Well a co-worker of mine just purchased this vehicle and unfortunately someone or something scratched the passenger side quite bad, you’ll see what I mean shortly. Well the vehicle was in for a full exterior paint correction, the vehicle:
2008 Infinity G35xS
The owner was kind enough to wash the vehicle prior to dropping it off
Well the vehicle:
As you can see the vehicle ‘looks’ to be in good shape or is it?
Well first up P21S Total Auto Wash is applied to the wheel wells:
Then P21S Gel is applied on the rims:
ARO is applied to the tires, now it was time to agitate the wheel wells. This was done with the Black ShMITT:
Next, it was time to agitate the inside of the rims, for this the two inch wool brush is used:
For the face of the rims a Swissvax brush is used:
Now to give the tires a good scrub, for this Meg’s tire brush is used:
This is how all that scrubbing looked like at the end:
All that’s left to do is rinse it all off:
This process is done to all wheel wells, rims and tires.
Next, it was time to connect the CR System:
With the help of Deionized water it was time to wash the vehicle off, I first gave the entire vehicle a good rinse to inspect if there was any kind of protection on the vehicle. To my surprise, the vehicle had no protection what’s so ever
. So no need to go with the P21S Total Auto Wash shampoo, so this time I went with Zymol Clear with the Zymol Sponge and the two bucket method:
During the washing process the door shuts were also taken care of, first P21S Total Auto Wash is applied:
(sorry for the blurry picture
)
Then with a Swissvax brush the door shuts were agitated and wiped of with a yellow micro fiber towel.
Well on to claying the vehicle, as always the clay of choice is Riccardo clay bar. Here is the clay bar before:
Here is the clay bar after:
The vehicle had a bit of tar on the lower panels so all lower panels were sprayed off with Tarminator.
The vehicle was once again rinsed off and first with the help of my air compressor water was removed any water that remained on the vehicle was removed with a waffle weaved micro fiber towel it was dried off.
I started this detail a bit late, so this is as far as I was going to go on the first day. The rims, washing, tar removing and claying the vehicle took a whapping 5hrs
Well that concludes day one.
Day two:
First up the paint was inspected, now looks like I’ve been having quite a few vehicles that have been difficult to capture the defects and this one was no exception but I did manage to capture the scratch that my co-worker wanted me to remove:
Well I inspected the scratch and it really wasn’t that bad, it was just going to require some time to correct, lots of time
.
Next up it was time to tape up the vehicle:
With the help of the PosiTector 6000 paint gauge readings were taken:
Now the readings of this vehicle were something else
, the vehicle was all over the place. From as high as 120 microns to as low as 72 microns the graph shows it better:
Next up all plastic trims were measured with the help of my PosiTector 200:
The readings on the plastic trims were quite healthy:
Well I’m now ready to start the paint correction process, a section is taped up and let the fun begin.
First combo was:
Menzerna 85RD3.02, 3M UK Black pad, Metabo at 1500 RPM with 3M UK Backing Plate.
This combo gave reasonable results but Menzerna was acting up, not only was Menzerna acting up but the clear coat on this vehicle was hard and for the first time ever I was up against the sticky clear coat
Boy this sticky clear coat is quite a pain to work with, I mean I barely even got two to three passes with the Menzerna combo mentioned above and the foam pad was gumming up, skipping and worse part it was causing my Metabo to over heat and shutting down. I thought that maybe a alcohol wipe down would help but it didn’t, this sticky clear coat issue is quite brutal…actually I made a video of it, as I’ve always been curious about this sticky clear coat issue many UK detailers have experience and finally I have to work on
:
http://www.detailingbliss.com/downlo...20Coat.m2t.wmv
(Again sorry for the slow down load time, but I insist in quality
)
Well this sticky clear coat made the paint correction very, very difficult
.
Well here we go, here are the results of the Menznerna combo mentioned above.
Before:
After:
As you can see it made a bit of a difference but there were still many swirls/random deep scratches left over. Not to mention the sticky clear coat was making it extremely difficult to polish with Menzerna.
