tssdetailing
New member
This customer reached me through an ad I placed in the cincinnati business courier. He purchased StageIII packages for both cars, including interior, engine and exterior cleaning + paint polishing. Guess he has a thing for white cars, b/c he also has a white Avalanche which I'll be doing next week. I got the feeling these might be lease cars too, as the interiors were in decent conditon (espeically the Yukon, considering those trucks normally look like all-out-child warfare).
Ok, I'll start with the 2009 Yukon. Turn around time was about 7.5 hours. I'm a small guy, so i'm betting about 30 minutes of that was adjusting, and running up/down a step ladder. For the interior (sorry no before shots, wanted to tackle it quickly) all the surfaces were cleaned with Megs APC and a variety of brushes, leather cleaned with Adam's Leather cleaner + stiff bristle brush then conditioned with Adams conditioner. Windows cleaned with DP Krystal Vision Glass (this is nice, and streak free stuff, unless the glass has been under the sun a while). For the carpets, I cleaned the floor mats with Detail Kings carpet shampoo + a carpet brush attachment on my Flex, then Extracted with MyteeLiteII. I used the left over carpet shampoo to spot treat the truck's carpet.
For the engine, I covered the alternator with aluminum foil, then foamed it down, hitting the really dirty spots with CG's Grime Reaper @ 6:1. The Daytona speed brush was a big help here, despite normally being a wheel brush. It was great to get in many parts of the engine bay and it's got a LONG reach too. I dried the engine using a towel and the blower from my shopvac, also let it run for about 20 minutes while I washed the car. I used CD2 dressing for a nice shiny finish.
The Exterior was in bad condition, it was very dirty. The paint was very good though! Very minor swirls and no RIDs. Honestly, this might have been the trucks first wash since original purchase. I mixed up a batch of CG's Grime Reaper and Wash N Gloss in my foam cannon. I wanted the acidic concentration to really eat away all the junk in the paint. So i Foamed the car down, then went after the wheels while the solution worked it's magic. I applied another blast of foam and washed the truck, using a boars hair brush on the emblems, fog lights and other crevaces. After the first wash was complete, I clay'd everything with a medium grade bar, switching between ONR and a bottle of Grime Reaper @ 6:1. This is great for white/silver cars where heavy contmination can be seen along the lower valance of the vehicle, it's also VERY slippery so hold on to your clay tight!
After claying, the truck got a second bath and was dried down. I inspected the paint for swirls. There were so few that I decided instead of polishing, I would apply a glaze and reached for my PoorBoys Black hole. (yes it's made for dark cars but I was told works well on light cars too). Using a gray Kompressor pad on my Flex @ speed 3, I worked over each panel twice with a vertical pass then a horizontal pass. This helped to really smush the glaze into the paint and also evenly distributed the product. After doing the whole truck, I wiped her down with a MF towel, dressed the tires/wheel wells and trim with BAF industries Liquid Ice, applied Rain-x to the windows then sealed the paint with Blackfire Wetdiamond.
Next up was his 2009 Cadillac CTS-V. Awesome car, has a deep, throaty exhaust note too. The interior was in great shape. I vac'd up all the crumbs, dusted off the dash with a fine detailing brush in one hand and the vacuum in the other hand. Even the floor mats were fine, so I vac'd them off and brushed in some lines to give them a finished look. All the seats were wiped down with megs apc then I applied a generous amount of Adams leather conditioner to them and the plastic interior. You can see in the split shot the difference made with conditioning.
The engine....or cover was washed with a foam cannon and again with the Daytona Speed brush. Dried with a towel and blower from the shop vac. Topped off with CD2
Once again, I really believe this is the first wash the car has ever had...I mean, just look at the amount of brake dust contaminating the rims! I thought it had satin black rims when I first pulled up to the car. I blasted off the surface stuff with the pressure washer, then saturated everything with straight Grime Reaper. I let that dwell for 5 minutes before agitating anything. I went from one wheel to the next with a bucket of suds, the daytona wheel brush, a big green bristled soft brush and yes, a tooth brush to get them as clean as possible. I was VERY happy with the out come.
The exterior was foamed down, washed and then clayed with the same process used on the Yukon. After the 2nd wash I tapped off all the trim and emblems then inspected for swirls. Very light swirling, but I decided to polish the car anyway and fired up the Flex with a tangerine H2O pad and some M205. (my camera sucks, it's not the SLR i normally use so it couldn't capture the fine difference in direct sun in the bright white paint for true before/after). One more bath to blow out all the compound from the cracks/crevaces and then I topped her off with BFWD (love that stuff).
