Post Pics Of Your Car Washed & Detailed!

["Hedge"]

woo hoo! thread getting a bit popular, and Leadfoot, please dont tell me you clean the paint with glass cleaner.............:eek:

[Leadfoot[YT]]

woo hoo! thread getting a bit popular, and Leadfoot, please dont tell me you clean the paint with glass cleaner.............:eek:

 

No! No! No! No! Just on the windows. :)

 

-Leadfoot

["Hedge"]

;339782']No! No! No! No! Just on the windows. :)

 

-Leadfoot

 

Thank God lol

[Ryzza5]

I swear there was a car cleaning thread at one point, but I've looked for it twice on different occasions now and I can't find it. Probably me failing.

 

Indeed it was, since I was able to find it and bump it without too much hassle.

 

 

After learning all the basics intermediates of car detailing yesterday I'm thinking of buying some proper kits and having a go. My only concerns are:

 

1. Starting cost is quite high compared to just washing the car.

2. Time needed to detail the whole car would be many hours (nearly a full day for a first time)

3. Need shady conditions, preferably undercover, I don't have that

4. It'll just get dirty again later.

 

 

Anyway, here are the kits I'm looking at purchasing. If you're able to cast your helpful feedback this way, please make use of the reply box below. :)

 

Wash kit

Lube & Clay kit

Polishing kit

 

Total cost is just under $400 delivered.

[Guest MrLolololXD]

:hmmm:

 

Don't cut your car too often. Also when using those orbital cutter/polishers, try using painters masking tape to cover areas around headlights, window rubbers etc. to stop the crap getting in, it's hard to get it all out once it gets in there. When you're done you can always go over those little areas you masked up by hand with a clean microfibre cloth.

 

Also (they probably told you this at the cleaning demo, but just incase...) never let soapy water, or any water for that matter, dry on your car while washing it, thats one reason why they would have said to do it in the shade. You can start by soapy washing the roof, pillars, windows etc. then rinsing them off with a jet washer or whatever you have, chamois it off, then move onto the lower part of the car with the soapy water and give the whole car another blast with the jet washer once you've done the bottom.

 

AND ALWAYS WET THE CAR DOWN THOROUGHLY WITH CLEAN WATER BEFORE TOUCHING IT WITH A SPONGE!

 

I hope you found at least one bit of useful information in there :)

 

 

EDIT: Also if you can justify dishing out this much for metal polish, this stuff really is the best

http://www.carcareproducts.com.au/product/mothers/billet_metal_polish

Pretty much all the stuff we use at work is Mothers, except for the cutters

[Ryzza5]

Thanks for the post. I checked some old photos I took after only washing the car on previous occasions and there's some decent reflection on the sides, and no marks or swirls that I can recall seeing (besides stone chips on the bonnet) so I've decided to leave out the polishing kit and get the other two kits for $150.

 

All that ^ was covered in the clinic - was a great session.

 

 

Does your shop fix stone chips/respray? I'd prefer a touch-up job instead of a whole respray but if you can do special rates for friends then I'd be somewhat interested. It's funny how much extra everyone charges when it's an insurance job. :p

[Guest MrLolololXD]

I'm sure we'd do touch ups but we definately do full resprays, partial resprays. I don't think I can get mates rates prices, but if you told my boss I referred you to us, you never know... If you want I could give you the phone number or address, if you want to enquire on what it would cost. How long could you go without your car for?

 

Depending on how far you wanted to go, a full respray could take upto or over week? :confused: Not sure lol, but I wouldn't imagine it would be more than a week

[T0M722]

There's heaps of good places around melbourne for detailing/spraying, I'm sure Mrlololololoxd is pretty good too :P

 

 

Where abouts are you located lololoolxd?

[Ryzza5]

There's a few Melbournians around here - I reckon we'd let you spam one advert for your business :)

[Guest MrLolololXD]

XTREME INDUSTRIES - 19 WINDALE ST DANDENONG - 9794 8806

 

We're in good standing with the Ferrari club I hear, which can only be a good thing.

 

I hope my boss doesn't mind me posting that here, but I'm sure he wouldn't, I hope... :ytwh:

 

 

 

 

EDIT: If anyone does go down there, I'm the tall one

 

---------- Post added at 20:57 PM ---------- Previous post was at 20:55 PM ----------

 

Here's something I found on Google just now : Xtreme Industries Dandenong, VIC

[Ryzza5]

No worries I'll be down there sometime this week - just have to buy some eggs first :lol:

 

 

 

:jk:

[Guest MrLolololXD]

:eek:

 

:run:

[GTAMADDOG]

Indeed it was, since I was able to find it and bump it without too much hassle.

 

Ahhh, I see what I was doing. I was searching for the word "Cleaning" rather than "Washed" or "Detailed" :p

 

I'd still give the wash and clay kit a try. The amount of crap that the clay bars pick up, even from clean or new cars, is silly. Oh, and it leaves your paintwork feeling silky smooth, especially after you've applied some wax to it. In my experience the wax makes it a lot easier to clean the car afterwards as well.

