O.C.Detailing and Hill City Auto Detail - 2000 Dodge Durango 5.9 R/T

[adrock2003]

John and I got asked to do the 3rd car for one of our garage buddies. We did his wife's 745i, his M6 and now this 2000 Dodge Durango 5.9 R/T. He's already had us wash and lightly detail the interior on the 745i since we polished it out and we've been asked to wash and do a heavy interior detail on his M6 sometime early next week. This car is his Sea-doo truck.



As you'll see in the befores, the paint was in REALLY bad shape. TONS of swirls and major scratches in the form of a keying that went from the rear of the truck to the very front of the truck. There was quite a bit of wetsanding and a TON of polishing. I had to go over some portions of the vehicle 2-3 times to get the defects out.



PROCESS:



- Wash via Super Suds car wash and dried with absorbers.

- Clayed via Griot's Garage Clay kit. Also had to sacrifice 2 older claybars to remove some SERIOUS road paint spatter inside all 4 of the wheel wells.

- Wheels cleaned with Meg's Wheel Brightener and aggitated with several brushes.

- Correction done via Meg's 105 on orange (Griot's) and yellow (Flex) CCS pads.

- 105 was followed up with 205 on White 6.5" CCS pads.

- LSP was Wolfgang 3.0 Sealant

- Tires and fenders dressed with Meg's All-Season Dressing

- Plastics dressed with 303 Aerospace protectant.

- All wetsanding was done with 1" square pieces of 3M 2500 Wet-or-dry paper using Showroom Shine detail spray as lube and then polished out via M105 on orange 6.5" CCS pad on the Griot's DA.



Now ONTO THE PICTURES!!!!



Pre-wash BEFORES:



Filthy!

A couple of the scratches that needed to be wet-sanded out. Some did not come out completely.

DEFECTS:

Start of the scratch that went from the back to the front of the vehicle

A bit of wet-sanding for the fans!

SERIOUS water spots on the windows with befores and 50/50:

 

[adrock2003]

AFTERS:

SUNSHOTS!!

And that's all I've got. I'm sure John will post his up with his better camera. Comments and criticisms appreciated. Thanks for looking!

 

[elk42]

very nice job. can you pm me how you get the water etching off the windows and paint? im assuming wetsanding. also what was the process for removing that long scratch. thanks.

 

[dsms]

excellent work!

 

[imported_slicknickis3]

From what I can tell, it looks like you did a great job! Ditch that iPhone camera for a DSLR or at least a point and shoot and I'm sure your work will look even better!



Very nice job on the glass as well

 

[adrock2003]

On the glass, I just used M105 on and Orange 6.5" CCS pad using my Griot's DA. Wasn't too hard.



Thank you for all the compliments! I have a point and shoot, but didn't have it on me. My wife is upset that I keep forgetting it at work, so I've been banned from using it. lol



Elk, I actually had to use 3M 2500 grit cut into a 1" square and very lightly wet-sanded the entire scratch out then polished it out with 6.5" orange CCS pad with M105 and my Griot's DA.

 

[BigAl3]

nice job :up



btw, can you use different backing plates (lake country 3.5" and 5") with the Griots DA, so you can use smaller pads?

 

[SonicBlue05GT]

nice work.



Those 5.9's are good for about 8mpg's, haha.

 

[adrock2003]

nice job :up



btw, can you use different backing plates (lake country 3.5" and 5") with the Griots DA, so you can use smaller pads?

Yes, you cam use any of the smaller BPs with the Griot's that you can use with the PC7424XP but you'll just have a lot more power than the other DAs.

nice work.



Those 5.9's are good for about 8mpg's, haha.

lol Yeah, it's a really nice looking truck, and I wish I could afford something like that, but it's FAR too impractical.

 

[elk42]

On the glass, I just used M105 on and Orange 6.5" CCS pad using my Griot's DA. Wasn't too hard.



Thank you for all the compliments! I have a point and shoot, but didn't have it on me. My wife is upset that I keep forgetting it at work, so I've been banned from using it. lol



Elk, I actually had to use 3M 2500 grit cut into a 1" square and very lightly wet-sanded the entire scratch out then polished it out with 6.5" orange CCS pad with M105 and my Griot's DA.

on the glass, what else could you use besides the M105? Poorboys SSR2 or 1 for example?

 

[adrock2003]

I'm sure any compound or heavy polish will remove waterspots from windows. The SMAT in the M105 may actually make it much easier though since the abrasives don't break down.

 

[BigAl3]

Yes, you cam use any of the smaller BPs with the Griot's that you can use with the PC7424XP but you'll just have a lot more power than the other DAs.

that's good to know. i can imagine how well the Griots DA would work with even a smaller 5" backing plate and 5.5" pads. i've noticed you've been pretty happy with your Griots DA and it seems like there hasn't really been anything you haven't been able to tackle with it...

 

[adrock2003]

Nope, not a thing BigAl. I can even polish out 2500 grit wet-sanding marks completely. I couldn't get anything like that out with my old PC7424. I'm nearing the stage where I'd like to pick up a rotary one day though.

 

[BigAl3]

I'm nearing the stage where I'd like to pick up a rotary one day though.

doesn't look like that would be anytime soon with the results you are getting. quite a few rotary users are switching over to the DA these days, and with technology of new products (polishes, compounds, pads) it's making the DA more effective/useful than it's ever been (who knows what the future holds). keep up the good work.. :up

 

[adrock2003]

Thanks so much BigAl. Made my night!

 

[RyanFlemington]

Would you mind giving a few more thoughts/impressions on the Griots DA? I've been looking at picking up an XC4301 this year, because my UDM just isn't cutting it(literally), anymore, but the price difference makes the Griot fairly appealing to me. Thanks

 

[adrock2003]

The Griot's is awesome for the money. It's a ton of power, but being a true DA and not a hybrid like the Flex 3401 means you have to give it a little more effort to get truly awesome results. They can be as good as or better than the Flex 3401 depending on the paint of the vehicle you're working with and a bit of practice. I love mine to death. I will be getting a Flex one day though, so yeah. Hope that helps you out with your decision.

 

[vtec92civic]

nice work man! I was going to ask you about what u used on the glass but a little reading to find out you answered that already.



My question is doesn't that M105 scratch the glass? Did you have to follow M105 up with anything on the glass?

 

[adrock2003]

M105 isn't hard enough to scratch glass. The glass is a lot harder than M105 ever thought of being. Glass polishing pads may be able to scratch glass with some products, but with an orange CCS pad and M105 it's not going to happen. There is no marring or scratching to remove so no need to follow it up with anything either. If the waterspots are light enough, you can even remove them with M205. Just depends on how dense they are.



Thanks so much for the kind words. Hope my info helps you out.

 

[BigAl3]

M105 isn't hard enough to scratch glass. The glass is a lot harder than M105 ever thought of being. Glass polishing pads may be able to scratch glass with some products, but with an orange CCS pad and M105 it's not going to happen. There is no marring or scratching to remove so no need to follow it up with anything either. If the waterspots are light enough, you can even remove them with M205. Just depends on how dense they are.



Thanks so much for the kind words. Hope my info helps you out.

yeah, M105 is versatile and can be used on other things than just paint...