Ok, I'll start with the 2009 Yukon. Turn around time was about 7.5 hours. I'm a small guy, so i'm betting about 30 minutes of that was adjusting, and running up/down a step ladder. For the interior (sorry no before shots, wanted to tackle it quickly) all the surfaces were cleaned with Megs APC and a variety of brushes, leather cleaned with Adam's Leather cleaner + stiff bristle brush then conditioned with Adams conditioner. Windows cleaned with DP Krystal Vision Glass (this is nice, and streak free stuff, unless the glass has been under the sun a while). For the carpets, I cleaned the floor mats with Detail Kings carpet shampoo + a carpet brush attachment on my Flex, then Extracted with MyteeLiteII. I used the left over carpet shampoo to spot treat the truck's carpet.
For the engine, I covered the alternator with aluminum foil, then foamed it down, hitting the really dirty spots with CG's Grime Reaper @ 6:1. The Daytona speed brush was a big help here, despite normally being a wheel brush. It was great to get in many parts of the engine bay and it's got a LONG reach too. I dried the engine using a towel and the blower from my shopvac, also let it run for about 20 minutes while I washed the car. I used CD2 dressing for a nice shiny finish.
The Exterior was in bad condition, it was very dirty. The paint was very good though! Very minor swirls and no RIDs. Honestly, this might have been the trucks first wash since original purchase. I mixed up a batch of CG's Grime Reaper and Wash N Gloss in my foam cannon. I wanted the acidic concentration to really eat away all the junk in the paint. So i Foamed the car down, then went after the wheels while the solution worked it's magic. I applied another blast of foam and washed the truck, using a boars hair brush on the emblems, fog lights and other crevaces. After the first wash was complete, I clay'd everything with a medium grade bar, switching between ONR and a bottle of Grime Reaper @ 6:1. This is great for white/silver cars where heavy contmination can be seen along the lower valance of the vehicle, it's also VERY slippery so hold on to your clay tight!
After claying, the truck got a second bath and was dried down. I inspected the paint for swirls. There were so few that I decided instead of polishing, I would apply a glaze and reached for my PoorBoys Black hole. (yes it's made for dark cars but I was told works well on light cars too). Using a gray Kompressor pad on my Flex @ speed 3, I worked over each panel twice with a vertical pass then a horizontal pass. This helped to really smush the glaze into the paint and also evenly distributed the product. After doing the whole truck, I wiped her down with a MF towel, dressed the tires/wheel wells and trim with BAF industries Liquid Ice, applied Rain-x to the windows then sealed the paint with Blackfire Wetdiamond.
Next up was his 2009 Cadillac CTS-V. Awesome car, has a deep, throaty exhaust note too. The interior was in great shape. I vac'd up all the crumbs, dusted off the dash with a fine detailing brush in one hand and the vacuum in the other hand. Even the floor mats were fine, so I vac'd them off and brushed in some lines to give them a finished look. All the seats were wiped down with megs apc then I applied a generous amount of Adams leather conditioner to them and the plastic interior. You can see in the split shot the difference made with conditioning.
The engine....or cover was washed with a foam cannon and again with the Daytona Speed brush. Dried with a towel and blower from the shop vac. Topped off with CD2
Once again, I really believe this is the first wash the car has ever had...I mean, just look at the amount of brake dust contaminating the rims! I thought it had satin black rims when I first pulled up to the car. I blasted off the surface stuff with the pressure washer, then saturated everything with straight Grime Reaper. I let that dwell for 5 minutes before agitating anything. I went from one wheel to the next with a bucket of suds, the daytona wheel brush, a big green bristled soft brush and yes, a tooth brush to get them as clean as possible. I was VERY happy with the out come.
The exterior was foamed down, washed and then clayed with the same process used on the Yukon. After the 2nd wash I tapped off all the trim and emblems then inspected for swirls. Very light swirling, but I decided to polish the car anyway and fired up the Flex with a tangerine H2O pad and some M205. (my camera sucks, it's not the SLR i normally use so it couldn't capture the fine difference in direct sun in the bright white paint for true before/after). One more bath to blow out all the compound from the cracks/crevaces and then I topped her off with BFWD (love that stuff).
