Detailing 4200

spkennyuk

Member
Messages
5,931
My 4200 was overdue an intensive clean and polish. Its almost 12 months since i picked the car up. It has been washed and waxed in that time but i decided while i had the chance to give it the full treatment.

Before and after pictures. The first picture shows the car after washing, tar spots removed then clay mitted and then clay bar to remove any remaining particle stuck to the paint. Ive usually had dark coloured cars and wanted to see just how much shine and reflection i could get from a light metalic blue car.

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The plan was a three stage paint correction followed by a wax and detail spray to finish.

The next two pictures are taken after stage one and stage two were complete on the panels shown. It took a few more hours to finish stage two on the whole car. The results of my labour were starting to show at this point.

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Start to finish from washing to the end of stage two took 12 hours with a few coffee breaks and a quick sandwich along the way. At this point i had run out of light so i planned to complete a few days later.
 

spkennyuk

Member
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5,931
Monday was the next chance i had and as the car lives outside another wash and dry and surface check was required before i could start stage 3. Spare time isnt something i have a lot of as im usually away from the house six days a week.

The next few pictures are taken after stage three is completed.

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After stage three was completed it was waxing time. I used a hybrid wax called dodo juice supernatural. Ive also got a tub of farecla G3 wax but i wanted to compare the two. After a coat of wax i followed with with a meguires ultimate quick detail spray.

By the time I had finished i had lost the benefit of light again and had to get back to work. But to give you an idea it looked like this.

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From washing again to applying the detail spray took around 6 hours including some coffee breaks and sandwich break.

The wheels and daytime pictures would have to wait.
 

spkennyuk

Member
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5,931
I managed to grab around 1.5 hours on tuesday so i could do the wheels and grab a couple of pictures along the way. No sign of sunshine to at 6pm ish so the paint isnt popping as much as it does in the sun. The end results are :

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The wheels were cleaned and then waxed followed by a quick wipe over with quick detailer. Tyres were treated with meguires tyre gel applied with a sponge and then the excess removed after 5 minutes with a micro fibre cloth.

No sign of the sun and it was just starting to rain so i grabbed a couple of quick pictures of the car in evening light taken around 8pm. I will try and take some more pictures as the soon is out again and im not working. These should give you an idea of how it turned out.

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I plan on building up the wax layers when i get chance. I may well apply the G3 wax as a second and third layer and finish again with the detail spray.

The supernatural hybrid wax is much harder to put on. It gives a similar finish to the G3 wax but should last longer. The G3 is quick and easy to put on with a waffle hand applicator. I would say the supernatural takes at least 50% longer to apply.

G3 you have to remove within around 5 minutes of doing each panel otherwise it becomes more difficult to remove. Its also difficult to remove at dusk or if there is a risk of rain. I guess its affected by the moisture level in the air. In comparison the supernatual you can wax a complete side of the car and then buff off and its still easy to remove.

It has rained since application and the beading is good so overal the supernatural seems a fairly good product. If it lasts anything like as long as claimed then it is worth the extra effort to apply as a least a base layer and apply a couple of layers of a softer wax over the top of it.
 

highlander

Member
Messages
5,214
Can be addictive can't it? Lol
Yes it feels more easy to get high reflection on dark colours but getting a lighter colour right can be just as rewarding - nice work!
 

CatmanV2

Member
Messages
48,547
Looks great. Can't really do much to mine until the paint hardens properly. Then it'll be time to give it a good coating of something

C
 

MrMickS

Member
Messages
3,951
Does look good. Just starting on the detailing route. Never had a car I was that bothered about before lol


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
 

Wack61

Member
Messages
8,764
I spent £40 on some wax last week, don't know what came over me

Hopefully that's all I need to do for a bit , yours looks great , well worth the effort

I've found when I'm decorating it's tea and coffee all day, cleaning the car, nothing
 

StuartW

Member
Messages
9,306
That is impressive, well done - if you want to compare a light coloured finish to a black car feel free to pop over on your one day off and you can get to work on mine - I'll PM you my address!!!

Seriously well done, that really does look very impressive & rewarding
 

EnzoMC

Member
Messages
1,998
looking good, yep can take long time but finished car is well worth it - got to do mine again as someone else washed it :hammer: - just need 3 spare days


I spent £40 on some wax last week, don't know what came over me

yep, I spent over £100 on a pot before the starting my business - so give yourself a pat on the back for not going over the top :)
 

spkennyuk

Member
Messages
5,931
Two people and 2 x DA machines and a dry day then you could probably do the whole car in around 8 to 10 hours depending on how many layers of wax you want to apply.

You could have mini SM detailing parties. :)