I just finished up the exterior on Odyssey minivan I had this weekend. it's for my neighbor across the street. He's a lawyer, so I'm trading detailing services for legal services. Same guy's Camry that is at the beginning of this thread.
I don't have a whole heck of a lot of pics from this one. It was raining most of the day here in St. Louis, so it spent most of the time in the garage.
Here's a few thoughts on my pre-polish prep routine. As you will see here, the wheels were going to be a major task:
I had just gotten a fresh bottle of P21s Total Auto Wash, and put it to use on these. It's too bad this stuff is so expensive or it would be my normal wheel cleaner. I worked the hell out of the wheels for about an hour at least (and wheel wells). Also, the first time I had to ever break out the power washer on a car:
Just used it for the wheels!
Here is the final result on wheels after cleaning, polsihing with P21s Paint Restorer, and a coat of FMJ:
I know the inside wheels are not completely clean, but that wasn't happening unless I took the rims off and that's not in my arsenal.
I then tackled the engine bay with P21s Total Auto Wash again. I actually almost used a full bottle on this minivan if you can believe that.
Next it was on to washing. I was about ready to go back to P21s car wash, but on the MDX I did a few weeks ago I discovered that Prima Mystique is one heck of a cleaner wash if you add another ounce or 2 than recommended on the directions. It doesn't suds a lot like Adam's or DG 901, but it sure does clean!!! Here's some before and afters of the car just from washing:
After:
Yeah, just washing the car cleaned it up a lot!!! I then clayed with gray clay (professional) from Detailer's Domain. Surfaced felt like desert. Clay took care of that.
So, onto the polishing. When I hit with the halogens, I was surprised to not see any spider webbing or swril marks. I guess if a car never gets washed, then it doesn't have an opportunity to get these defects. I ended up using
Menzerna IP with an orange Erasure 6.5" pad. This is probably my favorite combo as it takes out a lot of defects and leaves the paint LSP at the same time. There was some bird poop etching, minor scratches (and major), and other defects that I faced. This was also my first time using the black 6" bp that Powerhouse sent me. Like I said, not a lot of before and afters on the polishing front, but here's a few more that are a testament to the Flex:
I know they're hard to see here, but these are tree branch scratches that were all along the right side. I was able to remove them by about 85%:
After:
Bird poop etching:
After:
Not sure what those little bluish looking specs are, but they turned out to be nothing.
After IP, I topped off with my favorite sealant, FMJ. I really like this stuff for it's easy on / easy off capability. I was just over at my neighbor's and his Camry is still beading pretty well about a month and a half later with minimal washing. I've been trying to get him on a maintenance program, but it's been tough.
Once again, the Flex came through like a champ for me. Although, I did have a problem with the new black bp. After washing one of my orange pads, I went to spin it dry, and after taking the pad off, the velcro piece came about 90% off. This was kind of disappointing. I put the red one back on, and will be calling Powerhouse tomorrow.
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