So last week as I was washing my car, one of my neighbors came over to ask if I could detail his car as he was thinking of selling it and buying a new car. Basically he said, I want my car to look as good as yours. Ah, I guess that's what happens when you are an Autopian and keep your car looking very nice. So I agreed, thinking I finally get to detail a black car, and that I be a good neighbor. Talking to my neighbor about his car, I was quite surprised at how good it looked even though he never had it detailed but only took it to the local car wash. But looks can be deceiving.
The car is a two-tone black and metallic grey Lexus ES300 (I forgot to check the year) with chrome wheels. I washed the car with NXT Car Shampoo, and clayed while washing. Dirt turned up on the clay, so I clayed again, but it still came up dirty so I decided to move on as I probably would've spent a long time getting it clean with the clay.
The washed surface revealed a surface that was very swirled with rain spots. Out came the PC, cutting pad, and Poorboy's SSR 2.5. 4 hours later, I was able to get rid of a majority of the swirls and water spots, only to find scratches and some swirls that wouldn't come out. Bt at least the surface was nice, glossy and smooth.
I had just gotten some new products from PakShak, like a bottle of Menzerna FMJ, so I thought this be a good opportunity to try it out.
I followed the direction on the bottle and used my new PakShak MF towel to wipe it off. Wow, the surface was very nice and slick. FMJ was quite easy to use, removal was quite easy. I even tried letting it sit by doing the whole side of the car before trying to remove it. It was a little more difficult, but by no means hard. Anyways, I'm pleased with FMJ, I really like its slickness. The only other products I've used was NXT, EX-P, EX w/carnauba, the Klasse Twins, Natty's Wax, #16 Wax, and P21S wax, and IMO, FMJ is the slickest.
The interior got a vacuum, the floor mats were sprayed with a Woolite/Water mixture, 303 on the plastic interior parts. The chrome wheels got AIO'ed, with NXT Protechtant on the tires.
Anyways, on to the pictures, sorry I wasn't able to get any sunlight or brighter pictures as I did this at night, and my neighbor needed his car early the next morning.
The car:
A close up of how bad it was:
A before shot of the rear side panel:
The after of the same rear panel after being polished with SSR 2.5:
The car is a two-tone black and metallic grey Lexus ES300 (I forgot to check the year) with chrome wheels. I washed the car with NXT Car Shampoo, and clayed while washing. Dirt turned up on the clay, so I clayed again, but it still came up dirty so I decided to move on as I probably would've spent a long time getting it clean with the clay.
The washed surface revealed a surface that was very swirled with rain spots. Out came the PC, cutting pad, and Poorboy's SSR 2.5. 4 hours later, I was able to get rid of a majority of the swirls and water spots, only to find scratches and some swirls that wouldn't come out. Bt at least the surface was nice, glossy and smooth.
I had just gotten some new products from PakShak, like a bottle of Menzerna FMJ, so I thought this be a good opportunity to try it out.
I followed the direction on the bottle and used my new PakShak MF towel to wipe it off. Wow, the surface was very nice and slick. FMJ was quite easy to use, removal was quite easy. I even tried letting it sit by doing the whole side of the car before trying to remove it. It was a little more difficult, but by no means hard. Anyways, I'm pleased with FMJ, I really like its slickness. The only other products I've used was NXT, EX-P, EX w/carnauba, the Klasse Twins, Natty's Wax, #16 Wax, and P21S wax, and IMO, FMJ is the slickest. The interior got a vacuum, the floor mats were sprayed with a Woolite/Water mixture, 303 on the plastic interior parts. The chrome wheels got AIO'ed, with NXT Protechtant on the tires.
Anyways, on to the pictures, sorry I wasn't able to get any sunlight or brighter pictures as I did this at night, and my neighbor needed his car early the next morning.
The car:
A close up of how bad it was:
A before shot of the rear side panel:
The after of the same rear panel after being polished with SSR 2.5:
) on my 1995 Lexus SC400 today. There was no sun, so I couldn't see the results on how my one pass with #83 had been. When we got to dinner, Dad parked under a light and while there was a major improvement, there are still swirls. I think one more pass with DACP will clean it up. I also noticed that even though my clay kept coming up clean, I could feel tons of crap with a baggie over my hand... Kind of depressing. 
