CobrAA's Eastern detailing pic

[cobrAA]

Applying the tire gel :


Polishing the windows before Aquapel:




Trim protector 50-50!




Removing the Niquet sticker:


No sign of it:



And now pour la pièce de résistance!

Wax used :










Polishing the taillight as usual.














I did polish the chrome piece for a nicier look.








à la prochaine!

[cobrAA]

Before:









In order to clean leather, I use a dedicated leather cleaner with a natural hair brush that is soft enough to not damage the leather.





Cleaning using various brush:


After:

Conditionner have been applied and UV protector on trim.























So nice, I could put 3 hockey bag lol!

[cobrAA]

Cette passat me rappele le temps où j’ai travaillé chez Vokswagen, je peut pas dire que j’ai adoré, mais au moins, j’ai fait l’expérience des dealers. D’ailleurs, j’aimerai dire que la Passat est de loins ma voiture préférée de cette marque.
So here’s how I got the car :






My usual washing process;

Rinsing the car:


Foaming the car:


While the sud is taking care of the dirt, I’m prepping my wash bucket with my sea sponge:


See how useful is the 2 wash bucket technique!?


While I was doing this, I also let the Sonax wheel cleaner work his magic on the rims. When sprayed the soap is green. It then turn purple at the contact of brake dust




This brush is perfect for cleaning inside the wheel:


After washing the car, I then clay the car:


I then clean the engine bay:







After, I do the interior first in order to try to have it dry when the owner come back.

[cobrAA]

Maintenant, on tourne l’auto de bord et on refait la même chose. / It’s time to turn the car and do the samething on the other side.













Voici une demonstration du 1-step. Soit en fait un compound. Je prend la peine pour montrer ceci car beaucoup de gens m’envoye des PM pour me demander combien coute un compound et à chaque fois, je dois leurs répondre que si je fais un compound, j’ai pas le choix de faire au moins 1 ou 2 autres étapes pour améliorer le look. Sinon le résultat sera décevant. Un compound est beaucoup trop aggresif pour être un 1-step!

I took the times to show you the paint after the compound (the first-step of my 4 step process). You can see it’s still hazy, there’s lot of circle scratches. To conclude, it doesn’t look nice. This is to show to people who send me PM wondering how much it cost to do a compound? I always answer: You won’t like the result of a compound if you don’t finish with a polish. A compound is simply too rough to achieve a nice wet finish. Just a quick head-up.





Je pense qu’il va être bon pour un shampooing moteur et polissage des lumières au printemps! / I think i twill be a good idea to do an engine wash and headlight polish.





J’ai fait ça sans faire exiprès, mais je trouvais ça drôle LOL!



Tout est fini! Regardez bien comment le flakes pop et le wetness de la peinture! / Everything is done, take a careful look at how wet the paint is and how the flake pop out of the paint.





















Le test de la lumière / The spotlight test!












A+ et n’oubliez pas, si vous avez votre garage et aimeriez avoir votre auto toute shiny pour le printemps avant tout le monde, n’hésitez pas!!

See ya!! And if you have a garage and would like to have your car shiny before everybody, don’t hesitate!

[cobrAA]

Les pipes étaient pas juste sales, mais les contamiments avaient collés à l’exhaust, alors j’ai du prendre la clay bar pour vraiment ramener son shine d’origine / Those exhaust pipe were dirty, I needed a clay bar to remove everything and bring back the shine





Le toit / The roof:






Polissage des lumières arrières / Tailight polishing








Leve le coffre pour pouvoir polir en dessous de l’aileron / lift the trunk so I can polish under the wing.



Puis, c’était le temps de tourner l’auto de coté, Avez-vous le shine?? Le rouge est vraiment foncé, WOW! En passant, ya pas de cire encore./ I had to turn the car other side so the sun was there and took the times to take 2-3 pictures, Have you seen how dark the red is and the wetness, I love it!! So nice. By the way, there’s no wax yet lol!















Ote les residues de compound / Removing compound residue

[cobrAA]

Ça c’est la correction que je recherché!! Mais là quoi faire? 1er, je n’aurait pas assez d’une journée pour tout faire, va falloir que je revienne et de 2, il ne voulait pas payer plus cher qu’un 3-step. / This is what I’m looking for. Great finish! But there’s a problem, I can’t do a 5-step in one single day and the owner agreed to pay for a 3-step not a 5-step.

Si le propriétaire a pris la peine de wet-sand l’auto au complet, c’est qu’il veut un fini presque parfait non? Alors, je peux simplement pas lui laisser l’auto dans l’état du 3-step. Je décide de procéder au 5-step, sans rien charger de plus, car je suis là pour faire une belle job après tout, non?! Puis, c’est noël hen!!

So I’m thinking.. if the owner took the times to wet-sand his whole car, he might expect a near-brand new finish no? I decide to go ahead and do the 5-step, without charging anything more, because I’m not a business, I’m here to do a great job, that’s the ultimate goal. Make sens? And it’s Christmas for Christ sake!!

