A friend of mine recently asked if I could detail his dad's car as a birthday present so we set a date and he had me coordinate with his mom regarding the details. Unfortunately, I only had the car for less than a day and while he's more interested in paint correction, it was obvious Mom wanted more attention paid to the interior. So I had about 8 hours into this car, and would have really liked more time but it wasn't meant to be. As such, it's not my best work but they seemed pleased with it nonetheless. I just hate that feeling of knowing how and where I could improve it given the chance, but not having that opportunity. Stupid OCD kills me sometimes.
Anyway, his Dad has close to 90k miles on this 2006 VW Jetta. Not sure what they call this paint but it's essentially flat black, and was fairly swirled up, dull and water-spotted all over. I didn't bother with any 50/50s or closeups because it wasn't a correction and my POS camera can't handle it anyway. Trust me when I say that correction was in the < 50% range, so I'm not bragging by any means. The paint was pretty hard, at least from my limited experience.
The interior was fairly rough too. He lives in this car and it showed. I remember weekendwarrior telling me once that VW carpet is like velcro. Well, he wasn't kidding. Brush, vac, brush, vac, lint roller, vac. Repeat. I even tried pulling some of the bigger bits of debris out by hand without much luck. :banghead: Enough talk, here's some pics.
Early morning, sun isn't out yet. Not a great before pic, but the only one that came out at all. Man, I hate my camera.
Grubby wheels, probably never been cleaned. And yet still has less brake dust than my BMW wheels do after only a week.
Interior was a bit rough.
Process
Wash
Foamed with CG CWG, then ONR wash
Wheels and tires cleaned with Brown Royal wheel cleaner
Clayed with Griots clay, Megs Last Touch 1:1 as lube
Megs APC+ 4:1 on front wells, brush and heavy spray on carpeted rear wells
Polished with M205/LC orange pads on Flex 3401 and G110v2, 6.5" and 4" respectively. Tried D151 and it kept gumming up immediately. Tried M105 and it left considerable haze. Went with 205, left a good finish but didn't correct much on this paint.
LSP was DG105
Interior vinyl and leather seats wiped down with Opt Protectant Plus. Interior glass got Surf City Garage Clearly Better. Pedals cleaned with APC+ 10:1, and yes I missed a couple of spots. :doh:
Exhaust
I tried cleaning with 0000 steel wool and NXT Metal Polish, M105 and DG501. No matter what I used, it didn't get any better than this. Very disappointed here. Would love any suggestions.
Tires were dressed with Stoners MSLT tire spray, front wheel wells with CG Bare Bones.
After pics
Brown Royal continues to impress.
In the end, I ended up with a clean, shiny, swirly Jetta. Lesson here I guess would be that you can't expect to one-step a black VW. Oh well, gotta learn some how. Thanks for looking.