e36 ///M3 - Karma's joke after a run of silver cars

[freerider]

EDIT: After some convincing, I have decided to do a little bit of text with the pics, I'm no creative writing expert so just bear with me.

Products Used:

Megs Shampoo Plus
Vikan Body Brush
Mothers Fenderwell Brush
Mobile Image Detailing brush
Vikan Soft Spoke brush
Adams Waffle Weave drying towel
Adams Detail Spray
Poor-Boys Detail Spray
Poor-Boys Soft Clay (Yellow)
Chemical Guys MF cloths
California MF cloths
Scotch 3M Painters Tape
Adams Polishing towels
Adams Metal Polish (wheels and exhaust tips)
Smartwax Rimwax
Flex VRG3401XC
Lake Country Light Cutting Pads
Menzerna SIP (PO85RD 3.02)
Distilled Water
Menzerna Top Inspection
Adams V.R.T (Trim and Tyres)
Autoglym Fast Glass
Vikan Lustre towel (glass cleaning MF)
Chemical Guys - Extreme Top Coat Sealant with 3x Carnauba


Megesh and I didnt realise what we where in for when this beauty arrived on Sat morning, her paint had taken a severe beating and on inspection we considered giving up detailing, as there looked like there was NO hope for this beaut hiding somewhere beneath the dead paint and swirls.

On inspection, we found that you could actually feel the swirls with your finger tips, they had robbed the paint of its reflection almost completely. There where also many RDS's which would need attention and the wheels had brake dust pitted and burnt into them.

These are just a few pics of what we got ourselves into:



























After claying the entire car top to bottom, we found out exactly what we where in for, the paint was absolutely dead and showed no signs whatsoever of a reflection:
It was also clear that the bonnet had been resprayed, and a very poor job done! there was orange peel on the entire bonnet
which would have needed to be wet sanded for proper correction (we are not at that stage of detailing yet so it will have to wait)



As some of you might know, we received the Flex demo machine this past week and what better test than this, so we set of with the Flex:

Any of you who are on the list to receive a flex when they arrive, is in for a real treat. Megesh and I have been looking for that something that would change the way we detail, and this is IT! The Flex does what the Makita does, but in 1/3 of the time and with so much more ease! We found that you needed to move the Flex slightly faster than the Makita as it does generate heat a lot quicker, and with the power it works the product a lot quicker as well.

We didnt even bother testing a polishing pad combo as we knew it would not cut into these swirls, so opted for our fav combo, Lake Country Light Cutting Pad and Menzerna SIP (PO85RD 3.02) which brilliantly, removing swirls with 1 application and RDS's with another on slightly higher speed.

The Flex has 6 speed settings and we found that nothing over 3.5 was necessary to remove the deep swirls on this car. For RDS's we bumped the speed up to about 4.



panel before:



same panel after:





In this pic you can clearly see a RDS running lower right to upper left


This pic is the EXACT same panel and angle as above with the RDS and swirls, after 1 pass with the Flex




Here you can see how the flake in the paint is showing


I also took some shot during the process so you could see how the colour just came back to life:







The yellow Adams - Polishing Towels, kicks the Megs supreme towel's ass! Anyone who can prove me wrong can have it






Finally we topped off with Chemical Guys - eXtreme top coat (It is a paint sealant which offers 6-8 months paint protection and contains 3X carnauba wax), which really worked brilliantly on the dark colour.
some after shots:







































Thanks for looking!

[calypso]

Whats going on here? Bad respray on the back door?

Nice work though, car looked freaking knackered to start with.

P.S. Dont you hate mismatched tires?

[freerider]

yeah, whoever did respray work on the car, did a really shoddy job to say the least.
Even the beading has been spray painted in some area's ????

The entire drivers side back door and bonnet where obviously resprayed by the same person/panel shop and the paint suffers from quite bad orange peel. I think if we had taken on a wet sanding job before polishing, results could have differed greatly, but we unfortunately are not that bold yet.

Yeah I hate mis-matched tyres, I am currently sitting with the same on my car I only had enough dosh to replace the 2 rears at once and didnt want the same rubbish tyres that were on my car, its getting to the time now though that I'm going to have to cough up for another 2 tyres

the 225/45/17's are going to shit up to the front and I'm going to stick a set of 245/40/17's on the back. Conti Sport Contact 3's

[calypso]

Similer setup to whats on my M3.

[megesh]

oh man... what a bad state of a car!!!

boy o boy did the flex show us what it could do!!! two thubs up for the flex!!! its just does what it says it can!!!

man you should show them the pic of the rims after the wash... oh wait it wouldn't make a difference has it looks the same has before...

[Carn]

Terrific job guys, what a turnaround

Man that M was really in a sorry state

Tell us more about your initial impressions regarding the Flex and how you found using it compared to the Makita BO6040

[Woodie]

Nice work guys - you've definitely breathed some new life into what was a very tired looking car.

