330ci, Escalade, Charger

[Scottwax]

2006 BMW 330ci, the last of the un-Bangled 3's. Regular customer, hit it with Prime and Acrylic Jett when it was about a week old in December. I've been washing it once or twice a month since, used Zaino Z8 after a couple of the washes. Still pretty slick and looked great. Just added another coat of Acrylic Jett.









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2006 Dodge Charger. I used to wash this one regularly when he and his wife were still married. He is now out chasing girls half his age so I only clean his car every month or two. He just wanted the interior detailed and the car waxed this time. Both he and I were pretty limited on time today so after detailing the interior (really wasn't bad-no pics, the bright sun was casting all sorts of shadows on the interior, that tends to ruin pictures), I just put on a couple coats of Optimum Car Wax.

The car really does need some polishing as you can see by this shot:



Not horrible but you can see some light swirling in the paint. Besides the time factor, the other reason I didn't polish the car is because he had the hood repainted and the body shop left a bunch of holograms in the hood. He is going to take it back and tell them they need to remove them (I told him to tell them not to just use a glaze to fill them in but to properly polish them out) or reimburse him for me to remove them. If they can't handle it, I know I can. I'll make sure to get some real good before shots too.

Anyway, a few more pics. As usual, the bright sun throws off the exposure, even using matrix light metering. I was very pleased, however, with how rich and wet looking OCW left the paint. Not bad for two trips around the car with a spray wax and 15 minutes of time!

[Scottwax]

2005 Cadillac Escalade. Just under 10,000 miles, filled with debris, mostly those Goldfish crackers. No major stains though. Leather was somewhat dirty too. Cleaned with Woolite/water mixture, dress the vinyl with Meguiars Interior QD and the leather with Leather Master's Leather Protection Creme. Really does a great job on the leather, leaves it real soft. Smell isn't great though, kind of chemical smelling. Disapates quickly though, the Escalade smelled like an Escalade when I finished. Werkstatt's Prime on the wood.

Flash washed out the light colored leather, so here are the no flash pics:





Fenderwells need love too, gave them plenty.

Armor All on tires and fenderwells, Prime on the chrome wheels.





The paint was in excellent condition, just some minor tar along the bottom of the rear fenders that came off when washing. Use Prime with a blue Propel pad and Acrylic Jett by hand. I'm kind of disappointed how the pics turned out, the paint looks super clear and wet in person. Finishing so close to sundown probably doesn't help. Anyway....

[O4cobra]

Very nice Scott...

In your experience, will Prime remove hazing from compunding the paint?

Thanks

[Scottwax]

Originally Posted by O4cobra

Very nice Scott...

In your experience, will Prime remove hazing from compunding the paint?

Thanks

Never tried using it for that purpose.

[1 Clean WS6]

Looks great Scott!! The BMW is just beautiful.

[tomee]

love your work scott

[UnsanePyro]

Armor All on tires and fenderwells

The Armor All doesn't sling? Or do you go back over and buff off the excess with a towel?

[Joshua312]

Im guessing this is the Pearl White Escalade you referred to in my thread...and it does look amazing! It really does finish off the car nicely when you have such blacked-out wheel wells and properly dressed trim. Love to look at your click and brag - It's where I pick up a lot of tips...So thank you!

[tumbler]

z8 over AJ ? Hmmmm ? gonna definitely give that a whirl.. now that's some innovation !!

[RAG]

I like the metallic on that Charger...really is about 1/2 as sensative as solid black...but is pretty close in looks, IMO.

I love the Escalade...just don't care much for detailing them. I've done a couple black ones...and the orange peel is horrendous on them...so they never look "good." I almost bought a black one for my wife...and I can guarentee I would have knocked the edge off that orange peel with some 3000 grit...even if it would shorten the lifespan on the clear...I just couldn't live with it.

[Scottwax]

Originally Posted by UnsanePyro

The Armor All doesn't sling? Or do you go back over and buff off the excess with a towel?

I apply it with an applicator and early in the detail. Since I use ONR to wash cars, I do the wheels and fenderwells first, then dress them. That way, any overspray is removed when washing the rest of the vehicle and the dressing on the tires has a few hours to dry during the rest of the detail.

RAG-that Charger has a really good factory paint job. As you can tell by the sharpness of the reflections, the orange peel is minimal. I can hardly wait to cut loose on it and polish it out properly. Probably stick with OCW x 2 for the LSP as it looks absolutely killer on that car. I need to find a way for my camera to not overexpose the sunlit areas when shooting dark cars in the sun, been playing with exposure settings for a long time and haven't come up with a solution. The car looks better in person.

Most of the Escalades I have done do have moderate orange peel, real shame. They are otherwise really nice SUVs.

Joshua-I pick up a lot of tips in this forum too!

[metal]

Do a double exposure. Meter so that the high light areas are exposed correctly, then take a photo, then take another photo and expose for the rest of the car, then combine the two images and mask the affected areas in photoshop so you have a completely properly exposed pic!