WV R32 mkiv - Porsche C2S 997

[JimWD]

Hi all.

Supposed to be out working on a black RS4 but it's been put back until mid August time which saddens me . Still, allowed me to catch up on the latest online.

First up, the Golf R32.


Volkswagen Golf R32 mkiv – Deep Blue Pearl

A customer that I had done some work for in the past phoned through early June to see about sorting their R32 in readiness for GTI International 2011 this weekend at Bruntingthorpe.

Pushed for time before the show, I managed to shuffle a few jobs around last weekend to give a two day window for the job to go ahead.

Two day Major Paint Correction Detail.

Product

· 3M Glass Cleaner
· 3M Ultra Fina
· AutoSmart Tardis
· AutoSmart G101
· AutoSmart Hazsafe
· AMDetails mild clay bar
· Blackfire ‘Wet Diamond’ All Finish Paint Protection
· Belgom ALU
· Bilberry wheel cleaner
· Chemical Guys JetSEAL109
· Dodo Juice Born to be Mild
· Iron-X
· Jeffs Werkstat Prime
· Meguiars Super Degreaser
· Meguiars Endurance Tyre Gel
· Menzerna FG S500
· Menzerna 203s
· Menzerna 106FA
· ONR

Inspection.

Now, if the mkiv R32 that Jonny (Pure Detail) and I worked on earlier this year was anything to go by, it’s going to be a long two days!

The sun was beaming down – no photos throughout the wash stages I am afraid other than a few wheels and contamination shots…

AutoSmart Tardis used to lift a few tiny tar spots:

And Iron-X doing its thing (still really impressed with this product!)

Usual wash sequence – wheels > shuts & sills > pre-wash > wash > tar > clay > dry.

AMDetails’ mild clay bar used to lift surface contaminants. Lots of tree sap on this one!

ONR (optimum no rinse) was used as clay lube and was performed inside to get out of the heat.

Two pieces of clay were left in warm water to keep them soft and malleable.

OK, so, clean, dry and inside. The first thing I notice is the finish on the roof:

One or two areas on the car had seen paint.

Defects:

Overall, the car was in a very good shape (compared to the other mkiv R as mentioned above!)

Starting high on the roof line, I picked out a few hazy patches.

Before/After:

Refined down to a crisp sharp finish:

B-pillar before/after:

N/S door handle – before/after:

Below the bumpstrips – before/after:

Flake pop:

50/50 between wing and door:

The bonnet was one of the areas the owner knew about in terms of ‘new paint’.

Before/after – light swirling and buffertrails left by bodyshop.

That was about it for day 1. I had completed the N/S, half the roof and the bonnet.

An early start day 2 and straight back into it.

Boot lid up first.

Before/After:

Before/After:

Before/After:

Complete: (see the swirling on the bumper; that’s next!)

In this light, the colour match on the bumper isn’t great although outdoors you’d do well to spot it.

Inner door handle tackled with Menz 203s by hand. Before/After:

Front bumper before/after:

Side skirt 50/50:

Machine work complete ~ 3pm into the second day.

Because of the dust created by heavy compounding, the car was put back outside for a good rinse.

After pat drying the car, it was blown dry with the Black Baron Vehicle Dryer to remove water from behind the badges, grilles, crevices etc.

After a thorough IPA (isopropyl alcohol) wipedown, Blackfire Wet Diamond was layed down to protect.

Wheels, tyres and exhausts sorted. Glass cleaned inside and out with 3M’s cleaner:

A final wipedown and then checking panel gaps for polish residues etc.

The owner is in the process of sourcing a new badge for the bootlid as we speak.

Overall, ~20 hours over the two were days put into this one. Considering, not a bad turnaround in my opinion!

Thanks for reading.

Jim

 

[JimWD]

and now the Porsche:

Porsche Carrera 2S – Basalt Black

A 37 hour ‘White Detail’ to give the vehicle a complete new lease of life both inside and out…

This is a returning customer, their previous pride and joy was the Daytona Grey Pearl RS4 that a few of you may remember from Summer last year:

