Barry Theal
New member
Gentleman how is everyone? This week I had the pleasure of doing a Variety of details that included a Mercedes, Corvette, Dodge Ram, VW Passat and several others, but this car was such a sexy BMW M3 I thought I would post it here for all to enjoy. Talk about eye candy, this Melbourne Red 2009 M3 came to me with roughly 5000 miles on the clock. Team BMW really out did themselves on this vehicle. All coming stock with a Carbon Fiber roof and the nice all famous Red interior. When it comes to power, performance, color, and overall appearance, this was the one! The owner contacted me a while back from a referral by Eric @ Envious Detailing in California. Great guy that fella is. The owner received the car for his 18th birthday and I must say, I was really impressed by how well he maintains this incredible car. The wheels were damn near spotless. The inter was immaculate, but the paint was a different story. He mentioned in our initial call about how he took the car in for a 1200 mile service and when he received it back the car had been wash in approximately and the dealership installed some swirls. At this point I thought not again, I here so many times about how this happens and it frustrates me. Low and behold upon inspection from experience I found a whole new story. Anyways how it came.
It was a cloudy day during the first day I got to the car so not much going on in this picture, I always like to show the “ How it came photo “
The plan of attack begins on making this a show room ready car! I first started with a basic pressure wash rinsing to remove as much loose debris as possible to prevent future marring during the decontamination phase.
Then I gave it good foam rinsing to break all remaining particles left behind.
While the foam bath was soaking I massaged the tighter areas with a small boars hair brush to breakdown any old wax left behind by the dealership.
The wheels were also massaged to breakdown all dirt and debris with a micro fiber wheel brush. No actual wheel cleaner was needed. A BMW with clean wheels? Shocker for me. I do so many BMW’s and this was a first. I was happy here.
Once finished I air purged all the car dry and the remaining water was blotted dry in the detailing area.
At this point it was time for the polishing prep. During this stage I masked off all area’s with masking tape, painters tape in various sizes.
Once we got it all prepped to a Presidential Details standard, I clayed the entire car. I found a few small spots that had overspray? Overspray on a caught that was bought brand new? Something like this shouldn’t make sense. In general the car was fairly clean of embed contaminants though.
That followed with a full wipe of IPA to ensure the paints surface was squeaky clean. What I mean by this is, at this point the paint should feel smooth yet not silky.
During the initial inspection the 5 sets of metal halides I use for correction should the truth, but under the camera I couldn’t capture the defects under the camera images. This led me to use the all mighty and trusted flash from my camera. To show the defects. Now here is where it got weird, As mentioned earlier I mention that the owner said he took the car in for a wash and received it back with swirls. What I found was that there were not just swirls but some hologramming from machine polishing. I new exactly what happened. The dealership washed off the own fillers and returned it to him in the true condition. Ironic wouldn’t you say? Here is how the paint looked before correction. You can see the hologramming and swirls for the dealership. This dealership the car came from actually has a really great reputation to, These were interesting findings. Not shocking though.
During the correction I used a variety of machines and polishes to get the desired result. The correction was done with M105 and Menzerna 85rd.
LOL did you count all the different machines used?
Once the desired correction and gloss was achieved I gave it two coats of wax to promote and ensure even coverage. .
While that wax was curing I Steam cleaned the engine and dressed it to the Presidential Details Natural standard look. Nice and Matte look without the greasy feeling.
It was a cloudy day during the first day I got to the car so not much going on in this picture, I always like to show the “ How it came photo “
The plan of attack begins on making this a show room ready car! I first started with a basic pressure wash rinsing to remove as much loose debris as possible to prevent future marring during the decontamination phase.
Then I gave it good foam rinsing to break all remaining particles left behind.
While the foam bath was soaking I massaged the tighter areas with a small boars hair brush to breakdown any old wax left behind by the dealership.
The wheels were also massaged to breakdown all dirt and debris with a micro fiber wheel brush. No actual wheel cleaner was needed. A BMW with clean wheels? Shocker for me. I do so many BMW’s and this was a first. I was happy here.
Once finished I air purged all the car dry and the remaining water was blotted dry in the detailing area.
At this point it was time for the polishing prep. During this stage I masked off all area’s with masking tape, painters tape in various sizes.
Once we got it all prepped to a Presidential Details standard, I clayed the entire car. I found a few small spots that had overspray? Overspray on a caught that was bought brand new? Something like this shouldn’t make sense. In general the car was fairly clean of embed contaminants though.
That followed with a full wipe of IPA to ensure the paints surface was squeaky clean. What I mean by this is, at this point the paint should feel smooth yet not silky.
During the initial inspection the 5 sets of metal halides I use for correction should the truth, but under the camera I couldn’t capture the defects under the camera images. This led me to use the all mighty and trusted flash from my camera. To show the defects. Now here is where it got weird, As mentioned earlier I mention that the owner said he took the car in for a wash and received it back with swirls. What I found was that there were not just swirls but some hologramming from machine polishing. I new exactly what happened. The dealership washed off the own fillers and returned it to him in the true condition. Ironic wouldn’t you say? Here is how the paint looked before correction. You can see the hologramming and swirls for the dealership. This dealership the car came from actually has a really great reputation to, These were interesting findings. Not shocking though.
During the correction I used a variety of machines and polishes to get the desired result. The correction was done with M105 and Menzerna 85rd.
LOL did you count all the different machines used?
Once the desired correction and gloss was achieved I gave it two coats of wax to promote and ensure even coverage. .
While that wax was curing I Steam cleaned the engine and dressed it to the Presidential Details Natural standard look. Nice and Matte look without the greasy feeling.
