Its been a while!Quick detailing session on a Subaru Impreza
Discussion
Well its been a while since the last detailing session, due to several changes at work my actual working hours are much more than 6 months ago hence little spare time has been available but it was good to get back onto doing another car.
I was approached by a friend of the owner of this car asking for a general detailing session as opposed to a full out and out paint correction, aim was simply to improve the appearance and get it looking a bit more fresh. Unusually and again due to lack of time this job was taken on without prior viewing of the car.
Car itself is a bit of a rarity out here and its certainly a long time since ive been up close to a Scooby so to speak. This particular vehicle appears to have a bit of a following as a project car in these parts and is certainly very far from stock, im not familiar with the exact modifications so I wont comment on what im unsure of but the words Cosworth, Titanium and coilovers all got briefly mentioned so some serious toys have been added.
Owners permission has been given to not blank out the plates.
Car itself of course in the traditional Subaru Blue, as with most Japanese cars the paint is both thin and relatively soft, being blue also doesn't help as blue's are typically the softer of the colours also,
Alloys not standard but in good condition, not sure if they have recently been added to the car,
Interior also in good overall condition, just needed a quick clean,
Exhausts certainly looking as though they are being used correctly:
Now the downsides to this soft blue paint are clear to see from the dreaded swirl marks:
The car also had a number of random deep scratches dotted around the paintwork, some worse than others and some not possible to picture but as an example:
A couple of other minor things to take care of also during the session, patch of sticky on the tailgate for example:
Onto the cleaning and preparation..............
Alloys to start with as always, firstly soaked in a non acidic cleaning solution, allowed to soak in for a short time then worked into the wheels using a safe non scratch brush:
Calipers also get the same treatment, now as nice as these wheels are they are very difficult to work with as in from behind the face of the wheel itself, my knuckles despite wearing gloves will take a while to re grow the missing skin ive lost!
As they wheels seemed in good condition anyways I still decided to do an metal fallout remover on them to see how much was left to remove after the initial cleaning, plus everyone loves the bleeding wheels pictures,
Again worked into the surface,
Before actually washing the car the exhausts and under sills where also cleaned using similar methods to the wheels, as these areas are normally heavily gritted up or covered in carbon build up I much prefer to clean these properly before actually getting onto the paintwork, despite using the two bucket method for cleaning its still best to prevent as best as possible the grit getting onto the paint,
Car now moved into a shaded area for the washing of the car itself,
Starting off with the snow foam to remove hopefully as much of the surface dirt as possible,
After this stage was done the surface of the vehicle still retained an element of roughness to it however it was much less than expected, the car must have had some polishing work done in the not too distant past, however this roughness needed to be removed before polishing can commence. I will confess to having my heavy and medium clays ready for this job but neither was particularly needed, as always take the least aggressive path as possible for the paint so a mild clay pad was in order. Of course being well lubricated and taking care as going,
Its unfortunate that it doesn't show in the pictures but as you go over a panel you can see the colour of the water on the surface change from clear to a light brown as the clay drags the surface contaminants from the paint,
After claying car was re-washed using a citrus based shampoo and then ready to be dried,
After the washing it normally brings more to the attention a few other areas which did not stand out as much previously, example of another random deep scratch,
Now the next stage, polishing............
Having brought several combinations of pads and compounds with me these were laid out ready to start, as an example,
specific areas are masked off using a low tack masking tape and an area of the bonnet sectioned off to try different pad/polish compounds,
Now unusually and quite luckily the first pad/polish combination I used brought out very clear and easy to achieve results,
I then tried a slightly different grade of compound and a milder pad, again as always go the least aggressive as possible but the results clearly would not happen with this combination,
I continued over the remainder of the car using the initial pad/compound combination I tried,
Each section was buffed off by hand using soft buffing cloths and then each panel checked using an IPA (alcohol) wipe down to check results.
After the IPA wipe down a few RDS (random deep scratches) remained and each of these I re-visited using a more aggressive pad/compound, not all would come out of the paint and as the paint is relatively soft going any harder was not for todays session.
Now to the finished job:
Exhausts looking much more like titanium:
Alloys all clean and tyres dressed:
Paint minus 95% of the swirls, its not perfect but its vastly better than before starting:
Thanks for looking.
I was approached by a friend of the owner of this car asking for a general detailing session as opposed to a full out and out paint correction, aim was simply to improve the appearance and get it looking a bit more fresh. Unusually and again due to lack of time this job was taken on without prior viewing of the car.
