This detail was done for the dealership I detail for. This is the first Elise I have ever detailed.
The car is tiny, so I thought it would be a piece of cake to detail. That was not the case. I spent about 12 hours of polishing which was done in between other details over a 3 day period. The car has less than 3K miles, but you would have never guessed it due to the horrible condition of the exterior. It had major swirls, buffer trails, holograms, etc... I was lucky there were not too many deep scratches except for the top surfaces of the removeable hardtop, which I corrected about 90%. I spent a good amount of time on the paint correction and was told not to bother wetsanding the roof because it looked fine. It also had Star Shield (3m protection film) all over the car, which really made it even more difficult.
My Process:
~Washed, cleaned wheels & tires
~Clayed w/Kar Kraft Purple Clay & rewashed
~Compounded heavy scratches with Power Gloss using a yellow wool Edge pad @1600 - 1800 rpm
~Compounded complete exterior with Optimum Hyper Compound using a foam cutting pad @ 1600 rpm.
~Buffed complete exterior with
Intensive Polish using a foam light cutting pad @1600 rpm
~Buffed complete exterior with
Final Polish II using a foam finishing pad @1400 rpm
~Applied 2 coats of Z5 pro
~Applied 1 coat of Z2 pro
~Clear Seal wipe down
~Z8 wipe down
~Super Blue dressing on the tires & wheel wells
~ZAIO to all exterior glass and wheels (wheels were topped with CS)
~Hi-Lite dressing for exterior plastic pieces
Here are the before pics:
Linear Mode
