JLs Detailing: SLK 350

[JLs Detailing]

Well things have been busy and I haven't had time to post up a proper show and shine but after doing this incredible car I just couldn't fail to post it. This car was recently purchased by the owner of the Porsche 944 that I posted a few months back. Its a 2005 Mercedes SLK 350 hardtop convertible with the AMG package. The car is absolutely stunning and to be able to work on it was a complete pleasure!

I'm not sure who was more excited about this detail...me or the owner. Well this was going to get the best of everything I had and we wanted to get the paint to look even more stunning than it already did. Since there were only 2 of these cars in the color and the options she wanted it was shipped to NC from a dealership in Boston. Talk about fate, the client found out that one of these cars was in Miami and the other in Boston and she just happened to be in Boston on a business trip! When she landed in Boston she had the driver take her to the dealership to see if they still had the car. They did and it only had 12,000 miles on the clock. She is now the proud owner of an incredible piece of German engineering.

This car is so incredible that when I started the detail in my driveway it attracted a lot of attention and after a couple of hours this is what the front of my house looked like as people started lining up to have me detail their car:


They weren't really lining up for me but it sure looked like it, LOL. Well lets get on to what I did:

Wheels/Tires/Wells: I used P21s Wheel Gel on the wheels with an assortment of brushes and such. I used the EZ Detail Brush, Black Magic wheel brush bent 90 degrees for getting behind the spokes, lug nut brush and foam finger pocket. The tires and wells got Total Cycle Cleaner and a black Shmitt. The wheels were not too bad and P21s really cleaned them up well. When it was time to dress the tires and wells I used Megs Hyper Dressing @ 2:1 as a base coat with a CGs tire applicator. Then before turning the keys back over to the owner I applied a coat of Swissvax Pneu via another tire applicator. The wells got Adams Undercarriage Spray.

Exhaust: I used Megs Wheel Brightner first on the exhaust and that took care of all the grime. The pipes looked so good I really didn't need to but, I then polished them with Autosol. This was a great combo and gave a brand new look to the exhaust.

Engine: I gave the engine a quick rinse with the CR Spotless system then sprayed it down with S100 TCC. I agitated it and re-rinsed. I dried most of the water with a leaf blower and then sprayed the engine bay down with Megs HD @ 3:1. I cranked the engine and let it run for about 20 minutes and it turned out great.

Wash: Well if there was any type of LSP on the car (which I don't think there was) I wanted it off. I went with the foam cannon with 2 oz of CGs Citrus Wash Clear and 1 oz of CGs Strong Wash. I used a Zymol Sponge and man this thing is awesome and feels like you are really pampering the car. The grout sponge is great but this thing is the best. I also had a rinse bucket with a grit guard. The bugs got CGs Strong Wash @ 3:1 and a Majestic Solutions bug sponge. Well this combo as usual knocked the bugs out with no problem. It makes the job so much easier.

The entire wash including wheels and engine were done with the CR Spotless System. The night before I finally had to change out my resins. I managed to wash 60-65 cars with my first batch of resins in my CR Spotless. Heck when I changed the resins out the TDS meter was only reading 20 but I want to be sure there will be no spots so Phil at DD got me my resin refill and I was really pleased at how economical the CR had proven to be for me. It's also nice knowing mother nature and the NC sun can dry the car all it wants and I don't have to worry about water spots!

Clay: For clay I tried the Bilt-Hamber Auto Clay. Cooter had hooked me up with this and I can't thank him enough. Cooter has been great to me and its like he is on a mission to find products that I haven't used before, LOL. I really love the fact that you only need water for lube with the Bilt-Hamber. The car, amazingly, did not have a tremendous amount of contamination considering how far it was shipped. The Bilt-Hamber did a great job on the paint and left it silky smooth. I would love to try more of the Bilt-Hamber line.

Glass: Glass inside and out got CGs Glass Cleaner via a glass MF and dried with an eShine Dehydrator.

Interior: I do love doing interiors of two seaters!The interior was in pretty good shape just a lot of smudges on the door panels and such. The interior almost looked grayish even though it was suppose to be black. I used CGs Silk Shine on everything but the center area with the radio and climate controls. On that I used 1z Cockpit Premium. I gave the interior a good vac with the shop vac and treated the leather with 1z Leather Care Lederpflege. I really really like this product as it cleans and conditions and leaves the leather looking so great and natural.

