Nikku Detailed: BMW Alpine White 335i

Nikku

New member
Hey everyone,



Had a client bring in his 335i originally for a one step polish but upon review of the vehicles paint there were tons and i mean tons of RIDS. The vehicle had light swirling which was easily taken care off. I resorted to Sonus Yellow and Power Finish and Sonus White with 3M Ultrafina for the swirling and for the RIDS and certain heavily swirled areas around the driver door, passenger door and bumper area with Sonus Yellow in combination with PG, followed up with SONUS white SIP, SONUS white PF, SONUS BLUE Ultrafina. For RIDS that did not come in bunches I resorted to LC Spot pads to keep the heavy polishing down to a minimum to keep the integrity of the clearcoat.



The client was great and understood the need to take the neccesary time to complete the work properly and I appreciated his patience. He car is his daily driver and has chalked up many healthy kilometres.



Anyways to the process and pictures.



Wash

2 Bucket Method

Meguiars Gold Class

1 bucket for Wheels

Wheel Brush

Tire Brush

EZ Detail Brush

Sheep Skin Mitts



Paint Correction

Sonus Yellow

Sonus White

Sonus Blue

LC 4 inch Yellow

LC 4 inch Orange

LC 4 inch White

Menzerna Power Gloss

Menzerna SIP

Menzerna PF

3M Ultrafina

3M Backing Plate

RB Backing Plate



Metal Polishing (exhaust tips)

3M Ultrafina

P21S Metal Polish

0000 Steel Wool



Equipment

2 Halogen Lights

3M Sun Gun

Fenix TK10

Air Compressor

Metabo Polisher

Metabo x 2



LSP

Zaino Z2Pro

Zaino Grand Finale







Befores



Alright so lets begin with the before pictures. The before pictures consist of quite a few sun shots. You'll notice the obvious swirls but if you take particular close attention that the RIDS are mainly deep straight lines. I would assume that this is from road debris on the highway just skipping off or nicking the paint. It was my fault that I did not notice how deep the RIDS were. The RIDS definitely did not pass the finger nail test :).



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Ok so lets move on to the correction side of things. The first picture below is the hood. I first started off with the combination of Sonus White and Ultrafina. That barely did anything and just did not make a significant different. I bumped it up to Sonus White and PF and it got rid of the light swirling easily however the RIDS were a different matter. I made 3 passes and it barely made a dent on the test panel. I resorted to Sonus Yellow and PF, it shaved a little off the RIDS but not enough so I finally settled on PG and yellow then followed it up with White SIP, White PF then Blue Ultrafina. The result is what you see below.



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50/50 of driver side door.



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Driver side door completely cleared up.



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50/50 Trunk



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50/50 Trunk



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Trunk Cleared up



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The rear lights has a bit of swirling and that was looked after with the LC orange spot pad with PF and followed up with LC white spot pad 3M ultrafina.



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Cleared up



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License Plate Area cleared left side. Spot pads were used for this. The bumper was also propped up with my polishing bottles to provide easier access.



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Other side of plate Area cleared up



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Nasty bumper scratches. I didn't like this part so much but what is a detailer to do :)



Spot pads were used to address the bumper. The trunk was opened to polish and the plastic on the trunk was taped up to protect it.



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Cleared up
 
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Bumper Cleared



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Roof Cleared up



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Roof Cleared up



A few after polishing moments before LSP.



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These were my favourite shots. The paint just looks like candy. I fell in love :)

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AFTERS



Ok so we are finally here. These are pictures of the vehicle polished up and LSP'd. I notice after taking taking the initial after pictures and looking at them on the computer that I missed a few spots that I didn't buff the sealant off. The sun just messes up your eyes after staring at it and bright lights for a while lol. By this time the client had taken delivery of the vehicle but I drove over to look after the car and buff out the couple of unbuffed sealant spots and re applied Zaino Grand Finale and took the remainder sun shots of the vehicle. I hope everyone enjoys the pictures and thanks again to the client for being so amazing.



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I know the towel... Sorry :)



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This is one of my favourite pictures of the car . It shows a really nice stance.



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Thanks for looking everyone.
 
You keep putting out top notch work, outstanding correction and thanks for posting direct sun shots!
 
Thanks for the comments guys. I'm still working on getting better sun shot my angles are a little off :)
 
Great post man!



I'm in the same boat, as i have a BMW with similar paint issue. Fairly new that has been kept in good shape, but has the typical spider webbing and what not.



What do you think about my line up:



PG / SIP / 106FF



Will be with a combo of pads depending on what i need. Any thoughts on the product choice for my BMW paint though?
 
THanks for the comment Mr.Vapor.



The validity of your line up really depends on how severe the Random Deep Scratches are and how severe the swirls area.



I would first use a white pad and 106ff then bump it up from there. If you have Power Finish use that if 106ff is unsuccessful. I love Power Finish and BMW's seem to love it too. If the RDS on your vehicle isn't as plentiful as the one I did I would simply go over the entire car with a light polish and pad to get rid of the swirling then go back to those troubled RDS spots and hit it with a 4 inch or 3 inch spot pad to minimalize the amount of clear you are taking off.



White pads and PF has been my go to combo for the bimmers I have done. the '09 clearscoats on bimmers seem to be harder and i have had to bump it up to yellow on certain occasions.



Hope this helps.
 
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