Auto-Genie showroom

TonyB · Post by **TonyB** » Sat Nov 17, 2012 6:27 pm

Great work Stu, I do not have the patience for detailing. Shame you are so far away from me.

Post by **Stuart** » Sat Nov 17, 2012 6:35 pm

I travel

I have clients in Suffolk, Cambridge even Bedfordshire so Ely is no drama. Let me know if you're interested

We can always have a natter tomorrow.

russ979 · Post by **russ979** » Sat Nov 17, 2012 8:19 pm

The befores and afters on the evo are quite something!

Brilliant.

Harry · Post by **Harry** » Sat Nov 17, 2012 8:26 pm

I wish I could work up that sort of enthusiasm, to many years of company cars or apathy leads me to support the EEU Brigade.

Post by **Stuart** » Sat Nov 17, 2012 8:34 pm

russ979 wrote:The befores and afters on the evo are quite something! Brilliant.

Wow! From you of all people that is a big compliment

Thanks buddy.

RX7 · Post by **RX7** » Sat Nov 17, 2012 10:40 pm

Yeah I agree with the others, that Evo is superb mate !! Really good work !!

Tk · Post by Tk » Sat Nov 17, 2012 10:49 pm

Good work stu

drifter · Post by **drifter** » Sun Nov 18, 2012 8:36 am

Top job mate, and thanks for sorting a couple of bits on the Silvia while I waited for chips

I'll be dropping you a message soon

Post by **Stuart** » Sun Nov 18, 2012 7:19 pm

Thank you Gentlemen

Look forward to it Drifter.........that S15 is bloody lush (just don't sabotage it before I get there

)

Speak to you soon as well Tony

Good to catch you today.

Post by **Stuart** » Thu Nov 22, 2012 7:31 pm

Following a busy weekend @ Snetterton, I had spoken to a few people about getting cars, trucks and vans valeted over the next few weeks and the first of these was due to be Tony's Impreza but the November weather conspired against us so it's been deferred for a while.

So today saw me tackling one of my favourite cars, a Mercedes SL55 AMG

With a 5.4 litre V8 that happens to have a supercharger fitted, it produces around 500 horsepower and a little more than 500 lb ft!! When it starts up it sounds like the Batmobile

Fundamentally it was pretty clean already and had been valeted a few weeks ago. I was still pretty confident that I could improve on the finish though

I'd been asked to clean the interior, removing a few marks and treat the leather.

Clean the bodywork paying particular attention to the sills and arches as these seemed to be a bit overlooked from before, but also to restore a decent shine to the paintwork, glass and metal work.

The stock AMG exhausts were dirty and covered in the sort of burnt on coke that you'd expect from something with this kind of power.

The badges had been ignored in the previous valet, and I was keen to show plenty of attention to detail this time around.

The aforementioned sills!

The car has sat in a garage with one short drive following the valet

I started to pre-wash the car with a low dilution of all purpose cleaner around the lower edges of the car, the arches, the exhaust and wheels. I left this to settle for a couple of minutes whilst I set the hose up.
The wheels were quite dirty so they required a bit of agitation with my new brush

This brush is great for reaching through the alloys to get to the calipers, in this case a sodding great set of AMG ones

The alloy cleaner is perfectly safe with painted wheels like this and removes the brake dust pretty easily.

This SL is fitted with the panoramic roof, and really compliments the style of car

The car was covered in tar spots, some much bigger than others but they certainly needed to come off before the car was cleaned properly

The tar was dissolved with a specific product that is cruel to tar but kind to paint work.

This was allowed to settle for a few minutes, then wiped off with a soft cloth and rinsed thoroughly with water.
The sills were covered with mud and tar but this really isn't uncommon, it's just a lot more evident on a silver or white car. The whole car was checked for tar spots, treated where necessary and then rinsed thoroughly.

Next up was the badges as they had been bypassed beforehand

I used a gentle mix of all purpose cleaner and gently agitated this with a soft brush, ensuring that the chrome was clean and then rinsed thoroughly with a spray gun straight away.

The whole car was rinsed once the badges were done, and then the car was washed (two bucket method) with a good quality shampoo and rinsed again. Then it was time for the engine bay, door shuts, boot and fuel flap