Paint: Well the paint looked ok but it had swirls and I even found holograms on the hood along with some scratches like someone did a bad job at wet sanding two small areas. I decided to go with Menzerna SIP on a white 3M polishing pad with the Metabo. I would spread it at 700 then work it at 1500 and then back down to 1000 for the final two passes. Man did the SIP knock out the imperfections. This method worked really well for me and I did the entire car this way. I then went with Scholl Concepts S40 finishing polish via a black 3M finishing pad on the Metabo at 1200 rpms. I was going to use either 3M Ultrafina or Menz. 85rd but I remembered Pirex telling me how great S40 could jewel the paint so I wanted to use that. Man I am glad I did as the S40 is a dream to work with and man did it leave a flawless incredible shine. Hey pirex thanks for that one!!! Here are some pics of the paint correction:

Paint correction on the hood:






Can you say buffer trails...




Some trunk correction:




I was really pleased at how the paint came out and the combo of SIP and Scholl Concepts S40 did a phenomenal job. If you haven't had the pleasure of using the Scholl polishes you should ring pirex up at Scandicshine and get some. Pirex I think I'm going to be wanting Scholl Concepts' version of Power gloss to go with what I have!

Paint: I used Jetseal since I was going to be topping with a nuba and nothing looks better than Jetseal topped with a top line nuba. Not to mention that after doing her Porsche with Jetseal topped with Supernatural she would have nothing else under the wax but Jetseal. It was applied with a CGs Stage 3 Applicator and buffed off with a 530xl MF.

LSP: Well when the client arrived she asked me "What wax am I getting?" When I told her Vintage I got a "YYYYEEEESSSS". Its nice putting Vintage on an incredible car that the owner is such an enthusiast and KNOWS what Vintage is. I'm telling you Vintage is my favorite wax to use and the look it gives is incredible. I was telling FMINUS the other day that I could go with Vintage, Rubbish Boys OE, and Zymol Glasur and never need another wax ever! Vintage is so soft and goes on so nice. After buffing it off the shine, depth and wetness it gives is nothing short of amazing. After leaving the SLK out in the sun for about an hour I did a wipedown with Clearkote Quickshine.

The owner was thrilled and so was I! It was a joy working on such a great car and having such an enthusiast as an owner made it even better. Well here are the before and afters:

[JLs Detailing]

Random and Reflection pics:









The owner was so jacked that she took some pics of her own and sent them to me!! Here are some of those:








Probably my favorite pic:

[Vampyre]

Awesome work there dude .. the correction and transformation is awesome ... Vintage ! what does a tub that retail for ?

[Starvekos]

I enjoy reading your posts JL, thanks for taking the time to walk us through your process and commentary on products used.

The car looks amazing, you pics captured the quality of the correction work (defect free) and the gloss and reflection too. Can't wait for further Show 'n Shine posts from you.

On the side, there has been much discussion on detailing forums about high end carnauba waxes. Do you think the price premium one pays for Zym0l Vintage over a wax like Chemical Guys 50/50 paste wax (insert your favourite nuba wax below $70) is warranted?

Granted correction work takes you circa 80% to a near perfect finish.

[Pravin]

Thanks for the writeup. Awesome results !

[rustbucket]

Very nice JL. That last pic is fantastic. And yes, love the write ups.

Do you find that leaving the car out in the sun really makes a differance? Do you only do this with Vintage or some of your other waxes too?

[Carn]

Terrific job JL, that colour looks fantastic in the sun

Strange that you mention the Scholl goodies from Ketil, I was chatting to him about them the other day He rekons the pads are fantastic as well as the polishes.....right up there with Menz in his opinion

Rusty I 'think' the sun bit is because some of the high end nuba waxes tend to sweat abit after a little while. Leaving it in the sun for a while followed by a quick wipedown will remove any of the sweating, JL can confirm though

[JLs Detailing]

Vampyre Wrote:Awesome work there dude .. the correction and transformation is awesome ... Vintage ! what does a tub that retail for ?

