2009 Ferrari Scuderia 16M, lots of webs...

Apollo_Auto · 02-25-09, 02:15

Well it seems that the boys at Ferrari have been shipping out some bad ponies this year, as I see another guy has already detailed one as well (Monaco_Detailer). I got a call last week from the Ferrari/Maserati dealership here in Hungary and I was referred to them by the Ferrari 599 Fiorano customer I had a couple of weeks before. The head salesman informed me that they had an SOS situation with this car so I set up a meeting with him on Friday of last week. Long story short, the meeting went well and they were very interested in having me do their "after service clean ups" and "winter/summer" packages. Then I went with the salesman, Gábor, to inspect the car... if I can sum up the condition of this car in one word, I would definitely have to say it would be "absurd". Here's some of the before pictures:

Day 1

The carbon fiber door panels were in bad shape, as well.

Clear coat... EPIC FAIL. With a little buffer burn (scrape?) to boot.

All taped up and ready to go... Anyone wanna trade some product for some 3M blue tape??? Can't get it here in Hungary

!!!

Now mind you, this car only has 47 test kilometers on the clock... After speaking with the salesman and the owner of the dealership I got some interesting information about how Ferraris are, eherm, dealt with. For some reason, they polish each car after it's been painted, and as you can see they do a very poor job of it. Nobody knows why they do it, they just do it. Also, I was informed that after the car has been assembled and they take it for a few laps around the track to test the engine, then they run it through their little car wash that's on site... you can see what kind of car wash it is by looking at what the horse has in it's mouth in the next picture...

Apollo_Auto · 02-25-09, 02:16

I scanned the entire vehicle several times to pinpoint the RIDS because I didn't want to do a drive-by on the whole car with a wool pad and just take out all the innocent bystanders (the good paint, though not much) at the same time. So after I marked all the deep scratches I polished them out with a 4" wool pad and InstaFinish Insta Cut #0 (cut 5 of 5). Then after testing several pad and polish combinations, decided to go with InstaFinish Insta Cut #15 (cut 3 of 5) and a Riwax cutting pad for the majority of the correction. There were also places that I could polish out the scratches with a polishing pad and Insta Cut #15 so this whole process was really accessed by each panel. This was the result of #15 and a cutting pad. As for the RPM's and pressure I used, I'll explain that later.

Scratched bonnet...

Not so scratched now, but a good deal of micro-marring which can only be seen by a LED lamp and a detailer's eye...

A part that could be polished with #15 and a polishing pad... much clearer than with the cutting pad!

With the "All-seeing light of truth" (strong LED lamp)

Up close and personal...

What a treat it was to have a lift to work with!! No more twisty Kama Sutra positions!

G'nite little pony!

Day 2

Ready to tackle the really bad parts... the engine lid was really bad. I didn't get very good pictures of it, but it almost looked like someone had deliberately scratched the car...

I had to address some nasty water spots on the car before I started polishing because, well, mineral deposits and paint don't mix well

. I sprayed them with my "interior" mix of APC (1:10) and let it sit for about 1 minute and then cleaned it off with a MF. They weren't old deposits so they came off almost effortlessly.

Looks like the painters forgot something??

Me with my Splinter Cell head lamp

This may look corny, but it's VERY handy; saves a lot of chicken-necking!

Protecting the body in the tight areas... these were a PITA to polish!

Apollo_Auto · 02-25-09, 02:17

Now, I'm fairly new to ceramic finishes, because they just didn't exist when I started detailing 18 years ago and they're relatively new anyway. This Ferrari finish was very hard. When I finished with the cutting pad and #15, I went to a polishing pad and #15, but there was still micro-marring. During the test stage of this job I used the Zenith technique to polish, which is now common practice for me... or was at least (further testing will prove). When I sped up to 1500-1800 RMP I realized that no matter what stage I was in, it left micro-marring. After a pad/polish set (switching pads/polishes to last phase) I stopped and went down to the Chinese restaurant and had a heaping helping of szechuan chicken and contemplated the theory of polishing. I even called Bence, my detailing dictionary

, for his advice on this, but our thoughts were relatively the same.

