First wash in 4 weeks

[Starvekos]

I popped in to see team Mobile-Image at HQ and I found them doing what they do best: Rustbucket working diligently on another French hatchback and Carn providing the entertainment. I couldn’t help notice the expression on their faces when they saw the miserable state of the Golf. The car hadn’t felt suds in 4 weeks primarily due to conditions up here in the reef and spending two full weekends at JIMS. This gave me an opportunity to try out some new products.

Mags
Filled a bucket of water with SmartCarwash, SmartWax’s body wash shampoo. This is a strong shampoo which is citrus based, so you have to stick within the manufacturers dilution ratio otherwise the shampoo starts becoming a de-waxer (strips existing protection). Also used APC to aid the clean up process. The reliable Versa Angle brush did its job on rubber while I used a Ultra Plush mitt for spokes.

Wash
Woodie gave me a heads up his plan to clean out all the stock of M62 Car Wash Shampoo and Conditioner from the Megs Durban warehouse. He was gracious enough to leave a gallon for me. This shampoo produced the richest foam I’ve seen on a car shampoo, better than Shampoo Plus and Gold Class. The microfiber wash mitt was gliding nicely over the surface while doing a decent job at removing 4 weeks of grime. A couple of bugs remained on areas like wing mirrors which were sorted out with APC followed by SmartDetail.

Car was rinsed and dried with a Werkstat M-Fibre Waffler Drying Towel using SmartDetail as a drying aid. I am loving this Quick Detailer, I used 20% of the 500ml sprayer all in one day. I could have stopped here based on the results from just the detail spray.

Polish
There was a build up of swirl marks on the car but I decided to push out a DA correction job till the summer vacation. So I hauled out one of my favourite hand applied polishes, Autoglym Super Resin Polish (SRP). I am sure Don will be here soon reminding me that this product is full of fillers. At the moment (roll on 2009), this product is still one of the best products for paint preparation by hand. It’s a mild paint cleaner that produces a lovely deep shine while leaving a layer of protection, albeit for a short period. SRP was applied by using a damp Autoglym Hi Tech polishing pad. A “passive” Waxon member told me about this pad, I was sceptical at first (if very hard and coarse in its natural dry state) but I didn’t notice any marring after buffing SRP with a MF towel.

Protection
After paint cleansing, I followed up with Werkstat Carnauba Jett Trigger (CJT). This is a spray wax where you spray and wipe off immediately. No waiting for product to haze before buffing clear. This product offers great depth on red paint. I decided to enhance the finish by topping CJT with Chemical Guys 5050 Concours Paste Wax.

A final wipe down using SmartDetail spray to remove any wax residue.

No BEFORE pics

Honeycomb grill was dressed using Meguiars Accent Dressing aerosol spray (identical to Chemical Guys Fade2Black and Adams In-Out spray)


Glass cleaned with Meguiars Glass Cleaner Concentrate diluted 4:1


Tyres dressed with Endurance High Gloss Tire Gel


Mags sealed with SmartWax RimWax (my days of using CleanerWax on mags are gone)


Trim dressed with M40 Vinyl & Rubber Cleaner/Conditioner