Reflex Silver Golf 6 Gti - Detailed by Lawrence

[lawrenceSA]

So as some of you know, I am based in a town called Durban in South Africa. I am also heavily involved in the VW Club SA, a nation wide club for VW (well the whole VAG group actually) enthusiasts, and this weekend I had my first opportunity to detail one of guys cars who is based in Johannesburg, some 600km away - he even went as far as hiring another vehicle whilst he was down in my neck of the woods so he could get me to work on his car - quite humbling actually!

This meant that I was only able to start working on the car at around 09:30 on Saturday morning (where I usually make a start around 19:00 on Friday evening). I was therefore quite pressed for time and did not have the opportunity to remove the wheels and give them a thorough detailing as he would have liked. Nonetheless, I managed to pretty much get everything else done.

So the car was dropped off on what turned out to be an extremely hot Saturday morning. At 09:45 it was already a nice sticky 29 degrees celcius with humidity around 95% - you gotta love Durban weather and I got to work removing the tape he had placed to protect the recently added ED35 front end


Once that had been done I snapped some pics of the condition of the car which, whilst being covered in surface dirt, was in generally good condition.

















Signs of previous polishing work on the car.... In the end I reckon I lost more than an hour removing a combination of polish/wax from all the little nooks/crannies around the vehicle....






So first up, as always, I got cracking on cleaning up the wheels.

Before






Tires and arches were scrubbed clean using APC and the wheels were then cleaned using Turtle Wax Intensive wheel cleaner. I then used Autofinesse ObliTARate to remove the tar from the wheels (minimal was present on the faces of the wheels although I am sure the barrels would have had more on them, were I able to remove the wheels and get to them properly), which were then given a light treatment of iron-x (I had a very limited supply left and the owner and I had agreed it would be put to better use on his paintwork) which removed some of the embedded iron particles from the wheels









I then set about cleaning up the engine bay using various brushes and Cyclo CM30 before dressing it with Chemical Guys Bare Bones.

Before








After



!

[lawrenceSA]

The last step of what I refer to as 'the dirty work' (cleaning wheels, engine bays, door and boot jambs etc) was to get to all the spots usually missed in most people's regular weekend maintenance wash. This included door and boot jambs, in and around the badges, the honeycomb grills :fear: , door and window rubbers (which were stained with wax), inside the petrol flap, along the joins of the side skirts, in all the panel seams and then in this case, all the areas where someone had kindly left polish residue for me to remove.







After a thorough rinsing to remove any loose dirt (and to try and cool the paint in the summer heat) I was then able to pre-wash the entire vehicle using a combination of Chemical Guys Maxi Suds II and Cyclo CM30 (to strip off any existing LSP).



This was followed with a 2 bucket wash using Meguiars Gold Class Shampoo mixed with Optimum ONR and the vehicle was then rinsed and dried. All tar spots were then removed with Autofinesse ObliTARate


The entire vehicle including all the windows were then sprayed with Carpro Iron-x, releasing a fair amount of bonded and embedded iron particles.






This was followed by a further 15 minutes of rinsing to ensure all the product had been removed.

I was then ready to commence claying the vehicle and glass surfaces which was done using Autofinesse fine grade clay.


I happened to drop this piece of clay about 3 mins in and after much cursing had to throw it away and grab a new piece....

Despite removing all the tar and iron, there was still a lot of contaminants on the paint. The pic below is after only claying the front quarter panel



I completed claying the vehicle and then commenced my preparation for polishing. This included taping up those areas where I did not want to run the risk of polishing over (such as lights, badges, raised edges on panels - where paint will be naturally thinner due to the effect gravity has on wet paint when being sprayed - and around specific areas I found that would require a different approach (such as a very deep scratch - one found on the driver side roof - or a run in the paint - one found in the new bumper ). I then performed a test spot to verify if my pad/polish combo would be suitable for the task at hand.

At this point I must explain the reason for finally settling on Menzerna SF4500 on a Lake Country Green Pad.

This is a fairly new and very well looked after vehicle and given that the Belix will still be hanging onto this car for a while, the objective was really to add as much depth, gloss and clarity to the paint without sacrificing too much clear coat. I was not trying to target defect removal as such but rather trying to enhance and protect the paint. Added to this, the signs of polish residue in the before pics, was evidence enough that someone has polished out the entire vehicle and without knowing who did what, and how, I erred on the side of caution and was therefore not too concerned with the removal of the deeper swirl marks or RIDS.... I just wanted to liven the paint up and then protect it as much as possible, so that 1) it would be a lot easier for the owner to perform his weekly maintenance wash and 2) the depth of the clear coat could be kept in tact. A more aggressive polish could be performed if/when he is ready to sell/trade in the vehicle to remove any/all defects in the paint at that point, and increase the resale value.

Before


After


Before


After


A deep RID on the roofline


Working hard in Durban's hot and humid weather had really drained me ops: and so I called it an evening at around 19:30

When I commenced again on Sunday morning at 04:30 the weather had done a complete about turn, with a fairly decent storm blowing in. I do have to admit though it was a lot more pleasant polishing in the garage in this weather than the hot and humid weather on Saturday.


So Sunday morning was then spent finishing off the polishing and once done I set about working on the interior. All rubber mats were removed and washed using Cyclo CM20, the dash was cleaned and treated using Meguiars Dash and Trim Foam, and all the leather surfaces were cleaned, conditioned and protected using Smartwax Smartleather. All interior glass was then cleaned with Autoglym Fast Glass.

Once finished the car was pulled outside to receive another pre-wash with the foam cannon and 2 Bucket wash, to remove all polishing residue / dust etc. I then dried off the vehicle and used a blower to ensure that water had been removed from all the places where it usually gets trapped (such as mirrors) to ensure I would have no water present during the application of the sealant and wax.

The first step was to lay down a coat of Chemical Guys Black light using a Menzerna black finishing pad. Whilst this was curing I dressed all the tires with Meguiars Endurance Tire Gel. After properly curing the Black light was then buffed off and I then laid down 2 coats of Chemical Guys Hybrid V7 liquid sealant, waiting an hour between each application. During this time the exhaust tips were polished using Autosol.

I then applied 2 coats of Collinte 845 to the paintwork, rims and exhaust tips.

Finally all outside glass was cleaned using Autoglym Fast Glass and a water repellent applied and I then treated all exterior trim using Chemical Guys Bare Bones.

This left me with just enough time to snap some after pics before Belix arrived to collect the vehicle....

And yes, as murphy would have it, it started pouring with rain as he left

















Somehow my (lack of) photography skills ops: really failed to capture just how wet the paint looked, but the owner saw it in person (obviously) and was extremely happy, so that is all that really matters.

Overall it was a great pleasure to spend 21 hours working on a well looked after vehicle as well as meeting the owner in person (always nice to put a face to a forum name - we have been chatting on the forum for years, but had never met).

Thanks for looking

[Fation]

Great shine. Such a beautiful car.

[Pinpoint_Precision]

Amazing work and before/after pictures. Great turn around on that beautiful GTI

[vet]

Great work, as usual, Sir Lawrence!

[Wors]

Very nice job. The GTI turned out amazing. Nice photography work.

[donb]

The GTI looks great! Nicely done.

[cartman57]

Great work on the GTI, that's a lot of hours for such a small vehicle, you really detail everything!

And then it rained.........the water will fall right off with the products you finished it with.

[Scarelane]

Looks great! I wish we could get a Silver GTI here in the States. I own a 2011 United Grey GTI.

[lawrenceSA]

Thank you all so much for your kind words - I really do appreciate it