Now, all of the polishes that I use are diminishing so maybe this method won't work with every polish, but it surely worked fabulously for me. Taking into consideration the concept of a polish flashing/breaking down, which entails pressure and heat, I thought, "Why do I need to speed up to such high RPM's (1500-2000) to achieve this?" Friction heat can be produced with slow motion and the right amount of pressure as well... and with the right pad (PPI).

So I went back and tried my theory of polishing slowly with slow passes (maybe some of you also so this but it was new for me). I spread the polish at 600 and then went up to 900, passing at about 1-1.5 inches per second and applied about 30 pounds of pressure. Then after a few passes I eased up on the pressure to about 15 pounds and continued with the same passing motion. After seeing that the polish had flashed, I slowed down to 600 and finished up. Like I said before, it worked wonderfully and I felt much more in control of the Maki at these speeds than at the conventional 1200-2000 speeds. I just felt that with the Zenith method, I was marring the paint too much with that sporadic conglomeration of polish catching. If you haven't used this method I urge you to try it and give me your feedback. On a ceramic finish it worked outstanding, but I don't know about other soft finishes; I'll have to test it more. Here's the results of a finishing pad and Insta Cut #15 (cut 3 of 5)...

All lubed up with Swissvax Concorso... I went for the "wow" effect for this one and did a hand job

I cleaned under the bonnet with Dodo Juice Lime Prime to remove the water spots and "inconsistent" shine.

Scratches out of the doors with PoliSeal and a 4" finishing pad (as per Bence's advice, thanks buddy it came out well! :thumb

Like I said, only 47 Km on the clock...

The engine bay all cleaned up...

Here's some afters!

Apollo_Auto · 02-25-09, 02:19

BTW, I'll be honest with all of you and let you know that I was more nervous as a fat girl on prom night with this detail. I wasn't nervous just because of the fact that it was an extremely expensive and erotic sports car, and that someone had entrusted ME to bring it back to showroom quality (the soon-to-be owner is a collector and he's very anal). It was the thought that this was in fact a job interview for me. The owner's son and I had a chat before any of this took place. He was interested in having me do all of the "after service" cleanings, as well as "after sales" cleanings of the cars that they sell. Not only that, but the owner (Italian guy) and I had a nice conversation about my business after the 3-day job was complete and he used the words passion and artist during our conversation. How did the job interview go, you ask? Well, I assume they liked my work

Coming soon...

Thanks for reading and I hope you've enjoyed it as much s I did!

- Jesse

slicknickis3 · 02-25-09, 02:29

Fantastic work!! And I thought the Scuderia I detailed was rare!! A 16M Spider, wow!

Have fun with the 599, can't wait to see those pics! Sounds like there will be more exotics coming as well, great job.

Hemin8r · 02-25-09, 02:35

Beautiful car. You brought that pony back to life! Great job.

Apollo_Auto · 02-25-09, 02:36

Quote:

Originally Posted by slicknickis3

Fantastic work!! And I thought the Scuderia I detailed was rare!! A 16M Spider, wow!

Have fun with the 599, can't wait to see those pics! Sounds like there will be more exotics coming as well, great job.

Thanks buddy! I hope there's more to come, too!

gmblack3a · 02-25-09, 03:04

Excellent work on the red horse.

bufferbarry · 02-25-09, 03:34

will work for wax? how about will work to prove your a very top notch detailer!!!!!! jesse another outstanding detail from you as exspected! how well does the light work on top of your mellon? great job!

Moedizzle · 02-25-09, 03:37

Great work and congrats on the new job you just landed.

shine · 02-25-09, 03:38

Great job! It's too bad they have to mess them up from the factory.

TH0001 · 02-25-09, 04:01

SWEET!!! I have only seen one of these in person and it was at Cavallino as a preproduction.

Great work!!

In regards to polishing with pressure, I always use atleast 10 lbs of pressure (guessing) for the first several passes, sometimes much more (probably close to 30 as you mentioned) as pressure with a foam pad can have HUGE effect on how the polish reacts.

Great work dude, top of the line, and congrats on such an amazing machine!