Bigpower

This belongs to the partner of one of my repeat customers. It was described as '......pretty clean, just needs a once over'!!!

I'll leave the pictures to show the before, during and after but essentially the bugs and tar needed to come off, the soft-top needed to become waterproof again, the scratches and etching needed to be removed and the metallic paint needed to look metallic again!!

The interior was absolutely honking! Glad I had some of my new uber posh stuff to make short work of the destruction that the owner and her kid had caused!!

Inspection shots






The usual deep clean routine starts with the wheels and I used three different products to get the brake dust, tar and road grime off. Here's the burnt on brake dust being worked out

With the wheels, tyres and arches sorted, it was time to clean and protect that roof before things got worse!! I use a dedicated convertible roof cleaner and rinsed carefully, then allowed the heat to do its thing before masking up prior to protection

I would usually prefer to use Euromask film for this but as I'd left my roll at APT so I had to resort to last years papers!!

With the roof done, it was time to get polishing. Test products and pads were trialled on the bonnet until I was happy with the results

With the metallic now prominent and bursting through once again, it was time to crack on to ensure I didn't overrun on my timeline




The exterior trim, arches and mirrors are sounded with non painted plastic and that means faded grey everywhere! This all needed treatment so was dealt with using a product that gives around 3-4 months protection


Back on to that interior............



Done!

How are you waxing in this heat?, I thought you can't wax in direct sunlight?.

Yeah agreed, especially on a dark car !!

Very nice work mate. Like that a lot, the Minis look ace when the black arch trim is done.

What did you use on the wheels ? Ems are caked in brake dirt and dust and the stuff I have isnt really shifting them. Admittedly I havent taken the wheels off yet.

Ben wrote:How are you waxing in this heat?, I thought you can't wax in direct sunlight?.

Depends on the products you use and the techniques too

RX7 wrote:Yeah agreed, especially on a dark car !!
What did you use on the wheels ? Ems are caked in brake dirt and dust and the stuff I have isnt really shifting them. Admittedly I havent taken the wheels off yet.

If you go panel at a time and wait for hazing of the product whilst using the thinnest possible layer, it is possible (with the right products) to successfully polish and wax in direct sunlight on to hot panels. Obviously it's desirable to do it on cool panels and out of direct sunlight but as a mobile valeter I have to improvise

In terms of wheel cleaning Gareth on these alloys I used

AutoSmart Smartwheels at 1:20 with water on a wet wheel and rinsed after two minutes (out of sunlight)
then
AutoSmart Tardis neat to remove tar spots and then rinsed after two minutes
then
Car-Chem Revolt to remove iron build up which is caused by brake dust invariably. This was allowed to dwell for two minutes and then rinsed with lots of water. All chemicals were agitated with brushes and microfibre cloths.

If you don't follow the instruction above (sunlight, rinsing, ratios) you WILL wreck your alloys.

Hope that helps

Triffik'

Another cracking job mate