, it was too dark. So the car did have some minor pollen/dust on it.
Being my second detailing job with a PC, I had some concerns I'd like to bring up. Both with my car and my wife's Subaru, I noticed that there were still some minor scratches present on the finish. I didn't think this would be the case, especially after using an orange CCS pad and SIP. I would have thought this was an aggressive enough combination, especially on what I believe to be a soft paint on the Subaru. I would have expected this more (and substantiated this) on my Mercedes.
I was initially spreading the SIP at about 2500 on the PC, then bumped it up to about 5000, spending about 1 1/2 minutes per section. Not sure if this was too fast on both speeds or not. I was also making sure I wasn't pressing down hard enough to prevent the PC from moving around freely. In most cases, I only went over the panel one time. But there were a few spots I went over twice, and did notice further scratch reductions. It does seem as though I'm breaking the SIP down enough.
Any suggestions on improving my scratch/swirl reducing steps? I'm thinking slower initial and polishing speeds, a yellow CCS pad, and multiple applications of SIP.
Overall, I was very pleased with the results, but would have expected 95% scratch removal vs what I got, which I'd say is about 85% removal. Especially since these scratches were minor and didn't penetrate the clear coat. Since this detail, I picked up a CCS Yellow pad and a CCS PFW wool pad. Maybe these might improve SIP's performance.
Any comments and suggestions are definitely welcome.
Thanks,
Cintoman
CDS, LLC
Now, on with the pics. Here are the befores. As you can tell, not too bad for swirls:
Some areas with issues:
Just one 50/50 shot. Sorry, sun wasn't cooperating too well:
And now the afters....
Here's the after shot of one of the suspect areas (yeah..thums up for the jail cell shirt :laugh: ):
And finally....the obligatory reflection shots:
On some of the shots with the sun hitting the paint, I see some red circles. Not sure if this is some holograming or just the glints from the sun on the camera lense. Again, any and all comments and suggestions are welcome and much appreciated. I still have much to learn from all of you fine people. And I :bow to all of you and your exceptional work.
Thanks again for looking.
Cintoman