Voici l’aileron, il n’y a meme pas de cire! / See how wet the wing is, there’s no wax by the way.











Bumper arrière / Rear bumper ( dah!)

[cobrAA]

This week I had the chance to work on my first american car, the owner bought the car with that horrible paint job and decide to sand it to achieve a better finish. The problem with his sanding was that he didn’t use the same method everywhere on the car( some panels were done my wet-sand, some were done by machine, some with different grades). After trying to compound 2 differents panels he gave up and gave me a call so I can fix his problem. This is another good exemple where wet-sanding is not as easy as people may think.


Coté passager / Passager side :

Voici la condition de début de la voiture / Here’s the initial condition of the car.







S’assure qu’il y a assez de peinture pour apporter la correction / Measure the paint with my paint gauge to make sure it’s thick enought to do the good correction.





Parfait! Alors, on s’était entendu pour un 3-step / Thickness is fine, so I start doing my 3-step like we agreed.



Ça dl’air beaucoup mieux, mais regardons de près.. / Look great but let’s look closer..



Arrghhhh Il y a beaucoup trop d’imperfection, je n’aime vraiment pas. / There’s way too much small scratches, I can’t do this.

Alors, j’essaie un 5-step / So, I try a 5-step polish.






And closer…

[cobrAA]

Unreal work Alex, you need to open your own business. You'd have my support and I'm sure lots of others.

Thanks buddy!! Well.. I said this last summer I would come to toronto but I didn't. Next year, I will open up a ''group buy'' if admins allow me to offer my services to the most member possible in the toronto/ottawa area.

I will have to consider the cost of motel and I will ask a members to let me rent his garage for the week tho. If both of theses conditions works out. You guys will get incredible detail for a very good price

Question, what is the clay bar for?

I wrote an article about it... hope it will help you understand:

Today, my goal is to show you what kind of correction a clay bar can do. It’s a pretty basic treatment that should be done every year on your paint. It helps to give a smooth finish to your paint and it leaves it slicker. By removing the contaminants that remain after a car wash, you will enhance the look of your car and improve the durability of your favourite wax/sealant because instead of sticking to dirt, it will stick directly to the paint.

It is important to apply a coat of LSP to your paint because clay bar usually removes everything on your paint, including dirt and wax!

Where to buy:
1- Meguiars clay bar kit sold at Canadian tire for 30$+ tax
2- EdT on the forum sells very good clay bars. It’s not any more expensive than the Meguiars kit. Send him a PM if you want to.

*Warning* I’ve seen pretty big damages on car paintings due to a bad use of a clay bar. If the clay is too dirty, if there is not enough lubrifiant, or even if you put too much pressure on it, you might end up with some deep scratches, not even tiny swirls; but some random deep scratches.
If you are not 100% sure how to use the clay bar or if you don’t have any wax or sealant (1 coat of sealant is a great protection for winter), just send a PM to any detailer on this forum. Now, here are some pictures of what a clay bar can achieve.[/COLOR]






Exemple #1 :

La pâte est très efficace pour les petits picots de rouille sur les peintures blanches comme celle-ci.
Clay bar is really effective on tiny rust spot on white paint like this one.





C’est meme plus blanc qu’avant et plus de rouge/orange. Une belle amélioration!
Tadam, it’s even whiter than before and no rust spot. A great improvement!





Exemple #2 sur métal:

Avant:



Après:



Exemple #3:

Juste un bon exemple de debris collé. En plus, il y avais même un peu d’overspray de peinture jaune!

Just a good exemple of different dirts that didn’t go out with a regular car wash and you can even see some yellow paint overspray along the wheel well.


Perfectly clean!


Exemple #4:

Just pour montrer à quel point juste un panneau peut salir une pâte d’argile!

Nasty hen!? Just one half panel.

[MKIV]

Question, what is the clay bar for?

[MKIV]

Unreal work Alex, you need to open your own business. You'd have my support and I'm sure lots of others.

[cobrAA]

Well, looking at this thread, I'm saying they're full of BS, so I wouldn't worry about it :P

oopss forgot to follow the thread.. Will add more post this week-end!

[Snake556]

Well, looking at this thread, I'm saying they're full of BS, so I wouldn't worry about it :P

[cobrAA]

Subaru? What'd I miss here? How could anyone be pissed?

Can't show you the link because I don,t want to talk again about it and because half of the information is in french.. but hey.. meag hating thread, my job was above car-wash or even his granda could of done better than this( lol!) and still today, 3 month later, I heard about it from him or other people reminding me I do bad detail... umm lol! Let me know if you feel anything is wrong with it!

[Snake556]

Subaru? What'd I miss here? How could anyone be pissed?

[cobrAA]

BTW, can you believe that black subaru got me a bashing thread of +3000 views and about 10 pages of hate !?

that it for today, I might post more tomorrow if I think about it.