TTBear
Allan F
So, a friend asked me if I would consider detailing his business partner's Range Rover SUV. I am definitely not a professional detailer, and usually just do our own cars, and friends' cars, as I get to spend some quality time with some amazing machinery, but I really respect this friend of mine, so I agreed, not having even laid eyes on the car.
Oh boy. Was I in for a surprise. As it turns out, the SUV isn't garaged, and the paint was marred, scratched, and swirled beyond belief. The guy was insisting on paying me, and I had no clue what to ask him for, so I gave him three options - the first, a quick all-in-one (I was hoping for this one, as I just wanted to get this one over with ASAP, haha), a "middle-of-the-road" detail - whatever I could correct in a two-step polish/LSP, or "The Full Monty" (I was praying that he wouldn't choose this one.......) where I would do whatever it took to correct as much as I could in the time allotted.
He chose The Full Monty. :wacko:
Thankfully, the owner left the car with me for the whole week, and as it happened, I wasn't working any nights at all this week, so I got stuck in as soon as I got the car home.
This is a picture of the roof, which was pretty indicative of the swirls present on the whole car (it was worse, with actual deep scratches, over much of the whole car):
Thankfully, the car had been in an accident about four months earlier, so the hood had been repainted, and the front bumper/headlights/grill were all brand new. There was also a bikini-cut clear bra that looked pretty much perfect, which helped. I was amazed how crap the hood looked after such a short time, however.
After getting into it, I realized that the scratches were everywhere, but there were absolutely NO dents, dings, or chips anywhere. If I could just get the paint levelled, I thought I could get it looking pretty good.
Here's a before shot, and then another of the area between the sunroof and the windshield.
This first step was fraught with anxiety for me. I would have normally used my trusty Menzerna Fast Gloss, but when I went to get it from the cabinet, I realized my buddy had borrowed it, and I had about two ounces of it left. Yikes. I live in a town where I have to order in my products, so I had to scramble, as I knew time was not on my side. After testing a couple options, I found that the best was Mother "Deep Cleansing Polish" (Or something like that - it was all the local Canadian Tire had - it was advertised as the first of a three-step polishing system, so I figured it might have enough bite). Coupled with a 3" orange pad, and my new FLEX PE8, it actually levelled very well - of course, with the expected holograms and hazing.
I literally breathed a sigh of relief getting back to my trusty Menzerna SIP and FLEX 3401 for the second step, which was pretty good. There were NUMEROUS scratches all over the car - especially the tailgate, and I stopped counting the number of scratches I had to wet sand, after 45. The entire tailgate more or less had to be wet sanded. Literally, most of the tailgate looked like matte black paint (it's a metallic black paint - almost exactly like BMW's Black Sapphire).
Here's a pic of the passenger side rear door, after a little wet sanding. I am by no means an expert with wet sanding, but after this detail, I feel I am the wet sanding KING, haha.
(This pic also is pretty indicative state of the paint in general)
This is how the door looked afterwards:
This is a 50:50 picture of part of the tailgate:
Oh boy. Was I in for a surprise. As it turns out, the SUV isn't garaged, and the paint was marred, scratched, and swirled beyond belief. The guy was insisting on paying me, and I had no clue what to ask him for, so I gave him three options - the first, a quick all-in-one (I was hoping for this one, as I just wanted to get this one over with ASAP, haha), a "middle-of-the-road" detail - whatever I could correct in a two-step polish/LSP, or "The Full Monty" (I was praying that he wouldn't choose this one.......) where I would do whatever it took to correct as much as I could in the time allotted.
He chose The Full Monty. :wacko:
Thankfully, the owner left the car with me for the whole week, and as it happened, I wasn't working any nights at all this week, so I got stuck in as soon as I got the car home.
This is a picture of the roof, which was pretty indicative of the swirls present on the whole car (it was worse, with actual deep scratches, over much of the whole car):
Thankfully, the car had been in an accident about four months earlier, so the hood had been repainted, and the front bumper/headlights/grill were all brand new. There was also a bikini-cut clear bra that looked pretty much perfect, which helped. I was amazed how crap the hood looked after such a short time, however.
After getting into it, I realized that the scratches were everywhere, but there were absolutely NO dents, dings, or chips anywhere. If I could just get the paint levelled, I thought I could get it looking pretty good.
Here's a before shot, and then another of the area between the sunroof and the windshield.
This first step was fraught with anxiety for me. I would have normally used my trusty Menzerna Fast Gloss, but when I went to get it from the cabinet, I realized my buddy had borrowed it, and I had about two ounces of it left. Yikes. I live in a town where I have to order in my products, so I had to scramble, as I knew time was not on my side. After testing a couple options, I found that the best was Mother "Deep Cleansing Polish" (Or something like that - it was all the local Canadian Tire had - it was advertised as the first of a three-step polishing system, so I figured it might have enough bite). Coupled with a 3" orange pad, and my new FLEX PE8, it actually levelled very well - of course, with the expected holograms and hazing.
I literally breathed a sigh of relief getting back to my trusty Menzerna SIP and FLEX 3401 for the second step, which was pretty good. There were NUMEROUS scratches all over the car - especially the tailgate, and I stopped counting the number of scratches I had to wet sand, after 45. The entire tailgate more or less had to be wet sanded. Literally, most of the tailgate looked like matte black paint (it's a metallic black paint - almost exactly like BMW's Black Sapphire).
Here's a pic of the passenger side rear door, after a little wet sanding. I am by no means an expert with wet sanding, but after this detail, I feel I am the wet sanding KING, haha.
(This pic also is pretty indicative state of the paint in general)
This is how the door looked afterwards:
This is a 50:50 picture of part of the tailgate:
