Smart Passion, Navigator, GS430, Escalade, Supra turbo, 2010 Camaro

Scottwax · 10-29-09, 09:30

2008 Smart Car Passion. Dealer had hacked it up a bit. The driver's side A pillar was pretty bad. Most of the car is plastic panels and unlike the orange one I take care of a couple times a month, this one appears to have the color molded into the panels and not painted. The metal portion of the car (towards the back end and the plastic A pillars polished out pretty easily but not the plastic body panels. Meguiars #105 via rotary or KB method did very little to nothing, to make matters worse, you put any real pressure on the buffer and the panels buckle inward. On the plus side, Meguiars #105 using an orange Soft Edge cutting pad via Meguiars G110 using the KB method did clean up the A pillar nicely, which was by far the most unsightly part. Ended up using Meguiars #205 using a yellow Meguiars polishing pad at 1000-1400 rpms followed by 3M Ultrafina using a blue UF pad at 1000-1800-1000 rpms and waxed with Clearkote's Carnauba Moose.

Scottwax · 10-29-09, 09:39

2003 Lincoln Navigator and 2006 Lexus GS430. Owner calls me out in the fall each year to give each a basic exterior detail. Nothing too fancy, both are used to ferry young kids all over the place. Both were polished with Meguiars D151 Paint Restoration Cream using my Meguiars G110 and a Lake Country white CCS polishing pad. I followed with Optimum Opti-Seal on both and topped the GS430 with Optimum Car Wax. The combination of OS + OCW on the Lexus flat blew my customer away. He couldn't stop commenting on how wet and rich the paint looked. Hopefully that primes him for a more extensive polishing session in the future...

Scottwax · 10-29-09, 09:48

2005 Escalade. This is the one I have a few videos of showing how the polymers in ONR help keep paint beading even in the total absence of wax. The owner finally decided to get it detailed now that it is about 3 years old. Really wasn't too bad, his kids are grown and I wash it about twice a month.

Leather and vinyl cleaned with Woolite/water diluted 20:1, carpets with BioKleen's Traffic Lane Cleaner diluted 32:1. Vinyl dressed with Optimum Protecant Plus, leather with Leather Master's Leather Vital. Wood protected with Opti-Seal.

Like the Navigator above, I used Meguiars D151 and Opti-Seal. Tires and fenderwells dressed with Armor All. Sorry for the lack of pictures but the car is parked under a carport at his office and I didn't have the key available for me to move it around. Can't get very good pictures with part of it in the sun and the rest in the shade.

axel_ny · 10-29-09, 09:55

Looks Good

Scottwax · 10-29-09, 09:58

1996 Toyota Supra Turbo. I was original supposed to detail his Nissan GTR (ended up getting the interior detailed after I finished the Supra plus a ride in it) but he had sold the Supra and wanted it to look nice for the new buyer. Car only has 18,000 miles on it and is lightly modified (for a Supra anyway!) and makes around 550 hp. The car has been sitting outside most of the past year, so a chunk of Optimum Opti-Clay got quite a workout (using ONR as lube). The paint had very minimal to no swirls but I wanted to amp up the gloss as much as possible, so I polished the car with Meguiars #205 using a yellow Meguiars polishing pad and my Dewalt rotary at 1000-1500 rpms. I then switched to my Meguiars G110 RO polisher using the same pad and #205. I then applied a coat of Opti-Seal and followed a while later with Optimum Car Wax. The exhaust was polished with Optimum Metal polish. The engine bay was wiped down using ONR.

tdekany · 10-29-09, 10:01

They all look fantastic Scott!!!!!

Scottwax · 10-29-09, 10:06

2010 Camaro. Had to do this one in a parking garage. Ugly day out (as it has been the last 7-8 weeks now, just won't stop raining here) so this kept the car out of the elements. Overall in really good shape, just two minor areas where it appeared the car got lightly marred or a quick assembly line correction. After an ONR wash and light claying (only real contamination was on the backend and it was pretty mild), I polished the car with my G110 using a yellow Meguiars polishing pad and #205. At the owner's request, I sealed the paint with Opti-Seal. He seemed very impressed with how much improvement even new, nearly defect free paint can show with some polishing and a quality LSP. He and I went over proper washing techniques and towel choice so hopefully the paint won't ever need any major correction. Always nice to have a customer show genuine interest in proper paint care.

The owner also took some pictures, if he sends them to me, I'll add them to the thread.

Just a personal observation. I've heard how big/heavy the new Camaros are. I was glad to see it is noticably smaller than the Challenger.

tdekany · 10-29-09, 10:08

Awesome!!!!

dheath · 10-29-09, 11:53

amazing as always Scottwax.

When you polished the last few cars with only 205 and your G110, did you use the KBM as well?

Pats300zx · 10-30-09, 02:46

Great work as always Scott...

longdx · 10-30-09, 06:05

Geez a Smart car and an Escalade. Talk about the Ying and Yang of automotive detailing.

corrswitch · 10-30-09, 07:45

amazing work. The Smart was especially interesting cuz I thought the defects would be very tricky to remove because it was plastic.

Thanks for sharing the tip