Well Menzerna was just not going to cut it and after trying all the polish products in my arsenal I settled on 3M UK.
First up 3M UK Fast Cut Plus, Sonus SFX-2 Polishing Pad (White), Metabo at 1500 RPM with 3M UK Backing Plate.
This combo was still acting up, gumming the pad up and over heating the Metabo but it gave very good results:
Due to the gumming up and the polish reacting to the sticky clear coat I gave the section a final pass with the following combo:
3M UK Ultrafina SE, Sonus SFX-3 Finishing Pad (Blue) Metabo at 1500 RPM with 3M UK Backing Plate.
This brought back the gloss to the surface and removed all holograms being left from the Fast Cut Plus and its miss behaving. The best part is that Ultrafina SE was not acting up at all, it performed extremely well, the only draw back was that it was a real pain to buff off all polish residue again do to the sticky clear coat
Here are the results with this combo:
Well there you have it, this sticky clear coat still has a resolution and this proved to be the combo to do the entire vehicle:
Here is how the entire trunk finished off:
Now remember I mentioned I tried all my products I have in my detailing arsenal well, I tried using all the other polishes I have in my collection, Optimum, Scholls and 3M US and nothing was working, all polishes were acting up and causing the Metabo to over heat, pads to skip, polish to gum up. I also tried each product with different foam pads, 3M UK, 3M US, Menzerna, Meg’s, Skolls pads and nothing was working, the pads that gave the best results were the Sonus (older version) pads. So this sticky clear coat issues is something else, I’ve never had an experience as this.
So the correction process was very pain full and quite long, here are some process pictures.
Before:
After:
Tail lights were also corrected with the same process as the paint.
Well I was making my way around the vehicle and finally made my way to the long scratch and here is a 50/50 picture of how it finished off:
I was very pleased with these results
Here is a 50/50 of the hood:
Well like I said a very long paint correction process due to the sticky clear coat not to mention the entire vehicle was covered in polish dust:
All dust was removed with Zymol duster:
Now it was time to give the entire vehicle a final wipe down with alcohol mix and various micro fiber towels.
I was running out of time now as I looked at my cell phone and realized it was close to midnight so after the final wipe down I applied a healthy coat of DG#105 to the rims:
Making sure to get inside the rims as well.
Well seeing as it was midnight now I decided to call it a day, it was a long paint correction process a total of 14hrs was spend during the paint correction process all due to the sticky clear coat
Third day:
Well the final day was quite fast as all I need to do is apply the
LSP to the vehicle.
Now seeing as this vehicle belongs to a co-worker of mine I figured I’d use something from my own personal collection…now what to use..
Well first up I applied Zymol HD-cleanse Professional:
Wiped off with many Cookie Monsters.
Now for the wax of choice:
I haven’t used Zymol Glasur for a bit so thought I’d use it.
I do enjoy the hand application process
:
Glasur was left on the vehicle to bond. During that bonding time the exhaust tips were taken care off.
The weapon of choice is my favorite:
Here is how the exhaust tips finished off.
Before:
After:
Before:
After:
Now it was time to buff off Glasur, for this Cookie Monsters were once again used:
All tires were dressed with Zymol Tyre. DG#105 is also buffed off. Now the vehicle was left to sit and after five hours, a final Field Glaze wipe down is done and here are the end results:
Oh remember that long scratch:
Well here is the end result:
After that frustrating paint correction, I’m happy to say that the scratch was completely removed and my co-worker was thrilled to see the end results
I just love the lovely curves on this vehicle
Here is a walk around video:
Well that concludes this detail, it was a very long detail and I thought it was going to be an easy one, well I’m glad to say that this vehicle was fun to detail, frustrating but I enjoyed the challenge. This sticky clear coat is something else, it was a good challenge and I look forward on doing more Infinity vehicles specially 08 models to compare if the sticky clear coat is like that for all 08 models.
Like always feed back (good or bad) is always appreciated.