2006 Audi A8-L Brilliant Black Multi-Step + 1992 Porsche 911 Vert Amazon Green - by AutoLavish

[jlb85]

2006 Audi A8-L Brilliant Black Multi-Step + 1992 Porsche 911 Vert Amazon Green - by AutoLavish

This gorgeous A8L was purchased recently with only 10k miles on the odometer. Before the sale, the vehicle was cleaned pretty good. The interior was immaculate. The new owner contacted us to perfect it, and make the exterior look as good as the rest of the car. He knew it had some swirls, and wanted it to be perfect. We expected a 2 step polish.

Let me assure you, this is a BIG car. Looks are deceiving. The doors are about 4 feet wide, all 4. The trunk is as big as many hoods. The roof is wide enough to have to struggle to reach the middle. But oh what a feeling working on it. It feels like quality. More than the typical Audi. We have worked on many, and I have a B6 A4. But the give (or lack thereof) of the panels as you press against them, the silkiness of the paint, the muted solidity of the car made it a pleasure to work on. Not that we don't enjoy all cars we work on, but this one felt special. Kinda weird. I have always wanted an A8L in black (you know, when I grow up), so this was bliss.

In the cold of winter, we usually ask clients to bring the car to my place to be able to work around the weather. My garage is insured, and set up for detailing year round. However, the owner lives 2.5 hours away. But he mentioned he had a place we could work out of, heated and spacious, well lit and comfortable. We agreed on making the trip out to Grand Rapids in early January, as soon as we got back from our trip to Puerto Rico (yep, hot and humid one day to extreme cold the next). The morning was about 15 degrees out.

Upon arrival, the new owner had already washed and clayed the vehicle. After a quick inspection, we called it good and went straight to taping and masking.





We started to unpack our supplies from TDR and set up wires, hoses, and lighting. Luckily, the shop had decent lighting...

Using the single halogen was enough to see these easily:









using just the camera flash:







We had our work cut out for us! But this is going to look awesome once polished!




The vehicle had been washed and clayed prior to our arrival, so we proceeded straight to masking.












We split up the door into a few sections and started testing various polishing combinations...






50/50 with one pass of M205 on a Meg's Black pad via Makita Rotary:




50/50 with one pass if Menzerna Intensive Polish on a Megs Black pad:




50/50 with Menzerna IP on Green LC Constant Pressure pad:






OMG could this paint get even blacker?




The paint was extremely soft. We needed something that would correct pretty good but not leave much pad trails. The idea was to use a medium polish on a softer pad, then refine with a finishing polish on the PC. Menzerna IP was chosen since it finished down well enough to be able to refine with FF106 and the PC. It would take a few passes of IP/green, but we preferred to take a little extra time here to make things quicker in the end.


Working it:




After first stage of compounding:






Some areas were very bad, and required some extra work as evidenced by the severe buffer trails...




Looking better after some refining...




More IP on the other side:




We were able to correct most of the RIDS and 100% of the swirls for an overall 95% correction. The RIDS the vehicle had were very deep, with the passenger side worse than the drivers side.

After compounding, Marc finessed the finish with Menzerna Final Finish on a Yellow 3M Germany pad on the Porter Cable 7424 DA, which took care of any buffer trails.

[jlb85]

(continued)

We gave the vehicle a wash to get polish residue and dust off surface prior to sealing. Here we used Chemical Guys Citrus Wash at 4:1 in the foam gun.











Sealant of choice was Blackfire Wet Diamond, applied via PC 7424 with a LC ultra-soft blue pad on speed 3:








As I applied the sealant, Marc dressed the tires with Optimum Tire Dressing. This helps keep any overspray off the dried finish.





Afters:





slightly overexposed to make the highlights more clear:






Marc L4P reppin'


Dude!













Total time: over 9 hours!


Thanks for reading!





Thought we would end it there?

There were other interesting cars in this garage, and we could not leave without getting our hands on at least one of them. Unfortunately, there was only one we could work on. The others are all at some point of restoration.

Please read on...

[jlb85]

(continued)

This beauty is a 1992 Porsche 911 in super rare Amazon Green over white. By the time we were done with the A8L, the owner of the Porsche had prepped the car for us in a quite remarkable way:















The request was to keep it quick (it was already 9pm), and just clear up the finish a bit. The paint had swirls which were moderate, typical of a car that gets washed more than it gets driven. Then it had RIDS, deep nasty ones. Ones we would have to use several passes of M105 to get rid of. So the real goal was to use a one-step polish that would clean up the swirls, be quick, and wipe off easy.











We chose D151 Paint Reconditioning Creme with a white pad on the PC at speed 6. Like mentioned, we also played around with SSR2 through SSR3, and found that although the SSR3 cleaned up the rids the most (still not getting at them much), it would require refining. Further, even the SSR3 was not enough for the deep RIDS this car had. So we could use D151, M205, SSR2, SSR2.5, SSR3, and achieve basically the same result. D151 is also a sealant, which would save even more time. Here are some 50/50's of just how much correction D151 gets, even with a white pad.



















After wiping the D151 off and noticing we had worked for less than an hour, we decided to throw on some Dodo Juice Rainforest Rub, just for fun. Here is the final result. The color is very intense and "colorful", and shows hues of green and blue. It was great to see the color being revived as we polished.




















This is probably the best shot of the paint's color we took:






Now, thanks for reading!

[SRHTX]

Very nice work Jacob. I see they an old Jaguar there in the back that must be getting a repaint job and many other renovations.

[jlb85]

Thanks Stephen!

And yes! An old E-Type I believe

[SRHTX]

I still have not messed with my clients '89 Jaguar XJS. I'm waiting for the Leatherique products to arrive this coming week. All three of his vehicles need it.

[O.C.Detailing]

Beautiful work! I"m amazed at the clarity in the paint of that Audi and the color on the Porsche looks SOOO much better for having just 1-hour of work in it.

[WRAPT C5Z06]

Does M205 have a bit more bite than D151?

[Slava]

Great job.
Love the color on that Porsche