As a matter of interest - is the customer from Saturday the one who allowed the car to get to this state, or did he inherit the previous owner's lack of maintenance? Either way, I sincerely hope that there was some clear maintenance pointers given after your hard work.

[freerider]

Woodie6250 Wrote:Nice work guys - you've definitely breathed some new life into what was a very tired looking car.

As a matter of interest - is the customer from Saturday the one who allowed the car to get to this state, or did he inherit the previous owner's lack of maintenance? Either way, I sincerely hope that there was some clear maintenance pointers given after your hard work.

Thx Woodie, this was definitley a case of inherited problems, as the owner said, when he bought the car he was just so excited to get an M3 that he over looked most of the defects.

Carn Wrote:Terrific job guys, what a turnaround

Man that M was really in a sorry state

Tell us more about your initial impressions regarding the Flex and how you found using it compared to the Makita BO6040

I will be doing a complete write up of our experience with the Flex VRG3401XC, including pics and more, I plan to do this in full after this weekend coming, when we are finished with the MK3 GTi and Mini Cooper S

[Carn]

I look forward to reading about it

[Starvekos]

I have been struggling to post replies on the forum since 8h00 today. Couple of guys ahead of me have stolen my thunder.

Excellent work Megesh/Don. I can't believe how much the swirling had dulled the paint work. I am sure the onwer hadn't seen the flake off his paint work in years.

I am also interested to find out on your experience on the Flex. But most importantly, who was responsible for wheel cleaning and how did you arrive at the decision.

[freerider]

Starvekos Wrote:Excellent work Megesh/Don. I can't believe how much the swirling had dulled the paint work. I am sure the onwer hadn't seen the flake off his paint work in years.

Thank you Siya, I think the owner was more impressed with his shiny mags to be quite honest

Starvekos Wrote:I am also interested to find out on your experience on the Flex. But most importantly, who was responsible for wheel cleaning and how did you arrive at the decision.

I have edited the original post to include thoughts on the flex.

Megesh was responsible for the brilliant job done on the wheels, there wasnt really a decision as to who was going to do wheels etc, we just kind of gel together and carry on with whatever, as long as I dont touch exhaust tips..... Megesh gets quite anal about shining exhaust tips

[Starvekos]

Thanks for updating this thread Don, it was worth the second read. Megesh has got mag cleaning covered.

I am sure guys who managed get orders in Carn's first batch will be smarting after reading this thread.

[Carn]

Starvekos Wrote:I am sure guys who managed get orders in Carn's first batch will be smarting after reading this thread.

Is SMARTING a pseudonym for Smiling and Farting

JK Siya, sorry I couldn't help it

I am glad you guys enjoyed working with it Don and it delivered on your expectations. After our initial test I must be honest I was a little worried despite the fact that I thought the 1st test was pretty inconclusive and far from scientific

[freerider]

Starvekos Wrote:Thanks for updating this thread Don, it was worth the second read. Megesh has got mag cleaning covered.

I am sure guys who managed get orders in Carn's first batch will be smarting after reading this thread.

No Problem, I'll try and be more descriptive in the future.

Megesh is very thorough when working wheels, the wheels on the super charged M3 we detailed, took him just over 9 hrs in total!!!

The Adams metal polish 1 is very good, but we are thinking of trying the AG metal polish now, as the Adams metal polish is not economical for pro detailing use, it comes in a smaller bottle and we use quite a bit of metal polish.

[rustbucket]

Very nice work guys. I like that colour on the M3. Was very different.

Megesh, how did you find cleaning those mags? Did you find it tough to get into those smaller slits between the spokes?

[calypso]

I know my name is not Megesh, but ive cleaned those wheels 100 times. Though mine are painted and those are polished.
Yellow cheapie chicken leg brush is best for that. Also works well if there is little space between the caliper and the wheel.
Middle small yellow one. Was like R20 a think.

[freerider]

Megesh used the Vikan Soft Spoke brush there and really liked it worked like a charm, the chicken leg brush is 1/4 the price though

[calypso]

Yeah the chicken leg is not good at anything else, but perfect for that one set of spokes. Its too tight for the EZ brush to fit in nicely, and the megs brush looked like someone took a bite out of it after cleaning the caliper.

[MeTsU]

Well done guys! Talk about bringing the poor M back to life! Great results and look forward to the updates on the Flex.

[Vampyre]

calypso Wrote:I know my name is not Megesh, but ive cleaned those wheels 100 times. Though mine are painted and those are polished.
Yellow cheapie chicken leg brush is best for that. Also works well if there is little space between the caliper and the wheel.
Middle small yellow one. Was like R20 a think.

dude, i like ya labeling and setup .. right tool for the right jobs ...
thats an awesome idea.
Just on question .. with hanging ya mf's up like that dont u find that the dust settles on them ?