740, Saleen, Passat

[Scottwax]

2001 BMW 740. Wish all full details could be this easy! The car was in excellent shape both inside and out so it wasn't too hard to take it to the next level. The owner of the car got my name from a friend about 3 years ago and just now got around to calling me.

Before:





This was as bad as any area of the interior...





ONR wash, spot claying (mostly the back bumper and horizontal surfaces), Optimum Poli-Seal using a blue Swirl buster pad at 1000 rpm, buffed off with Optimum Car Wax. Carpets cleaned with BioKleen's Traffic Lane Cleaner, leather/vinyl with 10:1 water/Woolite mix, vinyl dressed with Optimum Protectant Plus and leather with Meguiars Gold Class for Leather (best smelling OTC leather conditioner, IMO).

Mostly cloudy out, got a few sun pics-hard to do though, it was popping out for 20-30 seconds at a time.

[Scottwax]

2002 Ford Mustang Saleen. Detailed it about a year ago, a few months later, the owner was involved in an accident. The car took a long time to finish, the hood and bumper aren't easy to get. Anyway, it had been about 3-4 months since he got it back and wax time for wax...and to polish out the hood after the body shop molested it after doing a pretty good job on the actual painting and wetsanding. All that good work undone by whoever buffed it. You know it is bad when you can capture it on white paint in the full sun!







It took anywhere from 2-4 polishing sessions with Meguiars #105 and an American Buffing white foamed wool pad @ 1000-1200 for each section of the hood (divided into 4 sections) to remove the defects, while leaving behind minimal holograms.











I then followed with Optimum Compound using a Meguiars foam polishing pad @ 1200 rpm, finishing at around 1000 rpm:







...then 3M Ultrafina using the blue Ultrafina pad at 1000-1800-1000 rpm.







The rest of the car responded well to the OC/UF polishing steps but I had to mix in some #105 with OC on the trunk lid:

[Scottwax]

I took this sun shot prior to topping with Clearkote's Carnauba Moose because by the time I waxed it, I wasn't sure if I'd have much sun left. As you can see, you get a lot of shine and gloss from just polishing.



Finished shots:

[Scottwax]

2003 Volkswagen Passet. Polished it out in mid December on a cloudy, cold day. The car had some tough rotary swirls (body shop) and some equally tough spider swirls. The sun was supposed to come out, so I didn't bring any lights with me. Big mistake. I'd only been using the rotary a few weeks and only had an LED flashlight to check my work. Plus, I hadn't yet added 3M Ultrafina to my arsenal. I had missed some of the body shop swirls and/or put in a few of my own I didn't remove. The owner of the car has some washing issues as well (which we discussed-mostly running towels over dry paint, rubbing dry paint with dry towels to remove water sports, etc) so there was some spider swirling too.

The car sits out 24/7, we got a lot of rain this winter as well but Clearkote's Carnauba Moose held up very well. No ONR helping it either, he washes the car at the local coin-op, using his own car wash soap. At just past the 3 month point (I did the car again in late March), the paint still looked deep and wet and by the water/pollen spots from the rain the day before, it was obviously beading nicely too. Here it is, just after washing:





Up close though...





After using Meguiars #83 with a Meguiars foam polishing pad at 1400 rpm, finishing at 1000 rpm on the middle section of the hood:





After polishing the other side, I noticed some very minute holograms had shown up as the oils in #83 evaporated on the black paint in upper 70's temperatures.

I went over the hood with 3M Ultrafina and the blue UF pad at 1000-1800-1000 rpms. You can see some streaking from wiping it off in the first picture, but after doing the whole car after finishing the hood, the streaks disappeared as the oils evaporated but the hood remained hologram free...and this was a good 2 hours later (which negated any chance of matching after shots, the sun's angle changed so much!), while minor holograms showed up within 5 minutes with #83.





Real hard to capture swirls with the angle of sun but I think you can see them in this before and after (after being #83):





Both I and the owner were very pleased with the performance of CMW over the winter months, so I used it again to finish out the car.

[BigAl3]

very nice...

[Shuskan3]

Great work as always...

Looks as if you now have the rotary down pretty good!!!

[TH0001]

As always great work Scott!!!

[Clean Dean]

Nice work Scott !!! That Saleen looks incredible !!!

[Stephenwz968]

Nice work Scott! I know that paint on my Passat can be finicky depending on the polish/pad combo, and it looks like you really nailed it on the black! Looks awesome...

Steve

[mshu7]

Great work Scott!

[VTechFan02]

Very nice Scott. That Saleen looks amazing considering it's white!

-Frank

[bigfish528]

great job Scott; really like the Saleen and the BMW looks brand new