Mobile-Image : Saphire black 335i

[Carn]

Another weekend meant yet another detail, this time around it was the turn of a saphire black BMW 335i. Vincent, the owner, contacted me some time ago whilst Grant was still in ICU and wanted his pride and joy to receive some TLC as she was looking a little tired.

Either the previous owner, or the dealership must have had the car polished at some stage as it was covered in holograms. Being black and a BMW (which usually have some pretty hard clears) I figured I would be in for a rough ride...Let's see how it all panned out!


After arriving and getting setup, this is what I was greeted with...










Judging from the exhausts and wheels it was clear that this baby had spent some time away from the car wash. Having not even washed all the dust and previous 'paint treatments' (if any were remaining) off, the holograms and swirls were quite evident...

Anyways, as usual I started with the wheels seen here soaking in a heft dose of Sonax Extreme rim cleaner while I set about filling the buckets and getting all the brushes, etc ready.



No pics from the wheels or wash stage I'm afraid. As you can see there was no shade outside and I wanted to get the car washed and rinsed as quickly as possible to avoid water spotting. After the wheels and arches were cleaned I set about rinsing the car thoroughly before giving it a wash down with 10:1 APC. A final heavy rinse completed the wash stage before moving into the garage to dry the car.

Once dry I pulled her back outside to get a closer look at the now clean paintwork. Outside in the nearly mid day sunlight I actually struggled to capture alot of the defects, regardless here are some of the ones that came out alright...











In the interests of preserving my retina's I moved back inside and proceeded to inspect the paint under the halogens, as well as with a new swirl & hologram spotting LED torch I have been fiddling with. This proved to be much better on the eyes and also came out far better in the photo's.

Usually I have found holograms particularly difficult to spot under halogen lights but this baby bared it all!










Some swirling, RIDS and hologramming from other area's around the car...








Tailights lightly swirled



With the halogen inspection out of the way I whipped out the LED torch I recently got (review and GB for those interested to follow shortly ) to see how it would fare. Needless to say it didn't disappoint and I was impressed with the defects it highlighted.

Holograms, swirling and marring all present















Apart from impressive collection of hologramming, the car was covered in minor swirls with relatively few deeper RIDS. When I see a car like this that has only minor swirls, I always have 2 thoughts: Either the owner has washed the car with care, or the paint is fairly hard having put up a decent fight against the swirls. Only one way to find out...


With the inspection completed the car was taped up before setting about finding a suitable pad and polish combo to tackle the paint defects.

As some of you may recall from the black Mk V GTI I detailed recently, I hinted at a new polish I had been playing with. This detail provided me with the perfect opportunity to further test these products on an unforgiving colour, coupled with paint that is more often than not on the harder side of the spectrum. In any event I won't be disclosing the product just yet (some of you already know what it is anyways) as there are still some details that need to be worked out before I can present them to you all

Righty then, first up the finishing polish on my trusty 3M polishing pad. After working the polish with the usual zenith type technique (spread at 600, bumped up to 900 and then 1500-1800rpm's before finishing at around 900 again) the results gave me hope. Whilst the swirling was still present, the hologramming had been significantly reduced. With that out of the way and the results not up to par correction wise I moved on to the regular 'mild' polish. Better results, similar to those of the finishing polish, but still some minor swirling remained.

At this point I was begining to think this would become a 2 stage job as the next product in the line-up borders the aggressive polish/mild compound boundaries and I feared that whilst it would almost certainly deliver the correction I aimed for, it would leave it's own mild hologramming that would need to be further refined. With the above in mind along combined with the fact that I really wanted to spend a Sunday relaxing as opposed to detailing, I decided to try a few things with the product to see if it was possible to finish down LSP ready without the need for further refinement.

After playing with the working time, speed, pressure and pad movement, I was thrilled to find that this product can finish down with a crisp clean gloss that closely rivals the likes of Menz 106FA, whilst still delivering correction levels slightly superior to that of SIP

Below are some pics from the test sections on the bonnet

Swirling practically completely knocked out


No signs of holograms and RIDS


And some crisp flake coming through the clear coat



Confident that the product could finish down LSP ready and armed with my new LED torch that easily highlighted even the feintist of defects, I set about correcting section for section whilst monitoring the results with both the halogens and LED torch. Working in this manner taught me a hell of a lot about getting the best out of this product as variations of the basic techniques yielded different results that could be easily and immediately observed.

Enough blabbing on for now and lets get back to the action...

Remember the passenger door?


Thats better


Close-up highlighting the metallic flake



The knackered doors...




Untaped 50/50


Thats more like it!





More hammered plastic B-Pillars


After polishing there was some feint hologramming left by the product which required a second hit with the finishing polish to remove. This leads me to believe that this product may not finish down all that well on softer surfaces, but in it's defence it is formulated for ceramic paint finishes and not plastics.

Nearly good as new after the 1st hit. No pics after the finishing polish though, I forgot!



One of my favourite parts on this car turned out the be the rear fenders for some or other reason...I couldn't stop starring at them








With the passenger side completed I pulled out into the sun to make one final check and to ensure that the halogens and LED torch weren't deceiving me. Some pics from out in the sun...














Convinced for certain that my eye's weren't lying to me I headed back on inside to complete the correction phase. It was beginning to seem as if I would have sunday off after all

A few random reflection shots I decided to snap before I got busy again and whilst there was still daylight.









Moving on to the rear of the car we have:

Swirled and hologrammed boot lid




Fully corrected





Rear bumper before and afters (different sides but you get the idea)





And finally, drivers side rear fender before and afters





With the correction phase completed around 7-8pm it was back outside for a final wash before being dried and brought back inside for the LSP and finishing touches.

LSP of choice was Pete's 53 which always goes on and off without issues, is durable and adds a little something to the paint in terms of depth and wetness. Tires got Meg's Endurance Gel and the trim was treated to 303 Aerospace.


With it being just after 10pm there was no chance of any decent after pics so I snapped a few reflection shots inside the garage and hoped for the best considering I didn't bring the tripod along...
























With everything done and dusted and having spent a wonderfull warm day out detailing with a most gracious and enthusiastic host, I headed down to McD's for some graze before heading on home. Total work time was 13 hours or so which was a welcome change from the regular 18-20+ hour stint's of late

Below are some pics the client snapped early on Sunday morning whilst I was still snoring. Big thank you goes out to him for forwarding these on to me, they are simply stunning

























And finally



As always, thanks for looking

[freerider]

Simply amazing work Dave

I like your camping mat

[Liqui-Moly]

Awesome!

That is a lovely car to work with and I too loved the tails. They looks so sexy when corrected.

Brilliant write up too. I need a LED Torch

[freerider]

btw Dave, I have a 5W Luxeon LED torch, and it sux at highlighting paint defects

[Woodie]

As alluded to in your teaser post, I expected nothing less than your high standard from this detail. Excellent work.

A question on your wash process - you mention washing the car down with APC prior to the correction phase. Do you have a separate wash mitt for this step or does a good wash and dry process on the mitt leave it OK to use for a normal wash.

I think your are being too hard on yourself here - you're a little unusual, but definitely not a flake .

(19-08-2009 08:59 AM)Carn Wrote:  Close-up highlighting the metallic flake

My favourite shot - makes me think of Chip Foose. Overhaulin' and Mike "Real Fire" Lavallee.

(19-08-2009 08:59 AM)Carn Wrote:  

---

[Don]

Beautiful, well done

[Woodie]

(19-08-2009 10:44 AM)freerider Wrote:  btw Dave, I have a 5W Luxeon LED torch, and it sux at highlighting paint defects

Don - Siya and I had an opportunity to play with these LED torches when we met up with Dave for "drinks" last week and I can attest to their effectiveness. My order is already in with Dave.

[freerider]

Maybe the Luxeon LED is different, this particular model runs on 3 x 3V camera batteries and is damn bright, but doesnt work very well for what I was after. I just have a 2million candle power spot light for that now

[Liqui-Moly]

Pocket Torch ey Don? haha

[megesh]

OMW!!!!

BMW might use this pic for their advertising!!

[Starvekos]

Superb turnaround and excellent write up. Finish looks crisp, better than the day the client collected the car from the showroom I presume.

Did you try working the same polish used for correcting on a lighter pad (i.e. black finishing pad) to remove holograming? Can't wait to hear more about this mystery product.

[Lambchop]

WOW Dave .. That paint looks so soft and crisp

[Carn]

Thanks for all the comments guys

@ Don, the camping mat is for the longevity of my frikken knees....Must be getting old but kneeling on concrete floors has been taking it's toll the last few months!

Re the torches, they are 170 lumen smt LED's and have a range of over 200m at night. Almost too bright at full focused intensity for the task at hand but overall they work wonderfully. I'll try organise a sample for you to have a play with

@ Woodie, I haven't noticed any ill effects from using the APC on the mit. After the initial wash I usually leave the mitt in a bucket of fresh water for re-use later after the correction phase. Perhaps not leaving it out to dry helps keep it in shape but I can't confirm. On a side note I usually put my wheel & arch brushes in the APC bucket to soak, they always come out good as new after rinsing

Some of the reflection shots of the garage doors highlighted by the halogens did come out pretty well if I do say so myself

@ Siya, thanks for the comments. Unfortunately I didn't think to try the polish on their finishing pad but the 2 (3m yellow and other) seem quite closely matched in terms of softness. If I have the opportunity to test it this weekend I will most certainly do so and will let you know

Re the products, I will hopefully have some concrete news tomorrow regarding pricing, etc. When I finally do you'll be the 1st to know

[calypso]

Awesome work as always. I'mm ashamed to think I have not even worked on my own car in over a month. Too much disco disco.

[Starvekos]

(19-08-2009 04:32 PM)megesh Wrote:  OMW!!!!

BMW might use this pic for their advertising!!

Blast from the past, hope you are well squire and that married life is treating you good.

[springbok]

Good job as usual Dave. Look forward to more details on the polish.

[Rich]

I'm still reading... but I need to comment... Awesome work. That car looks real good!! Thanks for write up and all the pic's! One day when I'm big I'll post a thread... but for now I'll sit back and enjoy yours

[Banshee]

Wow !! Thats pretty much all I can say.

[KevSTer]

Stunning work as usual Dave

[mbl]

Your work is marvelous, simply stunning.