So I detailed the car this weekend. The paint was REALLY hazy, had a lot of swirls and the typical hologram like appearance in the sunlight.

First I washed the car, using Meguiars soap, a wool wash mit and a 5 gallon bucket with a grit-gaurd insert. I dried it with an Absorber and a microfiber towel.

Next I pulled the car in the garage and blew it off with the air compressor to get rid of any excess water. Then clayed it with the standard Mother's clay bar and quick detailer. Since the FD is so small, I took the clay bar and divided it into 4 equal pieces. I then used each piece on no more than one quarter of the car. Making sure I kneeded it consistently so that I wasn't using an unclean portion of clay. This is important, and dividing the clay up into pieces helps to maintain clean clay for as much of the car as possible. Once the claying was done I took a clean microfiber towel and wiped all of the excess quick detailer off of the car.


I then masked all of the rubber moldings with 3m masking tape.

Next I tried using a medium cut agent on an orange foam polishing pad to get the swirls out with my dual action (DA) buffer, but that didn't work. So I went to something a little more dramatic.

I went and picked up Meguiars #105 cutting compound (I use Meguiars because a local vendor has their whole detailing product line and I like to buy local when I can, plus I am surprised how much better things turn out when you use products that were designed to work together), with a wool pad on my random orbital buffer. A rotary polisher would have worked better and been faster, but wouldn't have been as safe, and I am not as experienced as most whom get good results from that tool. With the random orbital, I went over every part of the car 2-3 times and some places I had to go over 5+ times to get the results I wanted and get rid of the swirls.



I followed with the Meguiars #7 showcar glaze, with a foam polishing pad. I did two coats with this. This turned out to fill in great lots of shine.


I then followed that with a synthetic sealant #21, one coat with the orbital on a polishing pad. And another coat about 48 hours after that, as a sealant takes about that long to completely dry.

Classic beginner mistakes are trying to go over too much of the car at once and going too fast. I do about a half a hood portion of the car at a time...half a bumper, a fender, a door. Then I wipe the product off and if it is to my liking I move on, if not I repeat (this is especially true with the compound)

The sealant you apply to the whole car and then wipe off after 20 min or so.

I use quality microfiber towels...about 15-20 of them for the whole process.

A picture of the products I used below in addition to the 15-20 or so microfiber towels. It is critical to always be using a clean towel...and microfiber is substantially better than anything cotton.

I will attach some pictures of the process.

The first pic is my rear bumper before anything, but after wash and clay. The next pic is after the compound and the next two are after the first phase of glaze.

 

These are some more general shots of the car in process.

 

Some pictures after the final sealant.

 

Here are the products I used (in addition to all the towels) and a couple interior shots.

I just use Woolite on the mats and some Mother's interior dressing for the dash and panels. I like the Mother's cause it smells so good...

 

Looks great. Your hard work payed off. What is that "Grit Guard Insert" thing?

 

http://www.gritguard.com/

 

Dang looks good

 

Looks awesome dude. I know how hard it is to keep a black car clean.

My DD is black and everytime i wash it, i have to wax it in order for it to stay looking good. Cause if i just wash it, like a couple of hours later, dust ball thingies form and it looks dirty again. By the next day, it looks like i havent washed it at all.

I use regular meguiars tech wax or zymol for that car. Nothing fancy or hard labor, it is the DD afterall.

 

Black is the best looking car when it is clean and the hardest to keep looking that way. Always being garaged does help my cause though (home and at work).

I am anxious to see how the Synthetic Sealant holds up. I haven't used it before.

Thanks for the compliments. It is finally nice to be able to do some fun stuff to the car and stop working on big issues.

 

and that is the reason i love black...looks like a straight mirror!!! Very nice job

 

can you tell us how long each step took you?

masking
clay
compound
glaze
seal

do you have anymore before pics?

 

Probably about 20 minutes or so to mask.. claying takes the usual time, probably about 30 minutes, compound took me a coupld of hours...maybe as much as 3 hours. Glaze took about an hour to an hour and a half. Sealing took about 20 minutes to apply and 10 minutes to remove with a half an hour or so in between. I waited a couple of days between layers of sealant.

dont think have more before pics. The whole car looked like the rear bumper though in the sun. When the car was in the garage out of the sun you couldn't see the definition of the swirls as much so I just used that picture. I can see if I have an others of the hood. I might..

 

Very nice work!!!

 

your car is bangin - good job. thanks for posting your times, kind of give me a frame of reference as to how long it will take when i attempt it.

 

The compound I was using is really bad for rubber. It stains it almost permanently. Even if I did have something to take any excess off, it is better to mask and not have to worry about getting any of the solvent you would have to use on your freshly detailed paint. Besides the FD is the easiest car to mask there is. There are no moldings, and the rubber trim is really trivial. So taking the time is not a problem. On my M3 it was another story, masking took nearly 2 hours.

My car is for sale here

I got sucked out of non-banking finance back into banking by a friend of mine who was president of this AZ charter of an NV bank. We have lots of interesting platforms including a green lending platform utilizing government subsidies that we are probably in front of the market on...but alas the NV bank is pretty much going down and taking the AZ bank with it. Things are just not going my way lately.