Divine Detail - 2007 Acura MDX SH-AWD

Divine Detail · 03-24-2008, 02:29 AM

This was quite the detail, the owner just purchased this vehicle and wanted the vehicle looking its best, this particular vehicle was booked for a full exterior paint correction and it was booked for a full two day. The vehicle:

2007 Acura MDX

Now this is the vehicle delivered to us:

These pictures are quite deceiving as the vehicle “appears” to be in good conditions but it’s far from it. Well on with the detail.

First of all the CR Spotless System is connected and ready to go:

Tools are picked out to start with the wheel wells, rims and tires:

First the entire vehicle was given a rinse, then the wheel wells were given a healthy coat of P21S Total Auto Wash:

Wile letting Total Auto Wash duel, P21S Gel was used on the rims, first the face of the rims:

Then we made sure to get the P21S Gel all the way inside the rims:

Tires received a coat of Amazing Roll Off:

Now it was time to go back to the wheel wells and give them a good scrub with our long handle brush:

Once satisfied with the wheel wells it was time to focus on the rims. With the help of the two inch wool brush, the inside of the rim was given a thorough scrub:

Making sure to get all the way inside the rims:

Now the two inch wool brush did not fit around the calipers so the one inch wool brush was used:

Again making sure to get all the way inside the rim:

As you can see the one inch wool brush makes it quite easy to get in behind the caliper.

Now it was time to agitate P21S Gel on the face of the rim, with the help of a Swissvax brush the face of the rims were agitated:

The tires were agitated with a Meg’s tire brush:

All that was left to do was to rinse the wheel wells, rims and tires:

This process was followed for all rims, tires and wheel wells, now it was time to wash the rest of the vehicle. The vehicle was given a good rinse and it was noticed that something was on the surface, something that was causing the water to bead away. It was crucial to remove all previous protection off the vehicle so prior to washing the vehicle it was given a healthy coat of P21S Total Auto Wash:

While P21S Total Auto Wash was left to duel on the surface of the vehicle, it was time to get the two bucket’s ready to wash the vehicle. Zymol Clear was used as shampoo.

Along with a Zymol sponge:

Vehicle was given a good wash. After the entire vehicle had been washed it was time to start claying the vehicle. The vehicle was clayed with a Riccardo Clay Bar:

Here is how the clay bar finished off:

Vehicle had quite a bit of contamination and surprisingly no tar and hardly any tree sap. It has some tree sap but nothing that Riccardo couldn’t take care off.

Well the vehicle was given another rinse and dried with our waffle weaved micro fiber towels:

After the vehicle had been completely dried off it was time to tape off the vehicle, once it was taped off with the help of our 3M Sun Gun it was time to see the true condition of the vehicle, here are some pictures as to what we are up against:

This was quite interesting as this particular section seemed to have been wetsanded but the wetsanding marks were not polished out, a mental note was made on this section as it’s never good to see wetsanding marks.

Well as you can see the vehicle was covered in swirls, holograms and shockingly wetsanding marks. Well now that we know what we are up against it was time to use the PosiTector 6000 to see how much clear coat we had to play with:

Here are the readings take with the PosiTector 6000 graphed:

Now remember that section that had wetsanding marks, actually it’s the rear passenger door that had the wetsanding marks. Well from the graph you can see that huge spike, well the very upper portion of the rear passenger door was reading 300 (and more) microns, the mid section of the rear passenger door was reading 500 (and more) microns and the lower section (where the wetsanding marks were located) of the rear passenger door was reading 1,000 microns (and more). Oddly enough the rest of the vehicle gave us average readings ranging from 110 to 130 microns. Well obviously the rear passenger door had some work done on it.

Well after the PosiTector 6000 it was time to take readings on all the plastic sections (front and rear bumpers and side view mirrors). The PosiTector 200 was used:

As you can see from the graph the readings were quite normal, so no surprises here.

