This was meant to be a full write up of the recent detail on my Z4M, but due to a memory card fault I'm missing pretty much all of the interim shots showing the difference, so it's mainly just afters, but after all the effort I wanted to show it off a bit...
Detail took place over a number of days fitting in around other jobs and commitments, but was worth the effort in the end.
The car is kept pretty clean and tidy, and regularly waxed, but was in need of de swirling after some dealer inflicted swirls and general wear and tear.
This was how the car looked at the beginning, not bad for a 400 miler a week, but far from perfect:
First up was removal of the wheels to allow cleaning of the arches properly. First sprayed with Megs Super Degreaser cut 4:1, then after being left to soak sprayed with Megs APC cut 6:1:
This was then agitated:
Then rinsed and finally all plastic was dressed with Megs Hyper Dressing (10:1)
Wheels were then cleaned inside and out and sealed with Poorboys Wheel Sealant. No pics of the wheels as they were already well cleaned, and you all know the normal process
Next job was the engine bay. Engine bay was sprayed with Megs APC:
And agitated to remove stubborn areas of dirt, although I regularly keep on top of it so nothing major was needed.
Engine was then rinsed with water from a hand pressure sprayer and wiped down with MF's. Paintwork was polished with Poorboys Blackhole and then seamed with Poorboys EX-P.
Parts of the engine were then taped up for some more attention to the metal work, where they were polished with Autosol metal polish.
Whole car was then foamed with Megs APC:
Then washed with the 2 bucket method and a sheepskin mitt. Car was then clayed all over with Sonus green clay and Megs last touch as a lube.
Now at this point you would expect to see some during shots of the polishing etc, but as I said my memory card failed eating all of my pics
But the process was:
After claying, whole car was inspected with the worst of the swirling being on the back bumper and tailgate, measurements were taken and noted. Car was polished with PC rather than rotary and Lake Country pads.
Initially polishing was started with Menz Final Finish (PO 106 FA) on a light cutting pad, but that was having limited effect so stepped up to Intensive Polish (PO85RD 3.02) on a light cutting pad and eventually a heavy cut pad. This started to cut back sufficiently with Power Gloss only being needed to remove some wet sanding marks on a couple of stone chips. Once sufficient impact had been made on the swirls with the above combo, the whole car was polished again with PO 106FA to remove any previous marks after another foam and rinse.
Finally the car was glazed with Dodo Juice Lime Prime Lite, and then sealed with Dodo Juice Rainforest rub. This sealant was repeated several times over the following few hours. Overall from claying through to sealant took around 17 hours of time all in...
Finally the interior was fully vacuumed and carpets wet vac'd. All surfaces were cleaned with APC (10:1) and left to dry naturally. Meanwhile seats were cleaned with Gliptone Leather Cleaner and the conditioned and left to dry. Finally the dash and plastics were dressed with Poorboys natural look dressing.
So some afters:
Interior:
Exterior:
Engine Bay:
Cheers, now off to try and recover the during shots...