 

I can't get the light scratches and swirl marks off my car, they aren't really noticable to everyone else as it's basically metallic silver, but I can see them from a mile off. I've tried loads of products and tried both hand polishing and machine polishing, but the buggers just don't go. It's really annoying as my dad basically just walked up to the Skoda one day, applied a bit of the polish that he had to hand, then wiped it off and he hasn't had swirl marks since.

 

I don't know if it's worth the effort on a 13 year old car, but the swirl marks are just one of those things that bug you until they're gone.

[Ryzza5]

Did you use a high cut/low gloss polish first, followed by medium then low cut/high gloss?

[GTAMADDOG]

Yeh, I bought products specifically for the job but they have not really worked. The roof is the worst place for the swirls really, and there's a couple of (small) slightly deeper scratches elsewhere which I didn't expect to be able to sort out anyway.

[Guest MrLolololXD]

As a rule of thumb, if you can 'feel' the scratch with your finger nails, it can't be buffed out and will need to be painted to be fixed properly

[GTAMADDOG]

There is probably one scratch on the roof which you can feel with a finger nail, which I'd guess is from someone resting a bag or something on the roof before getting in, but the rest of the swirls on the roof are just your standard swirl-marks, besides being stubborn as Hell.

 

There is one large scratch just infront of the passenger side wheel arch which I can only assume is from the previous owner scraping it on a low wall, which I know I can't get rid of as it's down to the primer. Then there's one scratch on the bonnet which I know I can't get rid of through polishing either, because it's too deep.

 

It's an old car, but I like to keep it looking as good as possible, because a lot of the 306s you see on the roads these days are either modified by jolly young BarryBoy or just complete sheds. It's nice to know I'm keeping one in relatively decent unmolested condition.

[GTAMADDOG]

By no means a detail, but I somehow ended up with my car being dirtier than it has ever been despite only being washed on Sunday and it was irritating me to no end. It's like the roads have been salted ready for snow or something, but the car wasn't even this dirty when the roads were actually salted.

 

Before/After style, if I can remember which photo is which.

 

Quick hoover on the inside + some naff dashboard cleaner, really should get some decent stuff. I'd also like to wet-vac the seats and floor at some point.

 

Before (Love how my phone camera makes the seat and steering wheel look cleaner in the before photo)

http://i181.photobucket.com/albums/x104/GTAMADDOG/IMG_0181.jpg

 

After (Spots/marks left on the seats are why I want to wet-vac them. Dirty looking areas on the floor mat are just wear from where my feet have been)

http://i181.photobucket.com/albums/x104/GTAMADDOG/IMG_0183.jpg

 

Outside. Just a wash as it was only polished and waxed properly a couple of weeks ago along with Armorall Tyre Foam (which I think is rubbish) on the tyres, WonderWheels on the wheels, Autoglym Tar Remover on any tar spots, some back-to-black on the black trim and Autoglym Fast Glass on all the glass.

 

Rinsed then washed with Meguiars Gold Class + Meguiars Lambs Wool Wash Mitt, then rinsed again and dried using my new Kent Extra Large Microfibre drying towel.

 

Before

http://i181.photobucket.com/albums/x104/GTAMADDOG/IMG_0179.jpg

 

After

http://i181.photobucket.com/albums/x104/GTAMADDOG/IMG_0186.jpg

 

Before

http://i181.photobucket.com/albums/x104/GTAMADDOG/IMG_0176.jpg

 

After

http://i181.photobucket.com/albums/x104/GTAMADDOG/IMG_0187.jpg

 

Before

http://i181.photobucket.com/albums/x104/GTAMADDOG/IMG_0180.jpg

 

After

http://i181.photobucket.com/albums/x104/GTAMADDOG/IMG_0190.jpg

 

Before

http://i181.photobucket.com/albums/x104/GTAMADDOG/IMG_0177.jpg

 

After

http://i181.photobucket.com/albums/x104/GTAMADDOG/IMG_0188.jpg

 

Clean again, until it inevitably rains over the weekend. Need to find a pressure washer and snow-foam lance at some point.

[Ken]

This basically killed a day restoring the corroded aluminium.

 

 

[Ryzza5]

Will just copy the one pic accross since I've posted elsewhere:

 

[Ryzza5]

[The Compensator]

Now I need better cosmetics. My wax is 6 years old :lol:

 

http://i455.photobucket.com/albums/qq279/username_046/IMG_20120527_130045.jpg

[GTAMADDOG]

I bought some Autosol Metal Polish to clean up my exhaust tip and some Collinite 476S wax the other day. Haven't had a chance to try either out yet as I've been at work and I'm off on holiday this week (not using my car but it'll be having a well deserved rest in the garage) but I'll give them a quick try out when I get back.

 

Apparently with the Collinite 476S wax you only need to apply it once year because it's that long lasting and leaves such a good result for the whole time. We'll see. Just hope the weather isn't too bad when I get back. Still yet to buy a machine polisher though.