Next up is the exterior.
The Z06 puts out a lot of brake dust in a short period of time, but fortunately the newer style of wheels allow for easier cleaning.
Exhaust tips weren’t bad…a quick cleanup and polish will get these into shape.
The wheels were cleaned with P21S Wheel Gel, and the tires and wheel wells were cleaned with P21S Total Auto Wash.
I’ve found yet another area that the new Mini E-Z Detail brush is perfect for:
As always, I start the exterior off with a foam bath of Chemical Guys Citrus Wash & Clear at paint prep ratio to strip off waxes or sealants. The owner said that he hadn’t waxed it, but I thought there was a good chance that the dealer had applied something before it was delivered.
I then pulled the car in and clayed with Chemical Guys clay, and found the surface to be pretty clean. Once claying was complete, I dried it off and proceeded with my paint inspection.
Remember when I said that I thought the dealer may have applied something to the surface? Unfortunately I was correct, and what they applied was a filling glaze to hide what they had done to the car. It’s yet another example of (most) dealers having no clue about proper polishing techniques with a rotary polisher. This is a real shame.
Here’s a close up of the hood. It looked like this on all of the horizontal surfaces.
The original plan of attack on this car was a simple, one-step polish just to make the car look better, and to add some protection. Since he is ready to start going to autocrosses, he didn’t want the car to be “perfect”.
Those familiar with the clear coat on the Corvette know that it is granite-hard and seeing damage like this they would realize that a simple one-step polish wouldn’t accomplish much. I knew that I needed to break out the heavy artillery on this car, which completely threw out the original plan. I guess my original plan for 10 hours or less was just thrown out the window!
The best plan of attack is always to start with the least aggressive method to preserve clear coat and then work your way up as needed.
I started out with my Makita rotary, white LC pad, and
Menzerna 106 polish. I worked on a test section on the hood, and when I was done and wiped it down I thought I was seeing things. It appeared that the swirls and holograms were gone. I wiped the section down with straight isopropyl alcohol no less than 3 times to make sure that it wasn’t filling. After the wipe downs, it still looked clean. I continued to work the rest of the hood and the LF fender with this same combination, did many alcohol wipe downs and inspections, and found the surface to be corrected…with 106 and a white pad. To have this level of correction on a Corvette with such a light combination is what we in the detailing business call rare!
In this photo, you can see that the left side of the hood (top of the photo) is corrected, where you can still see the holograms in the un-corrected side on the right.
And now after only a few minutes the hood is corrected. The area below the tape line is clear bra.
So the determination is that the clear coat on this Z06 is soft…really soft. I know that the ’09 ZR1 Vette comes with soft paint, and this ’08 was made right at the end of that production cycle in July of ’08. Perhaps they finished off the ’08 with the same paint as they would be using in the ’09 ZR1 (at least that’s my theory).
Needless to say, I was really happy at this point because I realized I wasn’t in for a marathon session. Whew! This was a prime example of why you start with the least aggressive method for the job…because no matter how many of a particular car you may work on, you never know when one is going to throw you a curve ball.
With my new discovery of the soft Z06 paint, I quickly made my way around the car with 106/white combo.
Here you can see that I’ve already finished up the hood…hence the great reflection.
Linear Mode
