96 A4 (tan), 02 red lancer

[imported_Grouse]

i'll keep this short, and give links to all the pics.



http://www.pbase.com/dsgrouse/karl_detail 96 a4



http://www.pbase.com/dsgrouse/amanda_detail 02 lancer



yes this is the color of the car after wash and 2 hour clay bar. I was using megs clay and every once in a while it would bite enough to leave a white streak.

Tan, and not tan.

This is the first car i have ever done so here is a rund down on what i did and used.

9:15-10:15 vacuum

10:15-11:00 clean carpets

11:00-12:15 clean door sills, trunk, engine,and rubber mouldings. 30 freaken MF towels later. DUDE WIPE IT DOWN AFTER YOU WASH THE CAR!!!!111one11!!!

12:30-1:30 dress leather seats,panels,interior trim

1:45-2:15 wheels

2:15-3:00 wash car

3:00-3:45 clay top half.

4:00- 5:00 clay bottom half

5:00-5:15 tape

5:15- 10:00 Polish using SSR 1 and orange and green pads. I would have went for more swirl removal. However i could not see them due to it being a tan car, instead of white.



6:30-8:00 Exterior trim, tires

8:00-9:00 Two coats of natty's wax

9:00-9:30 Final wipe down.



Expensed out by oz, I used about 67 dollars of product to do this. That includes clay and clay lube.

On to the mitsu. Day two.

 

[imported_Grouse]

Red mitsu.

I had considerably less time, so I worked on the exterior only

before wash and clay.

After wash

boy that webbing is everywhere.



after using ssr 2.5 on yellow pad once and ssr 2.5 on green pad once.

Not a huge improvement on the hood, but it did very well every where else, I think I needed either to drag out the rotary for the hood or halve 4" pads.

here is that same quarter panel area from before after ssr 2.5 twice.

as you can see it improved alot more than the hood.

reat 3/4 shot

after 2 coats of natty's blue.

 

[imported_Grouse]

Same hood area as show at the top of the previous post.

In all this took around 8.5 hours for me.



Washing awas about an hour,

claying was almost two hours. Tons of gunk.

add an hour for wax and trim and that leaves 4 hours for polishing.

 

[honkeybizkit]

$67 worth of product for the A4 seems a bit high... could you give a quick breakdown on the porducts and amounts you used? Either way, both cars turned out very nice.

 

[imported_Grouse]

Yeah i'll get that for you later today, i did the interior of the a4 too, trunk, and engine also. so keep that in mind.

 

[Scottwax]

Really nice work on the Audi and the improvement in the Mitsu is very noticable and despite swirls reduced but still there, the paint looks a lot richer and redder.



4" pads, cyclo or rotary would help, or maybe even a more aggressive polish/pad combo. The burgandy Meguiars pad is the most aggressive foam pad I have used, may leave marring on softer paints but amazing results on harder paint.

 

[imported_Grouse]

srd20t I don't have an easy way of typing it all aout.



I took my products, and what i paid for them and figured out a cost per oz, or use. then I figured out how many uses or ounces i used. When added i get 64.51 for the 96 a4, and 59.79 for the red mitsu.

 

[SpoiledMan]

You should be down to less than 10% of that. How many ounces of each product did you use?

 

[imported_themightytimmah]

Great turnaround, particuarly on the Audi. People never seem to notice how bad their white cars get until they see a half and half shot.



I bet you're using way too much on the polishes. When I first started polishing, I got maybe 2 cars out of a pint of SSR2.5. Now, after I've been at it for a while, I'm down to maybe 3 ounces per car.

 

[Scottwax]

I agree you are using way too much product. I can polish out 20-25 cars with a 32 oz bottle of Optimum Polish, for example. Using too much product causes the abrasives to ride up over the oils and renders them ineffective and unable to break down properly. Cut back on the amount of polish you are using and not only will you save a lot of money but you should also get better results.

 

[imported_Grouse]

I have my 3rd and final car of the weekend coming up.

 

[imported_Grouse]

Btw thank you scottwax, it means a lot coming from you.

 

[EdLancer]

Hey, that looks like my Lancer ! Rio Red



I found that using NXT as a base significantly makes the red look darker, then topped with 845IW makes the red really glow and gets noticed.

 

[imported_Grouse]

I put two coats of natty's blue on this one, It dropped it a couple of shades. it's hard to tell because i had hit that golden light of sunset and it gave the car a pink glow. I fidled with it a bit in RSP but that is as close as i could make the pic.