2015 Infiniti QX60 gets a face lift

[TTQ B4U]

So a referral from a Racing club member brought his wife's newer to them Crossover to me for a clean up. This is a 2015 with only 25k miles on it but it's exterior seemed unusually rough upon initial inspection. When discussing things with the owner they revealed that there were a series of hand prints that he said wouldn't come off. Hmmm.... With that I felt what clearly was some over-spray of clear coat all over the vehicle. The owner wasn't aware of it having had any paint work but I wasn't going to be sure of what was done where until I had the vehicle cleaned and had a chance to give it a secondary inspection.

The vehicle was also loaded with hard water spots on the glass and aluminum trim around the windows and of course swirled out. Clearly it's seen a fair share of tunnel washes and based on the slight oxidation on the headlights, I suspect it didn't get much protection in a garage. There were many indications including some camera mounts, etc. that this was a livery or courtesy vehicle of some sort that made it's weekly run through a car wash and sat in a lot awaiting the next set of customers.

The customer had never spent money on a detail before and seemed a little apprehensive. A good reminder to all of us that while a basic lower-level detail that is under $400 is fairly inexpensive in our eyes, can be quite expensive when looking through the lens of others. Our goal here given this was his first-ever paying for a detail was to start out smaller and go with my Basic Clean and Protect Package. The vehicle was loaded with swirls but that's okay and given it's a soccer mom vehicle that will see car washes, it's a good package for it as the oxidation will be removed, a good bit of the swirls knocked-down and far less visible and the appearance of depth for it's black paint restored.

Upon inspection, I did finally see the rear bumper cover has been painted and the vehicle poorly prepped when sprayed. Lack of flex agent and/or poor prep has caused just a little bit of paint cracking and flaking a bit thus I informed the customer, documented it all and would only be giving that area a very light once over with the polisher. All in all, it was rough. Here are a few cell shots of it before.

Swirls and car wash marring was pretty bad





Hand print/smudges that are in the clear and won't simply wipe or clean off.





Hard water spots on glass and trim abound






The goal of my Basic Clean and Protect is to add gloss, remove oxidation and grime and while it's NOT a correction service, it will help smooth out fine blemishes and greatly reduce the appearance of swirls and imperfections. Lastly, it will seal and protect the paint with a season long protective layer. All in all I was able to achieve all of that and then some given it's pure black and is looking good even on a sunny day like today I'd say the owner will be quite pleased.





























My Process:

• Wash and stripping of any sealant and tire dressing
• Iron X
• Nano Mitt Medium Grade
• Rupes Mille with Yellow Rupes Mille Pads
• CarPro Essence Polish/Sealant
• Adams Fine glass polish on Adams glass polishing pad
• Turtle Wax Seal & Shine as the LSP
• Meg's Hyperdressing for tires
• WETS for the trim

Total time involved just over 5hrs.


As per my usually routine, I always do 1 or 2 little extras for customers as a way of showing appreciation. Here I wasn't asked to but it needed it, I gave the interior a basic cleaning since this is a new mom's swagger wagon and it was clearly in need of it and with the two little ones around, I'm sure neither parent was looking forward to tackling it. I have all the tools and honestly it only took me 30 minutes and it's now fresh and clean. No pics there but it matches the outside now. My gift to a new mom of a 2yr old and now 3-4 month old.

Thanks for reading along guys!

[Klasse Act]

The work done is always great, as usual but my God are the Infiniti SUVs U G L Y! I hope the guy who just left Lincoln to join Nissan/Infiniti can do something over there

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[TTQ B4U]

The work done is always great, as usual but my God are the Infiniti SUVs U G L Y! I hope the guy who just left Lincoln to join Nissan/Infiniti can do something over there

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It's certainly nothing "special" IMO Infiniti lost their mojo when they moved away from the G-Platform and the older style FX Crossovers that had a more muscular look to them.

[Klasse Act]

It's certainly nothing "special" IMO Infiniti lost their mojo when they moved away from the G-Platform and the older style FX Crossovers that had a more muscular look to them.

Absolutely

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[SWETM]

Great work and write up and pictures as always!

Awesome to see what a cleaning/finishing polishing can do to make a DD looking good. Many times I think that when a first time user of a polisher are looking for guidence. We should recommend to they to do a finishing polish or a AIO polish. And chase for the finish instead of getting all of the defects.

[acuRAS82]

The work done is always great, as usual but my God are the Infiniti SUVs U G L Y! I hope the guy who just left Lincoln to join Nissan/Infiniti can do something over there

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Agree new Infinity’s are fugly.

Great work by OP, no doubt the owner will be happy and probably feel good about getting details in the future.

[fightnews]

I mean it looks great. I'd love to see a video of you polishing a car. You must be going super fast on the polisher? Do you still do 2x2 sections with a wipe off every section? I need to work on speeding up my polishing process.

[TTQ B4U]

I mean it looks great. I'd love to see a video of you polishing a car. You must be going super fast on the polisher? Do you still do 2x2 sections with a wipe off every section? I need to work on speeding up my polishing process.

Haha. My arm speed varies some but the difference on my packages and amount of correction applied is also around the number of passes. Both of which could depend on the hardness of the finish of course.

On this one the paint is medium to soft so 1 to 2 inches per second arm speed and a basic 2-3 pass per section correction is what was done.

So what that looks like is a my first row is left swath then right swath [1 pass] followed by a drop downward with 1/2 row overlap so essentially each area gets what I would say is 2 full passes; left-right; left-right done.

The above typically gets me the level of correction I'm selling for my basic polish and protect package.

There's always an urge to do "more" but when it's for a customer I stick to what they are buying as otherwise I'll make cut into my hourly rate and everyone would be getting my highest package results at my lowest package rate.

My target earning is $75-$100hr but I have gone as low as $60-65 due to various situations and needs. This job was $70-75 but I also tossed in the free interior as a bonus for new mom. I'm good with that.

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[Sizzle Chest]

Nice work on that rig! Looks a lot better now!

[PaulMys]

Awesome work, as always man.

Can I ask about the 2 rectangles on either side of your garage eagle?