Car itself is a bit of a rarity out here and its certainly a long time since ive been up close to a Scooby so to speak. This particular vehicle appears to have a bit of a following as a project car in these parts and is certainly very far from stock, im not familiar with the exact modifications so I wont comment on what im unsure of but the words Cosworth, Titanium and coilovers all got briefly mentioned so some serious toys have been added.
Owners permission has been given to not blank out the plates.
Car itself of course in the traditional Subaru Blue, as with most Japanese cars the paint is both thin and relatively soft, being blue also doesn't help as blue's are typically the softer of the colours also,
Alloys not standard but in good condition, not sure if they have recently been added to the car,
Interior also in good overall condition, just needed a quick clean,
Exhausts certainly looking as though they are being used correctly:
Now the downsides to this soft blue paint are clear to see from the dreaded swirl marks:
The car also had a number of random deep scratches dotted around the paintwork, some worse than others and some not possible to picture but as an example:
A couple of other minor things to take care of also during the session, patch of sticky on the tailgate for example:
Onto the cleaning and preparation..............
Alloys to start with as always, firstly soaked in a non acidic cleaning solution, allowed to soak in for a short time then worked into the wheels using a safe non scratch brush:
Calipers also get the same treatment, now as nice as these wheels are they are very difficult to work with as in from behind the face of the wheel itself, my knuckles despite wearing gloves will take a while to re grow the missing skin ive lost!
As they wheels seemed in good condition anyways I still decided to do an metal fallout remover on them to see how much was left to remove after the initial cleaning, plus everyone loves the bleeding wheels pictures,
Again worked into the surface,
Before actually washing the car the exhausts and under sills where also cleaned using similar methods to the wheels, as these areas are normally heavily gritted up or covered in carbon build up I much prefer to clean these properly before actually getting onto the paintwork, despite using the two bucket method for cleaning its still best to prevent as best as possible the grit getting onto the paint,
Car now moved into a shaded area for the washing of the car itself,
Starting off with the snow foam to remove hopefully as much of the surface dirt as possible,
After this stage was done the surface of the vehicle still retained an element of roughness to it however it was much less than expected, the car must have had some polishing work done in the not too distant past, however this roughness needed to be removed before polishing can commence. I will confess to having my heavy and medium clays ready for this job but neither was particularly needed, as always take the least aggressive path as possible for the paint so a mild clay pad was in order. Of course being well lubricated and taking care as going,
Its unfortunate that it doesn't show in the pictures but as you go over a panel you can see the colour of the water on the surface change from clear to a light brown as the clay drags the surface contaminants from the paint,
After claying car was re-washed using a citrus based shampoo and then ready to be dried,
After the washing it normally brings more to the attention a few other areas which did not stand out as much previously, example of another random deep scratch,
Now the next stage, polishing............
Having brought several combinations of pads and compounds with me these were laid out ready to start, as an example,
specific areas are masked off using a low tack masking tape and an area of the bonnet sectioned off to try different pad/polish compounds,
Now unusually and quite luckily the first pad/polish combination I used brought out very clear and easy to achieve results,
I then tried a slightly different grade of compound and a milder pad, again as always go the least aggressive as possible but the results clearly would not happen with this combination,
I continued over the remainder of the car using the initial pad/compound combination I tried,
Each section was buffed off by hand using soft buffing cloths and then each panel checked using an IPA (alcohol) wipe down to check results.
After the IPA wipe down a few RDS (random deep scratches) remained and each of these I re-visited using a more aggressive pad/compound, not all would come out of the paint and as the paint is relatively soft going any harder was not for todays session.
Now to the finished job:
Exhausts looking much more like titanium:
Alloys all clean and tyres dressed:
Paint minus 95% of the swirls, its not perfect but its vastly better than before starting:
Thanks for looking.
Edited by After_Shock on Tuesday 23 February 04:48
XB70 said:
Looks great!
Do you pick up your cleaning products here in the UAE or import from the UK?
Cheers
Some bits an pieces I get in the UAE as its difficult to ship in liquids from many couriers, however a lot of general items like buffing cloths etc are actually cheaper to get shipped than purchase here.Do you pick up your cleaning products here in the UAE or import from the UK?
Cheers
Alternatively if have people travelling in normally drop the odd one or two items into the luggage they have to keep me topped up!
velocitas said:
Mate, I was just thinking about calling you the other day. My car has been laid up since Christmas due to work travel and is starting to look a bit shabby.
What's your thoughts on wraps? A good quality 3M one rather than trying to revive the paint?
Some of the wraps are very impressive but also the cost takes this into account, of course remember once the wrap is removed the paint will be the same as before you started.What's your thoughts on wraps? A good quality 3M one rather than trying to revive the paint?
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