Mobile-Image : 2 Day Polo Sportline makeover

[Carn]

After my weekend off it was back to the grindstone, this time on a VW Polo 1.9TDI Sportline. Having had one of these little gems many moons ago, I was quite excited to breath some new life into it.


The car as she arrived...




Lots of road grime










Tire dressing remains



The back end of hatches always being prone to plenty of accumulated dirt!








The wheels weren't all that bad...





As usual wheels and arches were 1st. Wheels got Sonax Extreme (surprise ) and the arches got APC at 5:1 before being scubbed with various brushes.

Sonax applied and getting to work


Ez-Detail brush along with some CG CWC cleaned up the wheels nicely



With the wheels and arches all cleaned it was time to play with the foam lance again

CWC after 3 or 4 minutes...Not the greatest dwell time compared to Hyperwash but it cleans a tad better IMO


Lots of grime in the run-off!



Having rinsed the vehicle and seen some remaining grime I elected to foam and re-rinse prior to washing. The wash stage saw the usual TBM again with CWC.

Finally I took some TBM shots now that I have laaney buckets


Half way around the car on the wash stage I needed to refill the rinse bucket. Here's why...



With the wash completed I set about scrubbing up all the trim, panel gaps and other hard to reach areas with the aid of my detail brushes. I didn't take many pics this time around as it was taking forever to get all the crud out of everywhere...

An example of the amount of muck in all the gaps!



After a final rinse it was time for claying...No surprise it came up pretty filthy!



With the cleaning phase having consumed the better part of 5 hours it was time to pull the car into the garage and get a look at the paint under the lights...

Lots of swirling, RIDS and generally lifeless paint was the order of the day










Plastic boot light was matt!



With the inspection completed under the lights I took some PTG readings from around the car. All averaged in the low 100's with a few spots reading around 80um. These areas were noted and I avoided any heavy polishing lest I compromise the clear coat!


Pad and polish combination for the day proved to be orange CG Hex-Logic pads in combination with SIP. FCP was used in some areas and was then followed by a combination of SIP and 106FA to remove any traces of hologramming left by the FCP.

50/50 shots on the bonnet





Some before and afters...

Before




And after





Before


After



Mirror before


And afters



Taillights before


And after



Some of the smaller, tighter areas got SIP on an orange LC spot pad.

Before and after




Before


Afters



Despite the scrubbing outside there was still some muck in the emblems and panel gaps, etc.




More APC and a tooth brush took care of it all...Thats better



A few random shots from the polishing stage...













Remember the filthy trim on the bumpers?





Out in the sunlight to check for any nastys!







With only a few of the deeper RIDS still visible I finished up on the correction stage before giving the car a final wash down.

LSP of choice on the white was the Werkstat Acrylic duo of Prime followed by Jett. Tires and trim got CG's Fade to Black as opposed to the regular 303. Having bought a can I wanted to give it a whirl and see how it worked. Overall I was impressed with it and it left a nice sheen on both the plastics, as well as the rubber (tires and window trim).

Plastics




Tires & arches



Some finished shots




Emblems all tidied up


Nice glossy finish







Boot light got restored






Some reflection shots





Final one



As always thanks for looking

[Lambchop]

ah dave

as usual .... An awesome write up, and even better result

well done

[Kido]

Great stuff once again Dave

[dood786]

Awesome as per the normal

[Woodie]

The usual standard of work, write up and photography Dave

My experience with the detailing brushes is that they are sometimes a little too soft to shift stubborn dirt around the emblems. Do you have the same experience, or is it my defective technique?

I'm not sure if I missed a post/thread on this, but what is your opinion on the CG Hex-Logic pads?

[Carn]

Thanks guys

@ Woodie. The brushes are pretty soft yes. I took the smallest one of the 5 and cut the bristles down to around 40% of their original length. This stiffens them up a bit and helps but is still not quite as effective as a tooth brush for the really stubborn areas.

As with any type of stiffer brush though you will get some fine scratching that will need to be polished out afterwards


As far as the Hex pads go I put some of my initial thoughts in a thread here. I will keep it updated as I get to use the pads on a more regular basis

On this particular car the orange pad worked pretty well. I initially used the green 3M compounding pad but it was a little 'grabby' compared to the orange Hex pad. I think this is due to a different type of foam in the 3M pads than those of the CG's. I find the 3M polishing pad to be very soft to the touch, but still immensely effective on a variety of paints. The orange CG Hex-Logic didn't have quite the same cut as the 3M green pad, but it was significantly smoother (perhaps it is down to the ventilation afforded by the hex shaped pathways on the pad face).

[Delta]

Very Very nice work

[springbok]

Maestro!

[Rich]

Very nice! I wish I had some buckets and brushes and 303 like that ... (hint...hint...) Nice pic's dood!