Product

· 3M Glass Cleaner
· 3M Ultra Fina
· 3M Extra Fine
· AutoSmart G101
· AutoSmart Tardis
· AutoSmart Hazsafe
· AMDetails’ Mild Clay Bar
· AutoGlym Vinyl & Rubber Care
· Belgom ALU
· Bilberry wheel cleaner
· Dodo Juice Born To Be Mild
· G-Techniq G1 rain repellent
· Hammerite Smooth Silver high-temp
· Iron-X
· Jeffs Werkstat Prime
· LTT Auto Ultra Foam
· LTT Auto Ultra Protect
· Meguiars Super Degreaser
· Menzerna 106FA Final Finish
· Menzerna 203s Power Finish
· Menzerna 85RD 3.02 Intensive Polish
· Menzerna S500 Fast Gloss
· ONR – Optimum No Rinse
· Raceglaze Black Label Concours Wax
· Raceglaze Clearmist Carnauba Detailing Spray

Video highlights can be seen here: http://youtu.be/uJ_8V7RbVLE?hd=1

Throughout, I was asked to take as many photos as possible. I’ll apologise in advance, I think it’s going to be a long read!

Day 1 I had planned to remove and deep clean the alloys (later being refurbished so not to spend too much time on them), prep the arches and brake calipers and then to paint the wheel hubs as they had started to show signs of slight corrosion.

Front arch after:

Some old wheel weight glue to remove:

Tardis in action removing organic contaminants:

And then Iron-X to lift any metal filings etc (pretty clean to begin with to be honest!)

Hell. These rear wheels massive!

Again, more glue:

Caliper before/after cleaning:

Tar removal from exhaust silencer:

General before/after:

It’s a scorcher today and with all four corners complete, it was time to start with the wet work. To touch, the paintwork was extremely hot. Not going to be an enjoyable hour or so whilst washing it…

As soon as the usual wash steps were out the way, it was straight inside for claying and decontamination.

A few tar specs lifted:

Blown dry with the Black Baron to remove any standing/trapped water:

Front reg housing removed to allow tighter paint correction on bumper:

Back outside into the sun and here are some of the defects…

A few nasty etchings:

And caught up in the curves on the rear quarter were a few slight machine holograms:

Back inside and taped up ready for an early start on Day 2.

With the sun beaming through the unit doors, I noticed more machine holograms. This time on the front bumper (after a trip to the bodyshop no doubt)

Defects under the Brinkman LED torch:

Even with natural lighting you can make out the ‘haze’ covering the bonnet: (promises to be a big turnaround!)

OK so, day 2 and time to make a start to the paint correction work.

Unfortunately, whilst testing my pad and polish combinations it was noted that the Porsche was suffering with ‘sticky paint’.

With the rotary, whilst digging deep trying to remove the deeper scratches, the polish would dry out, clump, and deposit nasty clusters of polish that weld themselves to the paint.

Various tests were made; polish variations, pad swapping etc. The results were good, but it wasn’t half tricky!

Roof before/after:

A-C pillar corrected:

Mirror:

Eventually, I knocked back down to the Dual Action (DA) machine polisher as it kicks out a lot less heat (thus, ‘hopefully’ working around the sticky paint issue)

Progress was slow but still, results were good:

Before/Afters on O/S/R:

50/50 between the wing and door:

50/50:

Before/After:

And then refined with the rotary and a Lake Country constant pressure finishing pad.

Small tricky areas corrected and refined. Again, with Lake Country constant pressure pads.
‘

50/50 between O/S/F wing and bonnet:

Paint thickness readings were pretty much the same throughout. Averaging ~110um.

After three steady compounding hits to the bonnet, this was the result:

Lots of deeper (RDS) scratches remain. Spent nearly an hour and a half on one side of the bonnet alone; lots of marks to chase out.

50/50s:

Before/After:

The finished result on the bonnet was stunning. Pretty much 100% defect free.


Front bumper before/after:

Starting to work back down the N/S, I begin high up on the roof.

Before/After:

N/S/R before/after:

Before/after:

As if the bonnet didn’t take long enough, the rear end with the spoiler etc was going to prove very challenging!

Continuing my work with the DA:

Two 50/50’s:

Top section complete:

Lower down though on the next panel there were some nasties:

Before/After:

Had to switch to the rotary at this point; the DA stood too tall and wouldn’t fit under that spoiler…

Finished:

Albeit not perfect; I couldn’t quite lift this one: (massively reduced though by ‘rounding the edges’)

The paint finish on the aero kit spoiler wasn’t the best.

Improvements were made though:

The owner had requested that the ‘Carrera S’ badge was removed off the back.

Happy days – makes my life much easier!

Rear lights tidied up:

It’s now the morning of day 4. With the N/S mirror and rear bumper left to correct, it’s been a long old battle with the machine polisher! (some 22 hours over Days 2 & 3)

Porsche manoeuvred back outside to remove both the tape and also the dusting:

After a thorough IPA (Isopropyl alcohol) wipedown to remove polishing oils, the car was treated to the first of two Black Label wax applications.

