O.C.Detailing (Lynchburg, VA.) - Black 2008 Mercedes Benz S550

[O.C.Detailing]

The owner of this vehicle was referred to me byRandy, the service advisor at Crossroads BMW here in Lynchburg, VA. The owner of this vehicle has several cars that he wants me to do some work on, but this was the first of them.

He had a few marks and scratches here and there that he wanted spot removed until I saw it in person and showed him all of the other damage in his paint. I informed him that I could remove most of the scratches, but the change in his car would be dramatic if he allowed me to do the entire thing, so he decided to let Jonathan and I have our hand at it. Most of the damage was caused by the local scratch and swirl carwash that the customer was taking it to. After the detail he said that he would only take his car through touch-free only automatic machines or get me to wash it.

This was probably one of the funnest cars I've done. I don't know why, but Surbuf 5.5" pads are the absolute BEST pads on the market for hardcore correction. Yes, this is a scratch-resistant clear and YES, it was a TON of work. Lake Country 5.5" Yellow flat pads wouldn't touch most of the damage in this paint, so Surbuf was called upon and worked amazingly.

PROCESS:

- Washed via 2-bucket method
- Clayed with Griot's Clay bar
- Wheels cleaned with Meg's Wheel Brightener and a strong degreaser sprayed onto the rubber and wheel wells and aggitated with several brushes. Rinsed VERY thoroughly.
- Dried with Absorbers
- Paint correction achieved using 5.5" Surbuf pads on our Griot's DA's and M105 on speed 6.
- M205 was used as a finishing polish on Lake Country 5.5" White polishing pads
- LSP is Menzerna Power Lock
- Interior was treated to a light wipe down and dressed with Meg's Hyper Dressing diluted for a natural look. Leather was NOT treated.

BEFORE PICS:

As you can see in these befores, the paint was in terrible shape when we started:






These scratches wouldn't come out at all. Even with a little wet-sanding to try to lighten them up.


Here someone dropped something down the driver's side rear door scratching it VERY badly. Almost every bit of the scratches came out with 5-6 passes of Surbuf and M105.




Some hood shots:


The skylight in this one REALLY shows the damage in the hood:




Trunklid swirls:





Even some hologram action:

[O.C.Detailing]

50/50 shots as we were going:




All gone on the trunklid:


Now the door:

[O.C.Detailing]

Now the SUNSHOT afters!!!
















Nice reflection shot or two here:



Thanks for looking and any feedback and/or constructive criticism is greatly appreciated!

[cobalt9123]

Wow, fantastic work. I love the 50/50 shots on the side!

[O.C.Detailing]

Thanks so much Cobalt. We worked about 16 hours or so on this car to get the paint right. So 32 hours, give or take, total between myself and Jonathan.

[WRAPT C5Z06]

Gezzzzusss, that looks great!!!!

[O.C.Detailing]

Gezzzzusss, that looks great!!!!

As always, thanks Mark. We do try our very best. I still have a lot to learn and some of the people here make my work look like a hack job, but that's why I stick around.

[WRAPT C5Z06]

As always, thanks Mark. We do try our very best. I still have a lot to learn and some of the people here make my work look like a hack job, but that's why I stick around.

haha...not a chance, Adam.

[Marc08EX]

Great work Adam!!!! How long did it take you do detail that car? It just has a lot of surface area to cover.

Damn yellow pads with SIP won't touch the paint??? What's special about the surf buff pads then?

[O.C.Detailing]

Great work Adam!!!! How long did it take you do detail that car? It just has a lot of surface area to cover.

Damn yellow pads with SIP won't touch the paint??? What's special about the surf buff pads then?

Thanks Marc! We actually don't use SIP. We used M105 and it didn't remove any of the deeper defects without 7-8 passes and that was taking way too long. Surbuf pads are fairly new and work miracles on scratch resistant clears for removing defects. All while using less than half of the normal amount of product though they do require a frequent amount of cleaning to keep cutting properly. The pad has no absorption qualities at all, so you end up using every bit of product instead of losing a lot of it to the pad like you do with standard foam pads. Not only that, but you get 2 Surbuf pads for the price of one Lake Country pad. One thing about them though, if you use them on edges, or on very neglected paint, the micro-finger facing will begin to separate from the foam backing. For the price though, and their ability to drastically shorten how long a detail would take with foam pads, they are totally worth the price.

This particular car took about 16 hours total between 2 detailers. So 32 man hours to get the correction you see in the photos.