Its no "presidential detail" but this is my first detail. I plan on clay baring the entire car, doing a 2 or 3 step swirl remover with a rotary buffer and coating the car with a nice coat of wax. Since this if my first try I am not going to use any "high end" products either, not yet. Well lets get started.

The car I'm going to work on is a 2007 Super White Scion Tc. I have taken the car to be washed at the local car wash over 20 times since the car has been purchased. So there are plenty of swirls and debris in the clear. I always keep the car clean but this past week has been snowing/sleeting/raining/foggy so the car is pretty gross.

This is a picture that was taken a week before to show how it used to look.



This is how it looks like now.


















There is dirt like this built up everywhere on the car.







The interior
















Well I hope you get an idea of the condition of the car. This is my equipment.



The power washer was really only used on the wheel wells and when cleaning the inside of the wheels. The car itself was washed with a wool mitten with a 2 bucket meathod. No grit guard.







Just an assortment of nozzles.



A tent I was lucky to find in the garage since it was the middle of the day.



And some music.



My supplies. I found both bucket at Lowes for $4 each which pretty decent, since they are white its easy to spot debris.

I first started with cleaning the wheels inside and out along with some minor cleaning of the wheel wells. I used simple green (which I fell in love with) in a 1-10 part.



Before


After


Before


After


Before


After


By the time I got the this done I only had an hour left before I had to get ready for work, so I did a very quick exterior wash.

Before


After


Before


After


[b]Before[.b]


After


Before


After




I've always been very **** with water etching on my glass roof so I've always had wax, or rain x coated to prevent this, and it works beautifully. I did a watch, then rinse routine to prevent soap from drying and creating another step in drying. After I had everything washed I did a "flooding" method to help get most of the water off the car. What was left I used my "Absorber" towel on.

These are the final shots.









On this last picture you can really see the orange peel and can notice how the reflection isn't nearly as sharp as it should be. As a reminder I'm only about 20% done with the car. I'll wake up early tomorrow to go pick up some polishing, swirl remover and glaze compounds along with a good buffer (if I can find a good deal. So I'll update tomorrow night with the final results.

 

Whats a flooding method?

Looks decent. Looks forward to Part 2.

 

for pointers you prob spent more time on the wheels then the exterior

 

The undercarage is still filthy. You get a C+ in my book. A for effort though.

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BZCi0_55ZDo


Yeah I did spend some times on the wheels, I have never really detailed my car, or any car for the matter of fact, so in all honestly I felt pretty lost. After I had all of my equipment out I had a hard time listing what things to do, and in what order. I was also short on time since I've been working allot.

But I planned on finishing it up on Saturday, I showed up at a local paint store to pick up some swirl removing compounds and maybe a rotary buffer, but I was ten minutes too late. So I had to settle with a very cheap 10" random orbital buffer we had around the house. I went ahead and picked up some microfiber sleeves and some other stuff for it. I didn't get far at all, I did a basic rinse and wash to get some dirt off of it, and I clay barred the entire car. But right after that it started to drizzle so my day was done.

Here are some random pictures,



the buffer



after doing the trunk

Now I'm in a bit of a dilemma because I woke up this morning (Sunday) and it was 33 degrees outside, so if I plan on getting any further into my detail I have to clean the garage, which in itself would take an entire day.

fewk

 

looks pretty damn good for a first detail. hell the first car i detailed didn't look all that great. still had a ton of orangepeel and i'm still working one pulling that orangepeel out completely with polishes. i need to invest in a ptg cause i'm always nervous of burning some paint.