2001 Infiniti G35: a new lease on life

[christian900se]

I was called by the owners of this Ivory white Infiniti G35 sedan to clean the car on very short notice. The owner of this car is on the road constantly for his job, living out of this car as he drives around the country. Unfortunately, this means that not only does the car get used alot, but it also rarely gets pampered (if ever). I knew I was in for a challenge as the initial inspection would prove to show the car as one of the dirtiest I have ever worked on. I ended up having to break the detail up into two portions: day 1 would be for the exterior while day 2 would be dedicated to the interior work. The car has 120,000 miles on the odometer, but the car was last washed in november of last year (30,000 miles ago) and the interior had never been properly detailed and the owners had a time constraint on the first day so I didn't want to compromise and decided it was best to concentrate on each part as their own entities.


Certain areas of the car were very poor, I definately underestimated how poor the condition this car was in which was partly due to the overcast conditons. However, I find that working on cars like this, the difference is that much greater and the owners were over the moon when they saw the difference. Unfortunately, the rear of the car was let down by some aweful paint work where some mobile body work "specialists" offered to repair a scuff that was in the rear bumper. They did not mask any of the car off and proceeded to bondo and paint the bumper, the bigger problem is that they tried to blend into the trunk and rear quarters which ruined the paint on those as well.

I will let the pictures do the talking, I was very happy with the results considering what I started with. Enjoy!


Products and Process:

Exterior:

-Pre-soak with Optimum Power Clean at 4:1 (water:OPC)
-ONR with OPC wash, 2 bucket method: I had to do two washes
-Dried with Showroom FX WW
-Clay Magic clay with CG Luber
-Wheels were hit with Optimum Power Clean, Raceglaze Wheel Brush XL 3 times with no improvement, Aquartz Ironcut used which removed a bit more but the wheels are in need of a refurbish
-Wheel wells cleaned
-Exterior trim treated with Aquartz coating, 2 layers
-One step polish; XMT360 via PC w/ a white CCS pad
-Collinite 915 (2 layers)
-CG Barebones on arches
-Chrome polished with Mother's Chrome Polish
-Tires dressed with Optimum Opti-bond
-Duragloss Aquawax on exterior glass
-Planet Polish Wheel Seal and Shine on rims

Interior:

-Thorough vacuum of the interior with Shop Vac
-Folex pre-treament on removeable carpets, hosed down, and extracted
-Optimum Power Clean on all leather and plastic, 2 full rounds
-Folex on all interior carpets, extracted after agitation
-303 Protectant to protect all leather, plastic, and vinyl
-303 Fabric Guard on carpets
-AG Fast Glass on the windows
-Aquartz CleanAir
-Final wipedown with a shamrock MF towel


Before: The exterior had a full 30,000 miles of grime on it which left some significant staining in the white paint work, especially on the leading edges of the panels. These were dealt with mostly by the pass of XMT360 and the clay portion.






The wheels were beyond what I could fix through a detail: they each recieved 3 hits of Optimum Power Clean with a final hit of Aquartz Ironcut but the deposits were embedded to the point where I am sure the build up was an 1/8th of an inch at the base of the spokes.



Lots of grime accumulated over many hard miles of driving.




Subborn staining on the leading edges of the panels.



I would qualify this as the work of a true hack, the bondo nightmare peeking through the dirt:





After the washing stage: much of the staining was removed, however even claying did not get rid of the last of the staining which was removed by XMT360 later.



The repaired panel in all its glory:



Overspray: this was removed by the claying stage.



Interior befores: there was a ton of built up grime in almost every area of the interior as it had never been cleaned properly per the owners.

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Oh man, dog hair...




These body work guys must not understand the concept of masking:

[christian900se]

I began by testing an area to see how much work was needed for the leather. This center section is representive of all the leather and plastic panels of the car.



One light pass, not enough:



Another pass, now we are talking. That used to be a clean MF, that dirt was just from the one center section.






Left side done, right side not.



That is dirt from just the section highlighted in the previous picture!







Top done on passenger seat, bottom still dirty:



Top done, bottom not... The dirt keeps coming, another clean MF nastified.



Front passenger side after.



The carpets came out nicely after pre-treating them with Folex, rinsing them out, and then extracting.

[christian900se]

Interior After: I was very very happy with the interior, even more so than the exterior because I knew the owner would be the happiest with a more pleasant driving environment above all else.




















Favorite interior shot:

[christian900se]

Exterior Afters: felt a little let down on the exterior because of the wheels, but after I removed the contamination, the paint really gained a lot of gloss and looked so much better than before.

Here is a 50/50 shot of how well Aquartz can treat and restorer plastic and rubber trim:


















Staining gone, much much better.



The pearlescent paint was really popping which I really liked because I am not the biggest fan of white on most cars.





My two flake shots.



And my favorite:





The owner was over the moon when he saw it as he was almost about to consider selling it and upgrading to a G37 but now, I think he will get another year or two out of it! After speaking to his wife, she said that he was so happy with having a clean car that he took it for a drive around town just after I left haha.

Anyways, I hope you enjoyed the writeup and thank you for making it this far!

[Indy YZF]

Nice save, sounds like the owner was very impressed. Looks great.

[Munich77]

What an incredible turn around. Great work!!! Too bad people let there nice cars get that way in the first place.

[cobalt9123]

Awesome work! Can't believe how clean that leather came out after OPC.

[gandblah]

Some of those snaps made me gag...how can one let a car get to that point...

Fantastic job....the car probably is faster and gained some mpgs now...with all the pounds of crud removed

[christian900se]

Nice save, sounds like the owner was very impressed. Looks great.

Thanks Indy, I was definately happy that the owner was pleased. They want me to do their minivan which is in the same condition, money is money!

What an incredible turn around. Great work!!! Too bad people let there nice cars get that way in the first place.

I know, I understand the exterior being grimy if the car is on the road year round but I would at least keep the interior clean just because that is where you spend the most time. Thanks for the comment!

Awesome work! Can't believe how clean that leather came out after OPC.

Thank you Cobalt! I wish I could have done more but the front seat had some dye transfer towards the bottom that I could not remove for the life of me. I folded up 6 MFs into quarters and every single side looked like those pictures!

Some of those snaps made me gag...how can one let a car get to that point...

Fantastic job....the car probably is faster and gained some mpgs now...with all the pounds of crud removed

Haha, I am allergic to dogs so scrubbing the carpets with all the dog hair was driving me crazy. The good thing about a car that is rarely touched is that you generally don't have to deal with horrendous swirls. Now, that is a hate/love type issue because you have to get all the bonded contaminants off first which is the hard part.

[rohnramirez]

That car was trashed. Well done on restoring it!