Wash
- Heavily soiled areas as shown above were presoaked with P21S TAW. My first time using this product and definitely not my last. It has great workability, lubricity and of course, cleaning power. TAW was left to dwell for approximately 5 minutes before being lightly agitated with a Zymol Wheel Brush (brand new, and started falling apart 5 uses later) and rinsed off.
- Following this, the entire vehicle was thoroughly washed with
CWG Paint Cleanser using the double-bucket method & sheepskin wool mitts to ensure no further marring would be instilled into the paintwork.
- Car was sheet-dried, and blotted with WW MFs to ensure all areas were dried out.
Wheels & Tires
The wheels and tires were in good condition, just soiled from daily driving. Cleaning was a breeze, except for the dealer-instilled slimy tire dressing.
- Rims cleaned with
Grime Reaper @ 8:1 using various brushes to ensure all areas of the rim were cleaned, including behind the spokes
- Tires cleaned with
Grime Reaper @ 4:1. Tires received 3 thorough scrubbings before the dressing was gone.
- Rims dried with WW MFs.
Some before pics of the rims. I do not have afters of all the rims unfortunately. Note the plastic left behind by the dealership prep.
Before:
After:
Post-wash inspection
The pics below give a good indication as to how the car was delivered to the client. I myself would not have been happy at all. It just goes to show that even new cars need a lot of attention (as indicated in the recent thread where Todd detailed that black GTR).
The first picture was taken with the wrong focus mode, but it highlighted some of the defects quite clearly.
On to the contamination, which was quite honestly everywhere on the car. The worst areas were on the mirrors, and the rear hatch area. I had every expectation of this given the colour and that every new vehicle usually has some level of contamination. This should be reason enough for new car buyers to have their car professionally detailed, as a dealership prep won’t even come close to addressing these issues.
Following the post-wash inspection, I proceeded to clay the paintwork using Riccardo Clay and ONR lube. The tougher rust spots I misted the area with water, then sprayed P21S TAW, and clayed. This made quick work of the contamination and left zero marring behind. The areas that received TAW were thoroughly rinsed down and dried with WW MFs before being pulled into the garage to prepare for polishing.
Paintwork
This detail was composed of a 1-step polish. Since the defect level was moderate and the paint needed some gloss, I thought SIP on a white pad would be perfect for this relatively soft paint. SIP’s finishing characteristics made it a favourable choice as it also corrects very well.
-
LC CCS and Flat white pads on rotary @ 1800-1600-1400-1000rpm.
A couple of shots of me polishing the hood.
While polishing, I was noticing a very significant improvement in gloss. I tried to capture it in this shot, but it was very hard. This is the best I could get. Left side is done, right side is not:
Make It Shine: 5 coats of Opti-Seal on CWP Mazdaspeed3 = WET! 
Makes me wanna go out to my car and try OOS
Linear Mode