Exhausts tidied. Doorshuts polished. Engine dressed.

Being some 6”2’ in height, the inside of the rear window isn’t the easiest to access! (queue all sorts of funny grunts, groans and aches!)

Windows sealed with G-Techniq G1 rain repellent.

Interior vac’d, console wiped down and leather cleansed with LTT’s Auto Ultra kit.

Finer interior details were taken care of; some ‘toothpickery’ work to remove the engrained dirt from the numbers on the gear stick:

Engine dressed and tidied:

Reg plates fixed on and bonnet badge replaced. Finished.

Another basalt black 997 popped by for a sneak peak and a quote on theirs:

Wiped down and ready for collection:

Stunning. A few more ‘detail shots’ were captured on collection day; I’ll upload the new pics later on.

Most enjoyable turnaround, thanks for reading.

Jim.

 

[Coby.]

Stunning.... Great work as always Jim.

 

[.GAZ.]

R32 turned out well, the Porka is breath taking!!

 

[Italian_Job]

im speechless man, you re an ace

 

[Dan R]

Porsche looks absolutely awesome!!! Fantastic job Jim. Great work.

 

[woody3]

amazing work there mate , a lot of time and care
j

 

[EllD90]

<3 the Porsche! Amazing work...

 

[Kane.]

Probaly my favourite write up yet :approve:

 

[Fred@BTM]

what happened to that 458 with the dodgy paint? any news yet?

 

[Y7 ADW]

Absolutely stunning work on both cars. But the owner of that Porsche must have been over the moon with those results!

 

[WOBBLE46]

Mint work as always bud,stunning to see the reflection from the paintwork.How much does something like the job you did on the R32 cost?

 

[Pete.M]

What sort of price would each of those have cost?

ETA: That is for the detailing work

 

[Blighty]

Absolutely stunning! Wish I had your skills and patience! I need this doing to my 172.

 

[JimWD]

Cheers guys. :approve:

(RE 'how much £££' etc, drop us a PM if you could...)

what happened to that 458 with the dodgy paint? any news yet?

Nope, no news yet. I don't think the chap is actually keeping the car long so may not bother chasing them.


A customer testimonial for the Porsche work:

Having spent over two months looking for the "perfect" example in the "right" condition I can honestly say I was more excited about collecting the car from Jim than when I first bought it. The first call I made when I took collection was to Jim to book in for the legendary White Detail. Being something of a perfectionist I was quite explicit in what I wanted Jim to address and with Jim having detailed my previous three vehicles he was very familiar with the standard I expect. I wasn't disappointed. My first reaction when Jim proudly revealed the car was a broad smile. The car looked nothing short of stunning. It glistened and shone as light danced along every curve from the lip of the splitter to the tip of the spoiler. The two hour drive home was filled with admiring glances from other car owners, and moans of grief from me as flies sacrificed themselves all over the beautiful finish - I was almost sad to end the journey as I pulled into the garage.

It is worth mentioning that my last vehicle was praised by the purchasing viewer as the finest, most immaculate example he had ever seen. The sheer volume of enquiries I had for the car where testament to how well it photographed and the quality of the task Jim had performed over the four days that was still evident some 10 months after he had detailed it!

I would highly recommend White Details to anyone who has petrol running through their veins and cherishes their vehicle. His passion for perfection, exemplary attention to detail, sheer pride in the finished result and a desire to always exceed expectations guarantees that Jim will always be the first and last person maintaining the finish of any car I ever own. I recommend him with enthusiasm to friends and clients and proudly show-off his portfolio as if it was my own. A reputation that is well deserved. Thank you.


And a few more pics:

Jim.

 

[toomer]

Wow!

 

[Jimbo_M]

Fantastic work and great write ups as usual

 

[Gally]

Simply immense worksmanship Jim. Porsche is up there with your best work.

I always found basalt a bit frustrating as it has soo much fleck it's never going to look "deep" black like the solid blacks out there or the less metallic ones.

The Porsche is another level. For a car of that age to look like that again is amazing. It really is a testament to your work.

 

[VIICarCare]

Speechless! Im in awe of your work ... and stunning cars you get in! I deffo think you need an assistant

 

[JimWD]

Gally, cheers mate. May have a few more Porka's to play with off the back of this one.. (just hope they're not all 'sticky paint sufferers'!)

A few more big jobs this month - can't wait! Good times.