BMW 335d Sport

[ScottH]

Dear Forum Members,

I took off a day to detail a friend's car. The weather was perfect in NJ and didn't feel like being in the office today, so off I went.

This car's paint was by far in the worst condition of any I've ever done. The paint on the entire car looked as if a lion had gotten to it during an African safari!!! I asked my friend how he maintains his car, and it quickly became apparent how the paint got this way: "The car wash I take it to uses a brush to wash the car". My heart sank and panic nearly set it! How could a professional car cleaning facility "wash" cars with brushes? Rhetorical but apparently enough of the public doesn't know or care enough to go somewhere else. Shame on this car wash venue, really!!!

OK so here's what was used:

- Griot's Brilliant Shine Soap
- Meguire's Clay with Griot's Speed Shine as Lub
- MF Mitt
- BOSS Fast Correcting Crème with BOSS MF pads. Ironically that wasn't enough cut, so I pulled out some Buff and Shine Course Blue Heavy cutting foam pads. That pad was more effective with the BOSS FC than the BOSS MF pad. It did however, create some hazing from the extreme aggressiveness of the pad (nothing to do with the FC). Used a Makita 5000C in forced rotation mode - great machine in this mode - and walks a little as does an forced machine. I tTried switching to free spin mode and that was futile, zero pad rotation even on speed 5. Not intended to be used for major correction in free spin mode I guess. The BOSS G15 walks all over the 5000C in free spin mode.

- After compounding the entire car with Griot's FC on Blue B&S Pads, I went back over the car with Griot's FC and MF pads. I did only one slow pass this way. This cleaned up the hazing nicely. Used a BOSS G15. Now the paint was coming alive.

- Washed car again to remove dusting. Yes there was very little but I am anal!

- Polished down using Griot's Perfecting Crème on Orange ThinPro's (LOVE these pads and the Perfecting Crème - match made in Heaven IMHO). This glossed up the paint very nicely.
- Griot's Long Lasting Tire Shine
- Stoner Glass Cleaner
- Pinnacle Leather Cleaner/Conditioner
- Griot's Wheel Cleaner (the green one, not the Heavy Duty one)

All in all, the car came a long way today. Did I achieve perfection? No way. That was not possible in 8 hours, but I would say I reached 85% defect correction, and paint clarity doubled. So all in all, I was happy, and he was thrilled. Another full day of polishing in the spring and the car will be looking new again. In the meantime, I sent my friend an email with proper washing technique and a list of products here @ AG to use. He wasn't aware of the damage the car wash was doing until I pointed it out.

P.S. One of these shots is a 50/50 after compounding (but before polishing and before Perfecting Crème). You can see the dramatic difference.

Thanks for reading everyone.
Scott

[brettS4]

I had the same problem when I tried Boss MF pads and FCC on my BMW paint. Hardly made a difference. Switched to LC Foamed Wool and huge improvement!

Good job saving that paint! A 335d is rare around here and deserves to be treated better than that one had been.

[ScottH]

I had the same problem when I tried Boss MF pads and FCC on my BMW paint. Hardly made a difference. Switched to LC Foamed Wool and huge improvement!

Good job saving that paint! A 335d is rare around here and deserves to be treated better than that one had been.

Thanks Brett! Did the foamed wool pads leave any hazing?

ScottH

[brettS4]

A very slight haze on my 330i. Noticeable mostly because it's a really dark metallic blue. Same pads on my previous silver S4 left it LSP ready. Very hard paint in both cases. But it's amazing how nicely those pads will finish out.

Jeff (from Griots) sent me a pair of the new Boss MF pads (redesigned since the flawed batch) but haven't had a chance to use them. He also threw in one of the Fast Cutting MF pads (similar, but no foam backing). I'll have to do a side by side comparison with the wool pads.

[Joe@NextLevelDetail]

Looks great Scott!

Sent from my LG-LS777 using Autogeekonline mobile app

[Joel1979]

Nice job. You used microfiber with forced rotation? I had Mille and microfiber didnt work at all but Lake Country purple foamed wool worked very well, but still i got better correction with 15-21mk2 and microfiber.

[ScottH]

Nice job. You used microfiber with forced rotation? I had Mille and microfiber didnt work at all but Lake Country purple foamed wool worked very well, but still i got better correction with 15-21mk2 and microfiber.

Hi Joel - initially I tried the BOSS MF pad with the forced rotation Makita 50000 but quickly switched to the B&S blue pad with the Makita. The MF pad was then used on my BOSS15 the rest of the session. I will def be ordering some of the thin foamed wool pads from LC.

ScottH

[Joel1979]

Yeah, for some reason microfiber doesnt work at all on forced rotation machine, the smaller the throw, the worse it works.