Well now that we know what we are up against and know that we had plenty of clear coat to do some major paint correction it was time to pick a section and test the polish and pad combo to the test. Knowing that Honda/Acura for the most part tends to have soft clear we decided to go with the Menzerna 85RD3.02, a 3M Polishing pad (UK version) and Metabo Rotary at 1500rpm:

This combo provided these results with just one pass:

Now the results were quite nice but we were just not quite satisfied with it as it was still leaving some micro marring behind, so the same section was followed up with 85RD, a Sonus Finishing pad and the Metabo again at 1500rpm. This combo resulted on these results:

As you can see the results were very satisfying, so this was the combo. One pass with 85RD3.02 with a 3M Polishing pad (UK version) then followed up with 85RD with a Sonus Finishing pad.

Now one thing to note is that the clear coat on this vehicle is extremely soft and even when removing the polish residue the microfiber towels were inducing fine micro marring, so we had to use our cookie monsters to remove polish residue and even then we were still inducing some mocromarring. Also in some pictures polish residue is visible and that is because we were being extremely careful not to put to much pressure when removing the polish residue, causing some hazy appearance (almost like holograms) on the surface of the vehicle.

Well this was quite a frustrating detail to say the least as certain sections received a multiple polishing steps to get it looking just right and to remove the fine micro marring that we were inducing every time we removed the polish residue.

Well here is how the hood finished off:

Here is the driver side fender before:

After:

Again the driver front fender before:

After:

The passenger front fender before:

After:

Driver side mirror before:

After:

I was having a hard time capturing the swirls on the rear tail lights, it had some swirls and they definitely stood out with the 1,000W lights we had on them but for some strange reason it was quite difficult to capture them on the before picture:

But if you look closely enough you can just make out the light scratches on the tail lights

Well here is an after:

Well the entire vehicle was polished off on day one, it was quite a long day but we were determined to get the vehicle looking flawless and well time got the best of us as we were up till 3AM on day one.

Now for day two or what we called round two.

Now the owner had scheduled the vehicle to get 3M installed on the entire front of the vehicle, so the vehicle was driven over to the 3M specialist. Now I use the term “specialist” because that’s exactly what this gentle man is, a true 3M specialist for a lack of better words a 3M Guru. The vehicle was returned to us by around 4PM and the 3M protection looked incredible on the vehicle…the only draw back was that it appears that during the 3M installation some fine micromarring was induced, this was expected as the clear coat was extremely soft

Well out came the rotary’s again with 85RD and a Sonus finish pad and went over all areas that had micromarring. The good thing was that it was mostly on the front section of the vehicle.

Once all the polishing was done it was time to remove all the polish residue, not were thinking of using our traditional wipe down with the help of:

But seeing as the clear coat was extremely soft we knew that the traditional method would result on nothing but a disaster for us so we went with another wash, not just any wash a P21S wash with our Zymol sponge:

Now P21S was directly applied on the entire vehicle to insure that no white polish residue was left over and very gently the Zymol sponge was passed over the surface of the vehicle.

Well the vehicle was rinsed off with the CR System and this time was dried with an air compressor, we were trying to avoid touching the surface of the vehicle as much as possible.

Well the air compressor method worked quite well but we still needed to remove what ever was being left behind so again we used our waffle weaved microfiber towels:

Again being as careful as possible not to put too much pressure on the paint.

Once the entire vehicle was dried it was time to apply Swissvax Cleaner Fluid:

Method of application was one person applied the other person would wipe off, yes in a wipe on wipe off method. This was done through out the entire vehicle and as careful as possible.

Now for protection, the owner purchased a tub of Souveran and had left it inside the vehicle for us to finish the vehicle off with but the owner is quite meticulous an demanded perfection and we felt that Souveran would just not cut it so we decided to upgrade his SLP to Swissvax Smaragd:

Smaragd was applied as thin as possible:

Left on for several minuets, wile Smaragd was left to duel and bond to the surface of the vehicle all exterior plastic trims received Black WOW.

Then it was time to remove Smaragd, our favorite microfiber towel was used. The Cookie Monster:

Well after the removal of Smaragd we were left with the following results:

This is the owner standing next to his vehicle and was extremely pleased with the results.

Well this was one detail I’m sure we will never forget, frustrating at times but like anything in life, live and learn and this experiance will be well remembered.

Hope you enjoyed the detail and like always questions or concerns are always welcome.