Vampyre thanks! I really enjoy doing the write ups as you can probably tell because I get so long winded about them! And Vintage retails for around $1700-$1900 US dollars a tub. It is a 22 oz container and it gets free refills for life. I don't have a tub of it I just was able to purchase a small 4 oz sample of it.

Starvekos Wrote:I enjoy reading your posts JL, thanks for taking the time to walk us through your process and commentary on products used.

The car looks amazing, you pics captured the quality of the correction work (defect free) and the gloss and reflection too. Can't wait for further Show 'n Shine posts from you.

On the side, there has been much discussion on detailing forums about high end carnauba waxes. Do you think the price premium one pays for Zym0l Vintage over a wax like Chemical Guys 50/50 paste wax (insert your favourite nuba wax below $70) is warranted?

Granted correction work takes you circa 80% to a near perfect finish.

Thanks Starvekos I really appreciate it. The paint correction went great and I was really loving the shine the SIP and Scholl Concepts S40 provided. Now about Vintage and it price...I'll say this and without question Vintage is the best wax I have ever used and I have used a ton of them. If I had an extra $2000 laying around collecting dust I would purchase it myself. It is tremendously better looking than any wax I have used under the $70 range (Pete's 53, Souveran, CGs 5050, Signature Series II, and Lusso Oro).

However I would put Rubbish Boys Original Edition up against it and I can buy that for around $80-$100 from Ben at Rubbish Boys. I still contend that if you make the paint on all the cars you work on perfect then you can use just about any wax and it will look great but if you are like me and the majority of the cars I do the owners don't want to pay for paint correction then higher end waxes make a HUGE difference. I just charge a premium upgrade price for using my higher end waxes like Rubbish Boys, Zymol Glasur, Dodo Supernatural, and Vintage. So if you want to take the next level from really good waxes like 5050 then look first at something like Glasur or Rubbish Boys OE (still my favorite wax when considering the phenomenal looks for a reasonable price).

Pravin Wrote:Thanks for the writeup. Awesome results !

Thanks Pravin!

rustbucket Wrote:Very nice JL. That last pic is fantastic. And yes, love the write ups.

Do you find that leaving the car out in the sun really makes a differance? Do you only do this with Vintage or some of your other waxes too?

Hey Grant thanks for the props! And Carn hit it dead on. Its just the waxes with high nuba content that I do this with. I have started using a very good QD like Clearkote Quickshine, CGs Speed Wipe, or Optimum Instant Detailer, to do a wipedown right before delivery weather I use a nuba or sealant and it really takes the shine over the top!

Carn Wrote:Terrific job JL, that colour looks fantastic in the sun

Strange that you mention the Scholl goodies from Ketil, I was chatting to him about them the other day He rekons the pads are fantastic as well as the polishes.....right up there with Menz in his opinion

Rusty I 'think' the sun bit is because some of the high end nuba waxes tend to sweat abit after a little while. Leaving it in the sun for a while followed by a quick wipedown will remove any of the sweating, JL can confirm though

Thanks so much Carn! The Scholl pads are the best. I really love the size and how they perform. I would say that I like the polishes better than Menzerna due to the fact that they have not acted up on me even in the NC humidity like Menz will do. They also dust a lot less than the Menz line and I hate dusting. You would not go wrong with the Scholl Concepts. The S17 is neat in that you can use wool and do major correction or a finishing pad and really finish off the paint!

[Graham Savage]

Very cool I'm still waiting tho....

[MeTsU]

Great stuff JL and thanks for sharing! Certainly learning a lot from reading your posts!

[Carn]

JL is that red Jeep parked in the street not the same on you detailed for your neighbours daughter or something a while back ? If it is it is still looking in tip top condition...

[JLs Detailing]

MeTsU Wrote:Great stuff JL and thanks for sharing! Certainly learning a lot from reading your posts!

Thanks bud. I try and include as much info as I can especially about products since I know if you have to import them you want to be sure before dropping the cash on them.

Carn Wrote:JL is that red Jeep parked in the street not the same on you detailed for your neighbours daughter or something a while back ? If it is it is still looking in tip top condition...

Yeah David that Jeep is the one I did for our nanny before she left for college. I used the Scholl Concepts polishes on it and it is still looking great!