Eldorado2k
08-11-2021, 10:09 AM
Saved the day? That’s a bold statement, and I dunno about you, but when I have my goals set for a vehicle that I’m about to detail, failure is not an option.
Failure is not an option.
So when this Nissan Armada was dropped off to me I spoke with the owner and he just bought it to replace another Armada that was hit in a car accident. So this is going to be his family vehicle and of course I want to do a good job on it.
1 of my main areas I was set to make a difference on was wheels & tires. I took 1 look and said “I’m going to make those look like new”
But when I started cleaning them I ran into quite a surprise. I started cleaning them at about 9pm. in order to get a headstart on the SUV for the next morning, and I wasn’t sure if I just couldn’t see or if they weren’t coming clean. After 2 rounds of Meguiars D143 I grabbed my flashlight and they weren’t coming clean. So I reached for the big gun, Brown Royal undiluted.
Holy crap, this has almost never happened.. This is what they still looked like the next morning.[emoji2955][I didn’t get any pictures of how they looked before the 1st round, as I didn’t expect this to turn into a notable situation]
https://uploads.tapatalk-cdn.com/20210811/0dc308aa0b0253d74d34ced187d1950d.jpg
So at this point my whole day is ruined because this is just unacceptable in my book. If something like this happens it’s nothing less than a complete fail and I don’t have it in me to charge someone if I give them back their vehicle looking like this. At the very least I knew this would cut about half of what I was going to charge for this job because how can you deliver a vehicle back with dirty wheels? Especially chrome, which the whole point of them is to shine like a mirror.
So I started thinking about what else could possibly be done when I thought about what we’ve all come across while watching videos.. I remembered about those crazy vids people post talking about Coca Cola and aluminum foil somehow cleaning rust off chrome and somehow leaving them shiny, polished, and scratch free.
And just by coincidence a old friend had stopped by my house a few days prior and brought me something to eat and also a couple of 2 liter bottles of soda, 1 of them Coca Cola. Keep in mind I don’t even drink Coke, so if it wasn’t for him I wouldn’t have had it in my fridge. So I said what the heck, lets try this, what’s the worst that can happen. I did a little test area… Holy crap, it worked![emoji38]lol. I can’t believe it actually worked!!!
After the little bit of foil I tested got used up I decided to try it with the last bit of steel wool that I had left and it worked even better than the aluminum foil! So I got in my car and went on a mission to retrieve another bottle of Coca Cola and some steel wool…
Lets rock! Coca Cola, straight undiluted. Lol.
00 Steel wool.
https://uploads.tapatalk-cdn.com/20210811/10a501b7e7ce5b168230540f0f65f810.jpg
It still takes a little bit of time, about the same time you’d spend hand polishing a wheel if not a bit more, but relatively speaking the baked on brake dust that nothing else would budge came off like hot butter. This nearly blew my mind.
Before: [btw these tires were insane as well. Brake dust like I’ve never seen. Just crazy]
https://uploads.tapatalk-cdn.com/20210811/1016b4a96a57af66bbad3df1d94cbd27.jpg
After:
https://uploads.tapatalk-cdn.com/20210811/0a65243028588c09381c9b597fb649b1.jpg
Before:
https://uploads.tapatalk-cdn.com/20210811/3d03f09daaffa3e55fffb30db5bf1143.jpg
After:
https://uploads.tapatalk-cdn.com/20210811/c77b5c4729b43ecb5c5ba177a2d8dc35.jpg
Off label use, hacks, crazy stuff that nobody believes would possibly work even though there’s video proof… I don’t discount any information. It doesn’t hurt to take a mental note, because you never know when it might just save your day. It feels so good to have gotten these wheels polished. The great feeling of actually earning it!
Thanks for reading.
P.S. Desertnate, this is why I asked if your wheels were chrome.[emoji4]
Failure is not an option.
So when this Nissan Armada was dropped off to me I spoke with the owner and he just bought it to replace another Armada that was hit in a car accident. So this is going to be his family vehicle and of course I want to do a good job on it.
1 of my main areas I was set to make a difference on was wheels & tires. I took 1 look and said “I’m going to make those look like new”
But when I started cleaning them I ran into quite a surprise. I started cleaning them at about 9pm. in order to get a headstart on the SUV for the next morning, and I wasn’t sure if I just couldn’t see or if they weren’t coming clean. After 2 rounds of Meguiars D143 I grabbed my flashlight and they weren’t coming clean. So I reached for the big gun, Brown Royal undiluted.
Holy crap, this has almost never happened.. This is what they still looked like the next morning.[emoji2955][I didn’t get any pictures of how they looked before the 1st round, as I didn’t expect this to turn into a notable situation]
https://uploads.tapatalk-cdn.com/20210811/0dc308aa0b0253d74d34ced187d1950d.jpg
So at this point my whole day is ruined because this is just unacceptable in my book. If something like this happens it’s nothing less than a complete fail and I don’t have it in me to charge someone if I give them back their vehicle looking like this. At the very least I knew this would cut about half of what I was going to charge for this job because how can you deliver a vehicle back with dirty wheels? Especially chrome, which the whole point of them is to shine like a mirror.
So I started thinking about what else could possibly be done when I thought about what we’ve all come across while watching videos.. I remembered about those crazy vids people post talking about Coca Cola and aluminum foil somehow cleaning rust off chrome and somehow leaving them shiny, polished, and scratch free.
And just by coincidence a old friend had stopped by my house a few days prior and brought me something to eat and also a couple of 2 liter bottles of soda, 1 of them Coca Cola. Keep in mind I don’t even drink Coke, so if it wasn’t for him I wouldn’t have had it in my fridge. So I said what the heck, lets try this, what’s the worst that can happen. I did a little test area… Holy crap, it worked![emoji38]lol. I can’t believe it actually worked!!!
After the little bit of foil I tested got used up I decided to try it with the last bit of steel wool that I had left and it worked even better than the aluminum foil! So I got in my car and went on a mission to retrieve another bottle of Coca Cola and some steel wool…
Lets rock! Coca Cola, straight undiluted. Lol.
00 Steel wool.
https://uploads.tapatalk-cdn.com/20210811/10a501b7e7ce5b168230540f0f65f810.jpg
It still takes a little bit of time, about the same time you’d spend hand polishing a wheel if not a bit more, but relatively speaking the baked on brake dust that nothing else would budge came off like hot butter. This nearly blew my mind.
Before: [btw these tires were insane as well. Brake dust like I’ve never seen. Just crazy]
https://uploads.tapatalk-cdn.com/20210811/1016b4a96a57af66bbad3df1d94cbd27.jpg
After:
https://uploads.tapatalk-cdn.com/20210811/0a65243028588c09381c9b597fb649b1.jpg
Before:
https://uploads.tapatalk-cdn.com/20210811/3d03f09daaffa3e55fffb30db5bf1143.jpg
After:
https://uploads.tapatalk-cdn.com/20210811/c77b5c4729b43ecb5c5ba177a2d8dc35.jpg
Off label use, hacks, crazy stuff that nobody believes would possibly work even though there’s video proof… I don’t discount any information. It doesn’t hurt to take a mental note, because you never know when it might just save your day. It feels so good to have gotten these wheels polished. The great feeling of actually earning it!
Thanks for reading.
P.S. Desertnate, this is why I asked if your wheels were chrome.[emoji4]