2003 Subaru Outback wagon resurection

[dcjredline]

This is my dealer friend's, son's first car. He went with dad to the auction and picked this out for the AWD and low price. First thing he said to his dad was "Are we going to bring it to Don?" I do every car my friend buys to resell and he has been very happy with my work.


I start with the wheels & tires:

Clean - Meguiar's Non-Acid wheel and tire cleaner
Dress - Mothers FX tire dressing and foam tire applicator

Wheel wells cleaned with Meguiar's Super De-greaser 4:1 and dressed with Adams undercarriage spray (I diluted it 1:1 but it is not water-based so it separates and I have to shake it a lot)

Then engine bay and door jambs:

Clean - Meguiar's Super De-greaser 4:1
Rinsed - Power washer
Engine dressed - Meguiar's Trim and tire coating aerosol.

Next I do the paint:

Wash - Adams shampoo w/microfiber wash mitt
Rinse
Clay - Soap bucket and Eagle one clay mitt
Rinse
Dry
Correction / Protection - Meguiar's Cleaner wax on a LC green flat pad and my FLEX 3401 VRG (maroon bottle)

Being that this is his winter car, its white, and they weren't looking for perfection I thought the cleaner wax would fit the bill perfectly and it did! With its mild abrasives it really helped with the minor swirls, this was much more evident on the tail lights than the paint. They even noticed the tail lights when they came to get it.


Headlights weren't that bad (his son already used some compound and a foam pad on them) but the DP Headlight polish and protectant spray made them pop.

The car had a bunch of stickers on the paint. Here I used my trusty goo gone and a plastic razor blade

Finally I do the interior

Clean - Meguiar's D101 4:1
Dress - Aerospace 303
Carpets - Meguiar's Super De-greaser 4:1
Headliner - Folex
Glass was cleaned with Griots aerosol except the exterior of the windshield that was cleaned with Pinnacle glass cleaner with rain repellant.


Every door handle in the car looked like this. I dont know if the previous owners whole family were mechanics or what.

I have no idea what this stain was and I don't think I want to, I can tell you I had gloves on this entire detail!

Leather was cleaned with D101 and dressed with Meguiar's Leather C&C as in my other post
The passengers front and drivers rear headrest were missing, I have no idea how a headrest goes missing but this car had 2 missing.

 

[GearHead_1]

Good job. Ton of work and significant improvement. It looks like that car was used and abused in its previous life.

 

[JSFM35X]

Nice job. Wow that car needed it. Those run really well and are snowmobiles.

Please replace those headrests. It's a safe car but to avoid a serious neck injury even in a small accident they need to be in place and properly adjusted.

 

[tropicsteve]

yep, that ride definitely needed some help and you really brought it back. megs cleaner wax has been around forever and is still a very good aio that I use also.

 

[Oldfordisbetter]

Nice job. Thanks for taking the time to put this together.

 

[dcjredline]

Thanks all.

The headrests will be in before he drives it (after he finds them)
I always seem to forget about Meg's cleaner wax but every time I use it I love the results! Its not a cool product but it works awesome.

 

[Accumulator]

dcjredline- Hey, great job!

I really like threads like this one, thanks for sharing it with us.

I've always kinda liked that series of Outback, even though ours was a complete POS.