DaytonaJae

I first saw this swirled up SLK parked at my chiropractor's office. Every time I see it, it's in the early morning when the sun is at that super unforgiving angle where it almost exaggerates all imperfections with unrelenting truth. This car was so swirled up, it actually turned the car white at certain angles due to the reflection of the swirls overpowering the dark blue paint.
As a big fan of Mercedes, and having a soft spot for SLK's in particular, I really wanted to detail this and bring it back to life.
They dropped it off and agreed to let me have it for pretty much as long as I needed, which was great, since this turned out to be my longest detail to date, despite being such a small car.
--------------------------------------------
Products and Tools Used in this Detail:
Adam's:
Car Shampoo
All-Purpose Cleaner
Green Wheel Cleaner
Detail Spray
Waterless Wash
Glass Cleaner
Leather & Interior Cleaner
Leather Conditioner
Metal Polish
Super VRT
Revive Polish
Fender Brush
Boar's Hair Wheel Brush
Lug Nut Brush
Menzerna:
Power Gloss PG1000 Compound
Power Finish PF2500 Polish
Super Finish SF4500 (PO85RD)
Pads:
Uber 6,5,and 4" pads
Griot's Garage 3" Pads
Polishers:
Flex 3504VRC
Porter Cable 7424xp
Griot's Garage 3
LSP:
Collinite 845
Other:
Karcher 1500psi Pressure Washer
1000w Halogen Lights
Brinkmann Dual Xenon Swirl Finder
Metro Master Blaster
Metro Vac n Blo
--------------------------------------------

Here's the patient:

DaytonaJae

The obligatory foam gun shot during decon stage:
(Adam's Car Shampoo with some All-Purpose Cleaner in the foam gun)


Washed and dried with a SINGLE bucket wash dun dun duuuunnnnn...yes I know I know, but seriously, have you seen the paint on this thing???


Clayed the hood, not bad. Definetely have seen worse.
(Adam's Clay Bar and Detail Spray)


Engine bay was very clean already, just wiped down and dressed.
(Adam's Waterless Wash, In and Out Spray, and Super VRT.)
Before:

After:


Now the detail can start: let's see it under the lights and see what we are working with:



Holy crap-ola



Hmmmm

Geezus


Like automated car washes much?

DaytonaJae

Some 50/50's




Before

After


Before

After


One of my favorite things to do during paint correction is doing that first swipe to see how you did:


Before

After


Before

After

Before

After


Before

After


Almost there... just a few more passes.

There we go!


Rear of the car all tidied up having tried all 3 polishers: Flex 3401(6"), PC7424xp(5.5"), and GG3(3").

DaytonaJae

Using the Griot's 3" on the front grill wings.


Leather Seats cleaned with Adam's Leather & Interior Cleaner, and treated to Adam's Leather Conditioner.



After final polish, I washed the polish oils off using an APC soak and pressure wash. I did this inside the garage, since it was high noon and I didn't want to risk any water spotting after all this work. That would have sucked.
(Adam's APC sprayed on with Venus Pro sprayer, massaged in with hands (it was kinky), then pressure washed off.)
No previous wax protection whatsoever is left. Perfectly clean surface ready for new wax!




Finally after 3 days, time for the wax!
Applied Collinite #845 via PC with Uber Black pad (sorry no pics)

DaytonaJae

Final shots




















Lessons learned:
1. A yoga mat can save your back when polishing rocker panels.
2. When wearing a sleeveless shirt, don't roll back in your seat into the 1000 watt halogens.
3. With 3 buffers lying around you, when the one in your hand doesn't work, chances are, the wrong one is plugged in.
Thanks for looking!

bfisher

that was an awesome transformation - thanks for sharing. 3 days! Wow! Did the owner cry when he/she saw the amazing difference and the neglect they've dished out on that poor thing?