2016 Subaru WRX - CQuartz Finest Service

[KMG]

The owner of this vehicle contacted me while looking for a better way to protect his vehicle. As most people know owning a black vehicle can be a full time job, and the ease of maintenance was the biggest selling point of a paint coating for the owner. The car received a thorough paint correction as the paint was not near the condition one would expect a 2016 to be in. Once restored to a respectable level the exterior was coated with CQuartz Finest, along with a wheels off service and coating on the faces and barrels of the wheels. Once the exterior was finished the interior received a cleaning and CQuartz Leather was applied to the seats and arm rests to keep this car looking great inside and outside for years to come.

Before Photos


Photo of the car just after being dropped off.


Before photo of the car from another angle.


The dealership clearly did a number on the driver side of the car with a rotary above the door handle.


Swirling and light scratches on the driver side rear quarter.


Before photo of the hood and grill with quite a bit of bugs as is common this time of year, along with some swirling.


Before photo of the front of the car.


The gunmetal color of the wheels does a great job hiding just how dirty the wheels are.


The owner also requested to have the engine compartment cleaned, while it wasn`t too bad it was a bit dirty.


Another before photo of the engine compartment.

Wash and Decon Process


To start the wash process the car was treated with Iron X to chemically decon the exterior.


This was followed with a strong foam presoak prior to the two-bucket method wash and finally the last wash with a Nanoskin Wash mitt.


Before the two-bucket method was the engine compartment received a good cleaning.

Paint Correction & Coating Process


With the car clean it was pulled inside and place on the lifts to begin the correction work. The rocker panels on these cars always seem to be in poor condition. I figured I would start here.


This was the first combo that I tried. While the results were pretty good I was not happy with some of the deeper defect still being there and changed products.


Another view of the first test spot prior to changing process.


Before photo of the driver side rear door. This photo shows just how bad the swirling was on the car.


This is another test spot using the same combo as before. I wanted to see how that combo worked on an area that wasn`t quite as bad. However once again I was not happy with these results and went more aggressive.


The new combo did a great job removing the flaws, however the compound left the paint very hazy due to the marring.


Before photo driver side of the rear bumper cover.


Same area after being compounded


This photo shows the Flex PE 8 cleaning up some areas on the front bumper. The small rotary worked great on quite a few areas on this car.


With all the compounding and polishing finished, along with the wheels fulled cleaned and coated, I moved on to cleaning up the wheel wells.


With them cleaned they were then dressed for a nice fresh look.


The car was then cleaned with Eraser prior to applying the coating.


Yes the coating comes in a package this nice, only the Finest for this coating.


With the coating applied the car was backed out to begin checking for any remaining high spots prior to curing the coating.


This car looking amazing in the evening hours with the colorful sky at this time of the evening.

Finished Product

https://youtu.be/m_SvxOzVCzw
Quick walk around video after the car was finished.


This color looked amazing in the sunlight once it was finished. The metallic really popped.


Finished product.


Finished product.


This photo really shows the beauty of this color.


A closer view of the metallic in the finish.


Finished product.


Finished product.


Finished product.


Finished product.


Finished product.


Finished product.


The engine compartment after being properly dressed with a non-greasy protection.


After photo of the engine compartment.

[mnehls86]

Looks fantastic! Great work. What was the final combo used? Or did I read right past that?

[Oldfordisbetter]

Very nice!

[512detail]

looks great! nice save on the black paint

[Angus]

Man that WRX looks sick! Very nice work!!

[Sizzle Chest]

Great work, pics and writeup!!

[mjlinane]

Great job!!

[rookiez]

Very impressive!!

[KMG]

Thanks guys. The owner was extremely happy with how the car turned out and also booked his new Shelby Gt350 for August. Looking forward to working on that one.

[JustJesus]

Yeah, that turned out real nice.

[Mr. Slick]

looks like someone needs a Nano

[GearHead_1]

Nice write up.