Hello everyone, as they all say I’m a long time lurker and first time poster... I’ve been an enthusiast detailer of my own cars for many years. I am the guy in the neighborhood that when everyone walked or drove by you would find me in the driveway washing or detailing my cars. Over the years the cars included our own vehicles, company cars, teenagers cars and occasionally relatives vehicles. Through the Autogeek community I was able to gain lots of knowledge and put that to use on our fleet of family vehicles. But recently I stepped into a new arena, detailing someone else’s vehicle.
Let me first say that I have a very satisfying day job that I enjoy, and I didn’t do this with any desire to open a side gig. However my neighbor (a guy who I used to work with) recently retired and bought a lovely, slightly used 2019 Suburban that he intends to road trip out to the western US national parks. The vehicle is black and unfortunately covered in car wash swirls and light scratches. He came up to me one evening while I was outside and told me he was looking for someone to polish and wax the truck and he asked if I was interested.

So if figured what the hell, if I’m going to do a car for someone else, it might as well be black, and big as a school bus! It’s sure not the transformation that many of the pros feature here on this website, but I’m proud of how it turned out nonetheless!

My process/products:
Foamed / Wash with 3D pink soap
Wheels and tires- Meguiars 143 and speed master wheel brush
Surprisingly it didn’t seem to need clay
Blew out the crevices and dried with PMF towels
Used my trusty ol Meguiars G110v2 !!
LC CSS orange light cutting pad w/ 3D One polish, also buzzed across the glass to remove any water spots
LSP - 303 Graphene Nano Spray Coating- used on chrome wheels, hard black trim pieces and side glass also
Tires - DG 253

My neighbor was thrilled with the results. He is not an auto detailing guy per se, but he is a neat freak. I gave him some ideas on how to keep it clean without using the local swirl-o-magic.

Go big or go home!-cdd90dc6-c832-4d47-a30c-38f02e7cec11-jpg
In the beginning...
Go big or go home!-defe68fd-e09d-47e4-9270-a08a85b00768-jpg
The status of the paint... some swirls and scratches
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My best attempt at the 50/50 shot... left side of the pic swirls- right side after the 3D one
Go big or go home!-4de4cca5-b907-4a5f-8cdf-b15fa5ed388d-jpgGo big or go home!-defe68fd-e09d-47e4-9270-a08a85b00768-jpg
This scratch is now a memory
Go big or go home!-d5d74b8a-7b00-4fd5-adde-8831e9bdf2d2-jpgGo big or go home!-04077783-23c8-4aea-8460-15b2c8da18bc-jpg
He loved the results
Go big or go home!-b5ee82dd-debb-43bd-a9c6-826f6668ed23-jpgGo big or go home!-872062a2-3cd6-4505-b927-261c2929864d-jpg
Not gonna quit my day job, but I’m happy with how it turned out. Thanks for letting me share, and thanks for all of the knowledge and tips I have learned from everyone on this forum that allowed me to have the ability to tackle this project!