2009 S5 Revived from a "Detailers" Work...

d00t · #1 (**permalink**) 04-06-2009, 07:14 PM

This one was an absolute PAIN and PLEASURE to work on all at the same time. For the first time ever, both parts of (insert company name--censored for respect to the pro supporters here) were present for a detail! So it was really nice to cut working "time" in half. We still put around 35 hours in to the car, but it was done over the course of 2 days, instead of 3-4.

I'll explain the issues as we go along. But to start off, it was a beautiful two days in Sacramento with the highs being around 68 and breezy! The car is an '09 S5 White/Black interior, on Phantom Black exterior. The Phantom Black reminds me a lot of the BMW Carbon Black, as it has a nice blue metalic flake to it, but the blue isn't as prominent on the S5 as the BMW, very muted, very beautiful

.

On to the write-up!

First off, as usual, was the wheels. They were first rinsed down, filtered with DI water because as some may know, Sac water is EXTREMELY hard. It's like chlorine from a pool

. So the wheels were rinsed, then sprayed with P21s Wheel Gel, while the tires/wheel wells got P21s TAW. Every thing was agitated with a soon-to-be-released Gloss-It Soft tip Wheel Brush, and a boars hair wheel brush, while the tires were agitated with a Meguiars Versa Angle Brush.

The owner has like 5 sets of wheels, and while detailing the car he had Audi RS4 rims on it.

Before:

Once the wheels were done, I moved on to a pre-rinse. It's spring time, and so the bugs in the central valley were out in full swing, with the car showing a lot of reminence of what used to live around here..

The paint was further inspected, and it honestly didn't look TOO bad, but the owner wanted it as close to perfect as possible (within scheduling means) and he wasn't satisfied by the previous attempts.

Some RIDS...

It was really hard to capture, but on the rear C pillar, where it goes in to the rear quarter, there was a LOT of wool pad marring in that area on both sides, and some on the rear bumper.

But other than that, I figured it shouldn't be too hard. Because of the super hard water in Sac, and the fact that my resin cartriges were on their last legs, after foaming the car with a high dilution of Chemical Guys' Citrus Wash & Clear to strip old wax, it was rinsed, pulled in, then ONR'd dry.

The engine bay was fairly clean, just getting a quick degreasing on the stop covers, and then wiped with ONR, and protected with 303 Aerospace Protectant.

After that was complete I assessed the amount of contaminants in the paint. I found only the horizontal panels really needed to be clayed, so the hood, windshield, roof, back glass, and trunk lid were clayed with Riccardo Yellow clay and LUBER as Clay Lube.

Before I started to polish:

Sorry, that's the best pic I got of the marring, on the halogens, and it's out of focus. The halogens and 220lumen LED barely picked up anything, so it was back and forth in and out of the garage after every test combo. And I went through them ALL. KNOWING the KBRM, and KNOWING the Audi Hard clear, I started where everyone would. SIP+3M UK Yellow...

. Then moved on to 3M UK FCP+Orange Uber....

. THEN on to the KBRM with Meg's Yellow so1o wool, and brought it outside.. to NO AVAIL. I was starting to get a little confused.. but knew I had one more chance. I got out the burgundy megs wool and went at it. Here's after just one pass, and finishing down with M205+ LC Flat Black pad on the Flex DA:

As you can see there's a couple fait holograms left over. Why it took SO much to cut, and couldn't finish down was later atributed to the M205+Black pad not having enough cut to get out the wool pad marring, which was solved by switching to the White LC Flat pad. That left the finish near 100% perfect in 3 steps (I ended up doing to passes of M105+Burgundy wool to ensure all RIDS were removed). The only problem was the hood. I couldn't capture them on camera, but there was about 3-4 LONG RIDS that remained after everything, I'm assuming the dealership or the previous detailer installed these by poor wash techniques with a rock or something in the wash mitt.

Here's will working the Flex DA with M205+LC Flat White pad:

And me working the KBRM:

While Will was finishing with the Flex DA, I was moving on to the interior. It was quite soiled, and I had to pay specific attention to the drivers seat, as you'll soon see...

Rear area:

Drivers side:

The carpets were first order of business. I vacuumed them, and then cleaned them using a swissvax leather brush, with CG Citrus pad cleaner (works AMAZING on carpets--learned this straight from Paul @ CG) (afters in a sec).

Then I turned my attention to the leather. The seats are white

. And I was asked to pay a lot of attention to them, do get most, if not all, dye transfer from the jeans. So I went at it with the Leather Masters Strong cleaner first, then Leather Vital, and finished off with protection cream.

(only seat bottom is)

The door jambs were polished with ZAIO, as well as the interior carbon fiber, and the navi screen:

The Interior plastic was cleaned with 1z Cockpick Premium, and followed up with 303 Aerospace Protectant.

Other odds and ends included the exhaust tips which received Mothers Mag&Aluminum Polish:

Left done, right not:

Once Will had finished the final polishing it was pulled outside to get pressure rinsed to get rid of all the dust. This was the condition of the paint PRE-LSP, as I figured we wouldn't have Sun post-LSP (which I was right

).

No unfinished wool-pad marring here:

(excuse the tape residue.. it WAS cleaned off

)

Once it was pulled back inside, it was dried off with the leaf blower, and then blotted dry. The wheels and windshield Will polished with Jeff's Werkstat Prime+Acrylic, and then finally wiped down with Acrylic Glos. The Tires recieved Megs HD 3:1. The weather seals got 1z gummi pfledge.

LSP was Danase Wet Glaze, topped by two coats of Rubbish Boy's Original Edition, and then a final wipedown with Gloss-It Gloss Enhancer.

A slew of afters, including interior and engine bay: