I made a promise to board member Kleintje that one day, when the time would allow, that I would give some TLC to his car, in the form of a complete detail. The perfect opportunity appeared between Christmas and New Years Eve, where 2x 4 days weekends would give me the time to work on his car.
This is a 1999 M5 with 268 000km on the clock and it really hasn't seen much love (in a detailers perspective, of course) until the day that Kleintje left the car with me when he went on Vacations to Seattle, so he could go crash a Ford Explorer against some fences
I set off outside on the 25th of December, to give the car a wash and clay it, so I could store it to continue on the next day, before the cold front would arrive to NL (we had negative temperatures everyday since then).
This is what I had ahead of me...
I always start with the wheels first, so that whatever dirty and wheel cleaner that spits around to the paintwork, will get rinsed and washed.
For the wheels I washed them with some Autosmart Smartwheels, which is a non-acidic cleaner, diluted to a 3:1 ratio. I let it stay on the wheel for a minute and then work it on the insides of the wheel with an EZ Detail Brush and the oustides with a Swissvax Wheel Brush.
The tires are scrubbed well with Megs APC diluted to 10:1.
They were true Shadow Chrome instead of just being brown!
The tires are scrubbed well with Megs APC diluted to 10:1
Off to the other side of the car to do the passenger side wheel, which was even dirtier...
The tar deposits were now clear to see, which were removed using some Autosmart Tardis.
After all the wheels were done, time to pass to the paintwork. I foamed the car for 5 minutes with some APC and Snowfoam, to help degrease the dirty and unstick it from the paint as much as possible.
Car was then washed with two bucket mode (I miss pictures from the whole wash process, since I was starting to lack time).
With the car washed, time for the clay. I selected the Sonόs Grey for its aggressiveness in removing the contaminants. With the cold temperatures, it was proving to be quite a challenge to keep the clay warm and it was slightly marring the paint, but that was no worry, since those defects would be removed by the polishing.
Car was then stored in the workshop, warm and away from the freezing temperatures, so I could continue on next day.
For the whole polishing I opted to use the following.
3M Fast Cut Plus, Menz 3.02, Menz 106FA and the brilliant Menz 85RD for the finishing, together with the range of 3M pads (not pictured).
Time to turn on the Halogens...
I sensed some work ahead with the show of swirls and marring from the clay.
BMW paint being hard as nails, the strategy taken was 1x Fast Cut Plus, 1 or 2 hits with 3.02 and finish with 85RD.
A clear finish was showing up!
I knew that this colour had a lot to offer, but it was requiring some hard work, but it was going to get there.
I always used my Paint Thickness Gauge to measure how much I had to play. I saw some areas which were scary low, too low to do anything... I recalibrated my PTG and it was still showing readings of high 40s on the roof of the car. Lots of care and slow speeds were used to correct the roof, using 106FA for its low cut properties.
Then continuing on the side panels
it was shaping up nicely
pity that it was showing up some rust on the left of the filler cap door.
I was starting to love the deep reflections that this green gives, which is something that my Le Mans Blue can't offer
More polishing work
This car had the Vorsteiner Carbon Fibre hood, which was installed and painted last year, so it only required 2 hits with 3.02 and finishing with 85RD to get to this.
Polished and non polished panel...
I thought it was time to show Kleintje a serious 50/50, of how polishing can be so rewarding,, when you correct every little blemish and scar that the paint has, leaving it perfect with nothing to disturb the light reflection.
I masked the drivers door on the middle of it.
After finishing the whole polishing process on the car, I dusted it all (FCP leaves lots of dust behind..) and I did the windows.
I couldn't say that I did the whole car alone, since my girlfriend came to help me with the exhausts, while I went around with the 85RD finishing up some panels. Believe it or not, to remove them from the black tips that he had (scroll up to see the first pictures), she took 45 minutes with steel wool and some NXT metal polish.Thank you so much! :* :*
The car was looking starting to look good to my eyes and finally it could start displaying how glossy and deep the green could be...
The interior was cleaned, vacuumed, all plastics cleaned with APC and the leather cleaned and fed with LTT products, which I find to be outstandingly good.
The whole car was then fed with a Zymφl HD Cleanse glaze and took one layer of Zymφl Concours to protect the finish and enhance the gloss.
This is what I had now on my hands...
It went from this...
To this...
Like Wout said to me when I showed him the car on one of the nights that he passed by, it went from the dirtiest M5 in the Netherlands to something a bit more respectful
All in all and after many many many hours of work, I was very happy and satisfied with the results achieved. It took me a bit more then 30 hours of work to turn this car around, but it was well worth it!
whyyyyy?
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