Flannigan
New member
So I had myself a bit of a detailing marathon yesterday. Originally I was scheduled to do a GT-R correction on Saturday, but the customer ended up needing to take the vehicle into the dealership to repair the HVAC system that had suddenly stopped working. I had planned on just taking the weekend off, but late Friday night I get a call from my GT-R customer saying that his neighbor would like to take his spot and get his black GMC 2500 detailed. I personally thought that was awesome, and couldn't thank the GT-R customer enough for going to the effort of getting someone to fill his spot. That is the type of customer that I love dealing with.
So I got to the house and the GMC was actually in great shape. It had just been washed, so all I needed to do was a quick WW with UWW+ followed by a light claying with Riccardo yellow clay.
It was scheduled for a one step correction. Being GM Black I knew I was in for a challenge. I ended up using Menzerna Powerfinish on Cyan HT pads via my new Meguiars G110v2 polisher. This gave amazing correction, and finished out perfectly. All but the deepest rids were removed. I would call this 85% fully corrected, and for a one step on black that is pretty good in my book.
I wasn't able to take pictures of this job with my nice camera since the battery was charging for most of the job. I was able to capture a few pics with my iPhone, and I was very impressed with how nice the camera on the phone is. Here are a couple pictures.
The customer was so happy with the outcome he asked if I could stay a while longer and perform the same service on his wife's vehicle. I had already been working for 8 hours, but I figured what the hell. So I got the car set up and got ready to push through. This vehicle was not anywhere near as clean as the truck was. It required some heavy cleaning before any correction could take place. Here is what I was up against. Lots of bugs on the front end, and a thick layer of dirt and grime on most of the exterior.
The wheels were cleaned first, in my tired state I forgot to get pictures of the wheel specifically, but they were nothing crazy. Just Autoglym CWC and a few different brushes.
After the wheels were sorted out I started with the paint work. As normal I foamed the vehicle and while it dwelled I agitated the body seams, emblems, and fuel filler area.
After that I did a normal wash with Blackfire Soap and a Griots Garage Wash Pad. This vehicle had some heavy iron deposits so first I used Wolfs decon gel. It was able to get most everything off, but the back bumper had some very heavy deposits. For this I broke out the iron X paste and let it dwell for about ten minutes before rinsing it off.
After the chemical decon I proceeded to clay the vehicle with the Ultima clay block. After that was completed we could see the true condition of the paint. By this point I was out of sun and running out of time so I didn't get a ton of pics, but here you can see what the finish looked like. There were tons of swirls, and the paint looked flat.
On this vehicle I ended up using a one step of Menzerna SIP on a Yellow BS pad. This gave amazing correction, and also finished very well on this rock hard paint. Here is what I was left with after about 6-8 section passes.
the exhaust tips were also cleaned up with Swissvax Metal Polish and 0000 steel wool.
Before:
After:
After correction was completed I washed the vehicle again to remove the dust and the polishing oils. This vehicle sits outside 24/7 so I ended up using Swissvax Endurance as the LSP. I wanted to give it as much protection as I could. Here is how it turned out.
That about does it. This was a very long day, but I know I have gained a customer for life, and I also was able to talk to several people who just stopped by to chat after seeing my car out front. Hopefully this pays off in some future business. All in all I had about 14 hours of work in for the day, but it was well worth it. Thanks for looking, and i look forward to your feedback!
So I got to the house and the GMC was actually in great shape. It had just been washed, so all I needed to do was a quick WW with UWW+ followed by a light claying with Riccardo yellow clay.
It was scheduled for a one step correction. Being GM Black I knew I was in for a challenge. I ended up using Menzerna Powerfinish on Cyan HT pads via my new Meguiars G110v2 polisher. This gave amazing correction, and finished out perfectly. All but the deepest rids were removed. I would call this 85% fully corrected, and for a one step on black that is pretty good in my book.
I wasn't able to take pictures of this job with my nice camera since the battery was charging for most of the job. I was able to capture a few pics with my iPhone, and I was very impressed with how nice the camera on the phone is. Here are a couple pictures.
The customer was so happy with the outcome he asked if I could stay a while longer and perform the same service on his wife's vehicle. I had already been working for 8 hours, but I figured what the hell. So I got the car set up and got ready to push through. This vehicle was not anywhere near as clean as the truck was. It required some heavy cleaning before any correction could take place. Here is what I was up against. Lots of bugs on the front end, and a thick layer of dirt and grime on most of the exterior.
The wheels were cleaned first, in my tired state I forgot to get pictures of the wheel specifically, but they were nothing crazy. Just Autoglym CWC and a few different brushes.
After the wheels were sorted out I started with the paint work. As normal I foamed the vehicle and while it dwelled I agitated the body seams, emblems, and fuel filler area.
After that I did a normal wash with Blackfire Soap and a Griots Garage Wash Pad. This vehicle had some heavy iron deposits so first I used Wolfs decon gel. It was able to get most everything off, but the back bumper had some very heavy deposits. For this I broke out the iron X paste and let it dwell for about ten minutes before rinsing it off.
After the chemical decon I proceeded to clay the vehicle with the Ultima clay block. After that was completed we could see the true condition of the paint. By this point I was out of sun and running out of time so I didn't get a ton of pics, but here you can see what the finish looked like. There were tons of swirls, and the paint looked flat.
On this vehicle I ended up using a one step of Menzerna SIP on a Yellow BS pad. This gave amazing correction, and also finished very well on this rock hard paint. Here is what I was left with after about 6-8 section passes.
the exhaust tips were also cleaned up with Swissvax Metal Polish and 0000 steel wool.
Before:
After:
After correction was completed I washed the vehicle again to remove the dust and the polishing oils. This vehicle sits outside 24/7 so I ended up using Swissvax Endurance as the LSP. I wanted to give it as much protection as I could. Here is how it turned out.
That about does it. This was a very long day, but I know I have gained a customer for life, and I also was able to talk to several people who just stopped by to chat after seeing my car out front. Hopefully this pays off in some future business. All in all I had about 14 hours of work in for the day, but it was well worth it. Thanks for looking, and i look forward to your feedback!
