Motors Post your favourite detailing products, techniques and results

Currently knocking out the stone chips and lacquer peel.

The finish will never be perfect, too many years of neglect prior to my ownership, mechanically it's solid but body work is virtually ratty.

When I bought it, it had been keyed both sides down to steel, last week I noticed someone had done the OSF wing down to primer, fml. Any it had been parked under tree's for a few years at the back of the dealership, so sap and bird droppings had eatten the clear coat in places. Also the clear coat is crazing on the bonnet from age and heat, it bugs me that it looks worse "clean", and that a little road dirt hides the finish.

Going to go get some Meguiar's Ultimate Compound in a while, I've hit most area's with 2K and 2.5K grit paper, then some old rubbing compound that I think is no better than the 2.5K grit.

 

I do hope you mean make a sun gun.

I'm still not sold on the benefit/cost of one compared to, say, a half decent Cree T6 LED torch, for instance, that can be bought for under a tenner. Especially if it's just for the occasional correction, even when comparing to the cost of the home made jobbies, but the cost of the 3M one is crazy!

 

The 3M one is priced only for the biblically insane detailer. Making one is a reasonable option (especially for a bit-techer ), otherwise do without/make do with something cheap!

There's having fun with a hobby, and being totally off-the-wall crazy enough to ***** £400 on a light.

 

To be honest its going to be hard to push a 400quid torch past my girlfriend. Could do with a new telly tbh. Though the paint depth guage is definately needed.

 

+1 to this. As unfinished and untidy looking as my car still is at the moment, I still notice the imperfections on other people's cars so easily now!

You hit the nail on the head. I'll never get the Clio looking as good as it did 3 years ago again without major bodywork including PDR, a panel technician fixing all the panel gaps and getting the front bumper, rear bumper and both front wings resprayed. All I can do now is make sure the major stone chips are touched up for the winter and cannot rust, and that what paint remains is kept as shiny and protected as possible at all times. No matter how much time and money you spend on detailing, you can't drive a car on roads like I do for approaching 4 years and have it look showroom fresh all the time.

To put perspective on this, the Sun Gun is not only out of my price range for a defect-spotting lamp, it's also so insanely priced that I won't buy it on principle alone. Now, we're talking about me here... someone with a large collection of expensive, high performance LED flashlights, i.e. someone who likes lights and is willing to pay high prices to get the best in the industry. My most expensive light is the pride of my collection, a rare Titanium RA Clicky which is one of the rarest, most indestructible and most collectible lights a flashaholic can own, and cost £500 new. That was worth it... The Sun Gun is not worth £400. It's just far too expensive. I have been defect spotting with an incandescent Surefire torch up until now. It's no Sun Gun, but it does the job.

I have found that LED lights (I own several very high output Cree-emmiter Fenix lights among many others) just don't show up the defects as well as an incan does. Ideally you want the Solux bulb in something which can power it as Hack'n'Slash linked to, but if you're not up to making your own, consider the much more sensibly priced Brinkmann instead - it's good enough for AMMO NYC's Larry Kosilla to use, so it should be just fine for us "weekend warriors"

 

I haven't read through the entire thread, but I did a quick search and thought you all might like the Drive Clean part of the /Drive channel.

It's well done and the guy's totally OCD.

 

I've mentioned Larry plenty of times

 

Not as fancy as some of your setups, and probably not as in depth, but unfortunately there are so many chips, scratches, and general imperfections there's no point until she's been sent to a painter to get it all sorted. But still. I do my best.

Washed (PH neutral snowfoam, Megs gold class shampoo), polished (Megs again), glazed (Poorboys black hole) and waxed (Megs again).

 

Looks great nonetheless! Imo a lot can be done even with scratched and damaged cars if you put the effort in, but you've got to look past the damage that needs paint.

 

Thanks man. There are a lot of things that I've been slowly working out, scuffs here and there mainly, but the bonnet has at least a dozen stone chips. Previous owners have used those paint pen things to fill them in so at a glance it's fine, but any closer and it's riddled with dots.

The bumper I think has been repainted before, but badly, as it's cracking some of the paint the same way that GOO's wheel arches did when he had those painted up so that needs sorting, and there are two little spots of rust on the rear arch that'll need looking at. Other than that, though, I suspect a detailer would be able to clean the rest out perfectly fine.

But still. She's passable, so fixing that is at the bottom of the list. Air to air intercooler, relocated filter, new exhaust & manifold, polybushing and that's all I think I'll be doing. Gone off the idea of tracking it (Maybe some visits to the sprint course down the road, though), looking at some other avenues instead!

Something that won't cost the earth to repair if I stack it

 

Doesn't sound too bad - stone chips aren't too bad if you can find a matchable paint, you just need some obscenely fine grit and rather a lot of patience.

M'eh. I'd do a few track days with it just for the crack, you'll still have a blast even without any mods specific for it.

 

Is this series of steps standard practise? The last proper wash I did on my Mini I did a full wash, then just applied wax as per /DRIVE's methods. Should I have used Polish / Glazing / Sealant? and if so always before the wax or after?

 

I don't do that every single time, no. I don't honestly know whether I should or shouldn't. I do wash and wax at least every time though.

 

Cheers Liratheal, I'll do some googling / more videos from /DRIVE

 

Have been getting into using Sealants recently as the bad weather will be here soon and the protection they give should be better. The Astra has recieved 2 coats of Sealant. Car looks very sharp and clean.

Beading and lotus effect of Sonax NPT is amazing. Their quick detailer as a top up is also brilliant.

 

I need to learn how to look after my motor, its got 7 years worth of business man on it and whilst the interior is immaculate the exterior has quite a few tiny scratches and dings, rear bumper has taken a swipe as well and needs a touch of paint. :/

 

Ah, metallic black paint. Give up now, it's so hard to make it truly perfect.

 

One million times this!

 

I have been SLOWLY getting into this since just before getting my new car.
Now I want to wash the GT86 whenever there's a few leaves on it...

Around here, there's no detailing products that extend beyond the Wynn's stuff, though (IF we even get the full range of that).

Still need to get a brush for the wheel nuts, as well as a brush to get leaves out of the hole that holds the base of the windscreen wiper.

Then there's the issue of the interior. A vacuum cleaner would go a long way, but the car is parked MILES from the nearest power source, and the 12V handheld vacuum cleaners I have experienced all sucked (of don't really suck enough - that being the main problem). Any suggestions for that?

 

@BentAnat With a 12v inverter you could power a mains vacuum off the car's battery, of course it would have to be higher wattage than the vac itself, which could pose a problem with a larger wattage vacuums.