3rd Tornado Red Golf 6 Gti - Detailed by Lawrence

**LawrenceSA** · 09-05-2015, 05:10 AM

There is nothing more satisfying for me than to detail a car for an owner who really wants their car detailed, especially when the car is not in great shape to start with, and I have stated many times before how much I love polishing red paint.... so this detail was one I really enjoyed.

The owner had removed the license plate holders and temporarily re-fitted the license plates with double sided tape. As you will see just now, someone had repainted the rear bumper and simply painted around the license plate in situ. When he dropped the car off on Friday night he removed the plates and so my first order of business on Saturday morning was removing the left over double sided tape. The excess tape was trimmed using a plastic razor blade. Then Valet Pro Citrus Tar Remover was sprayed onto a cotton disc until it was wet right through. This was then left to sit in over the tape to soften up the glue residue which was then wiped away using a clean MF towel.

Front

Rear

There was also some glue residue left on the bonnet

Before

During

After

With that out of the way it was time to tackle the engine bay.

The cover was removed

And vacuumed then wiped clean using Glossworx Upholstery Cleaner and a MF Towel

Then the engine bay itself was tackled.
-Cover air filter and alternator
-Blow off loose dust
-Clean with Carchem APC, MF towels and a Valet Pro Boars Hair Brush
-HP Rinse
-Blow dry
-Dress engine bay with Autofinesse Dressel
-Clean/Polish/Protect painted surfaces with Autofinesse Tripple

Then it was time to clean the wheel wells, tires and wheels. The wheel nut covers were removed and placed in my wheel cleaning bucket which has the brushes soaking in some warm water mixed with a bit of shampoo (I also threw the little plastic clips that hold the fabric cover under the bonnet in place, into the same bucket) to allow them to self clean while I continued with the detail. They would later be dried, dressed with Autofinesse Dressel and re-fitted.

This is the condition of the wheels

Process:

-HP rinse
-Spray Carchem APC into the wheel well and on to the tire. Agitate the wells with a Mothers Fender Well Brush and the tires with a Mothers Tire Brush, then --HP rinse (The tires then often need to be cleaned again - in this case 2 rounds of cleaning where needed).
-Apply Valet Pro Billberry to the barrels, brake calipers and wheel faces , let it dwell, agitate with a Daytona (the big and small) and a Valet Pro Boars Hair -Brush.
-HP rinse.
-Use Valet Pro Citrus Tar Remover to remove the tar spots on the faces and barrels then apply some APC to the wheels, let it dwell and HP rinse to remove any remaining tar remover residue.
-Apply Carchem Revolt, let it dwell, agitate, HP rinse.
-Then they get hit when I foam the car and dried.
-Dress the tires with Optimum Tire Sheen
-Polish black section on the face of the wheels using a drill, Mothers Power Cone and Menzerna 3-in-1
-Protect the wheels (including the barrels) with Menzerna Powerlock

The boot/door shuts and inside the fuel flap were then cleaned using Carchem APC and a Valet Pro Boars Hair Brush and HP rinsed. Later these would be cleaned/polished/protected using Autofinesse Tripple applied with a MF Applicator and then buffed off using clean plush MF towels.

Time to wash the car.... first a thorough HP rinse.... don`t just wet the car - try remove dirt... The car was then foamed using Valet Pro Advanced Neutral Snow Foam which was left to dwell then HP rinsed off. While the foam was on the car, all the badges, honeycomb, door handles, window rubbers etc were all agitated with a Valet Pro Boars Hair Brush. Then Valet Pro Citrus Prewash was sprayed onto the lower half of the car, left to dwell and HP rinsed off. The car was then given a 2BM wash and then HP rinsed, flood rinsed and dried using a couple of waffle weave drying towels.

The only pic I took of the washing process

Then the process of decontamination commenced. Valet Pro Citrus Tar Remover was used to deal with any tar spots present on the car before Carchem Revolt was used to eliminate the iron contamination. Shield Heavy Duty Clay was used to remove any remaining contaminants in preparation for paint correction.

Before that though the exhaust tips were cleaned and polished

Spray some Carchem APC

Agitate with a brush

Wipe clean with a MF Towel

Polish using Meguiars NXT All Metal Polish, MF towels and a Mothers Powerball Mini

Paint measurements fortunately revealed quite healthy levels of paint (mostly in the 120µ to 140µ region, with only one panel getting showing 95µ to 105µ). I say fortunately because this is what bare paint looked like

:fear:

The paint was a real pig to correct.... there were swirls, RIDS, sanding marks and some etching and all the raised edges has been totally hammered resulting in an obvious `pink` line showing up against the `red` background.... obviously the paint here is naturally thinner than on the flatter surfaces and therefore much easier to strike through, so a lot of taping and precision polishing was required to correct the paint... all in all I spent a little over 17 hours on the paint correction only....

All of what looked like swirls seemed to rather be deep scratches....normally a combo like FG400 on a Blue Hybrid Wool pad and the Flex 3401 will knock out a fairly decent amount of damage on this paint (its the 9th Golf 6 and 5th time working on Tornado Red) but not this time.....

The process required was
-Flex 3401 | Lake Country Blue Hybrid Wool pad | Menzerna FG400 [8 passes section passes per set, 2 sets]
-Flex 3401 | Lake Country Black Hybrid pad | Menzerna SF4000 [8 passes section passes per set, 1 sets]

The bumpers, B-pillars and tail lights were corrected using Menzerna 3-in-1

After

A few more before/after shots

The interior was vacuumed, the plastics (dash, door cards etc) and leather were cleaned with Carchem APC. The plastics given a final wipe down with Autofinesse Spritz and the leather protected with Collinite 855. The door inserts were polished with Meguiars Ultimate Polish on a red foam applicator pad by hand. All the door and window rubber and exterior plastics were cleaned using Shield Heavy Duty Vinyl and Rubber cleaner and protected using Aerospace 303. The glass was cleaned using Gyeon Prep

**LawrenceSA** · 09-05-2015, 05:11 AM

I finished shortly before the owner arrived by which time it was getting dark and the rain was fast approaching. I only managed a few rather poor cell phone shots

ops:

Still in the garage

Outside

Then as I was about to post this, the owner whatsapp`ed me bunch of cell shots he took earlier today with the sun out. Here are his pics