This weekend’s job was a full exterior detail and interior valet on a mk4 R32 – been looking forward to this one as I’ve got a soft spot for R32’s! Unfortunately I hadn’t been able to inspect the car before the detail, so it was a bit of an unknown quantity paint wise.
On arrival the car was covered in a layer of good honest honest dirt – it’s driven daily and the weather had been utterly rubbish so this was to be expected!
Initial inspection of the paint showed some heavy swirling from the previous owner’s wash routine, but nothing too nasty. Yet!
The car was booked in at the garage for discs and pads, so while this meant the rear wheels were off and easy to clean, it also meant I was pushed for time, so I cracked on with the washing and claying and didn’t get any pics.
Wheels were cleaned with meg’s WB cut 4:1 and Vikan brushes
Arches and lower panels sprayed with Megs Safe Degreaser and left to dwell, inner arches then scrubbed with Vikan brushes.
Whole car foamed with Super Snow Foam/TFR/megs shampoo+ mix via the gilmour
Car washed with Sonus wool mitt, 2 buckets and grit guards with Megs shampoo+
All shuts washed with dgreaser and an MF mitt
Whole car clayed with Sonus green clay
Car rinsed down then dried with Last Touch and a Sonus Der Wunder towel.
With the car clean the defects were clearly visible, with the aforementioned swirling on all panels. However, the bonnet and roof had clearly been machined previously – by the look of it by Stevie Wonder using a brillo pad on a Halfords polisher - nice work!
The finish looked like a chalkboard with some added holograms:
So, down to the real work of the day – polishing. I went in fairly aggressively using the PC, with my favourite VAG paint combo of Menz IP 3.02 and a Menz cutting pad. This worked well on the sun-warmed panels, but still didn’t have enough clout to hit the deeper marks, so I added a little Menz Power Gloss to the pad for extra cut, followed by a small amount of Menz Final Finish to provide extra finishing power to reduce the chance of any marring. This worked well reaching the deeper swirling and left a nice sharp finish.
Some 505/50 shots show you the depth, reflectivity and flake ping that the swirls were masking, really robbing the paint of its beauty.
And after about 2 hours the bonnet was finally sorted:
Before (shocker!)
After
The wings also came up well and showed the wet, reflective finish the car was taking on:
Sun fading, 70% polishing done, just the passenger doors to do:
Finished the polishing stage at 10PM, time to call it a night! Couldn’t resist a cheeky reflection shot of a rubbish old MK2 GTI that was parked in the vicinity
Day2 and again no time for photos as I had to wax the car, valet the interior and apply some finishing touches whilst dodging the rain!
Exterior had a thorough Last Touch wipedown, 2x coats of ***** Carbon, then a final wipe over.
Tyres had PB bold and bright, exhaust tips polished with NXT and 00 gauge wire wool, glass cleaned with
AG fast glass, arches dressed with
AG super sheen.
Interior had a thorough hoover out, meguiars APC on all trim followed by PB Natural Look, and the lovely leather Konig buckets were given a dose of Meguiars Gold Class leather care.
Some finished shots – unfortunately the dodgy weather meant the photos aren’t great, but it still looked good in the murky daylight!
Overall a detail I really enjoyed, especially bringing some life back to the bonnet.