I had done a guys Suburban a little while back and used Rubbish Boys Juiced Edition wax on it. He was really pleased but told me his wife was really upset that he got his car done and not hers when she saw it. Well I finally had a chance to do another detail for him and he said he wanted another one of his cars done but wifey put the veto on that and her car went in that spot. I only knew that it was a Cadillac and had no idea what color or make, so I had to make my decision on the process and products when it arrived. The paint was in pretty good shape and its a good thing as there was no correction on this detail. Well once I saw it and knowing this is one of my best clients I decided to do a full Zaino on it. Well here's what I did:
Tires/Wheels: Well the first thing I noticed right off the bat is that whoever had been detailing this before loved some cheap solvent based tire dressings. It was all over the lower panels and the wheels looked terrible because of it too. I used Megs Wheel Brightner on the wheels with a Griots wheel scrub, foam finger pocket, lug nut brush, and black magic wheel brush bent 90 degrees for getting behind spokes. I used MS Super Green Stuff on the tires with a black wheel Shmitt. The wheel wells got CGs Grime Reaper via my new Solo handheld Sprayer and a black wheel Shmitt. I love the Solo sprayer and it is 1000x better than the handheld sprayers from Lowes and only $3 more. As a side note I threw away Lowes sprayer #'s 3 and 4 today because like the two predecessors before them they started leaking where the plastic halves are molded together.
As far as dressings go I know the owner wanted a little more bling that what I am used to putting on tires. So I decided to veer away from my normal regimine and put a new product to work. I used some of my newly acquired Megs Hyper Dressing diluted 1:1. Now I had used it on my Jeep before just to see how it looks and it wasn't as shiny as I thought it would be at 1:1 and it really didn't perform as well as I had hoped but I need to use it more. Now I decided to use it as a base coat and then topped it with Optimum Tire Bond Gel. That gave a really bling look and only waterbased products were used to achieve that. The wells got CGs Bare Bones via another Solo Sprayer. The wheels got Z2 Pro.
Engine: I did pretty much the usual here: rinse, spray with MS SGS, agitate, rinse, dry with a leaf blower, and dress. Instead of Stoners Trim Shine I decided to use DG 265 Ultimate Conditioning Spray that I got from Cooter (thanks bro). I had never used this before and really liked it. One other thing I used was a spray handle for the aerosol can. If you use any product in an aerosol can you know how tired your hand can get when dressing a large area. This thing makes it a breeze and I think gives me more even coverage because there is no change in application pressure. I bought it at a local paint store for like $2 and it was worth every penny. Here is a pic:
Wash: Well I wanted to make sure everything was off of this car before I started on the paint so I went with a strong wash. I used my foam cannon with a mixture of 2 oz. of CGs Wash n Clear with an ounce of CGs Strong Wash. I got the Strong Wash from Gemini13 (thanks so much for that as I love this product) and it worked great with the Clear. I'm telling you the dirt and old dressings just rolled off this thing. There was absolutely no chance of any
LSP being left, heck if there ever was one considering how it looked from the previous detailer. That was the easiest wash I have ever done and will become my go to for really dirty vehicles. I also used my CR Spotless system. Bugs got a mixture of Demin water and CGs Strong Wash diluted 3:1. Man you could see the bugs just melt away and then when I put the MS bug sponge on it they just vanished. Mother Nature dried the car while I shampooed and extracted the floor mats.
Clay: I used the good stuff with DP 4n1 as a clay lube in another Solo hand held pressurized sprayer. Then I rinsed again with the CR.
Glass: The outside glass got ZAIO while I was polishing and the inside got CGs Glass Cleaner. I wiped on with a Black Magic Glass MF and wiped off with a Walmart WW.
Interior: Interior: The entire interior was wiped down with
1z Cockpit Premium. I do love this stuff as it cleans well and leaves behind a new clean look. The leather seats were cleaned with Leather Mastere Strong diluted 1:1 and scrubbed in with a Megs interior brush. The seats were then conditioned with Surf City Leather Conditioner. Shop vac was used to vacuum everything and the floor mats were treated with Folex and extracted.
Paint: I used the Zaino ZAIO with a HF rotary with a 5" white LC CCS pad on a 3M bp. I used speed 1. I buffed it off with a CGs Yellow and Black MF. I then did a wipedown with Z6. Man the silver was looking really good and I knew it would only get better.
LSP: Well as P1et says it was time to get out the mobile meth lab and make up some ZFX'd Z2 Pro. I applied the Z2 with a blue 4" LC CCS pad on a Polishing Pal. After the first application I did another Z6 wipedown. The 2nd coat always goes on so easy after that Z6 wipedown. After the 2nd coat and just before the owner picked it up I did a Z8 wipedown which really puts it over the top.
The owner was happy and he managed to sneek his Suburban back over here today for a maint. wash. I guess he couldn't stand her car looking better than his, LOL. Well here are the pics:
My favorite shot:
06-22-2008, 09:41 PM
JLs Detailing: Cadillac CTS
I saw what you meant about the tire dressing on the fenders too..it looked like shit. Wifey should be happy now..and now you can get on to doing the rest of his, LOL. 
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). I'll wait and see about durability. You should have tried the ASD. Couple of coats of that and you're good. Although it is solvent based.
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