Weekend of work on my new car (by hand)

[Ved]

I picked up my new R32 a few weeks ago and in typical VW fashion the valet they did on the car prior to me collecting it was a full on Stevie Wonder job. Wax all over the place and generally something you would expect after they've taken £17k of your hard earned money.

Now, it's not perfect because it was all done by hand over two days but with 8 hours on the Saturday and 2 hours on the Sunday I'm pretty chuffed with the results but you'll see that at the end. First lets see what a crappy valet does when mixed with 1400 miles on the motorways of England and Wales does for a car.

Bugs and dirt all over the show so not a great start.



Filthy alloys from all that M4 munching.



More casualties!



Matt grey. Not what I ordered



And a typically dirty Golf ****



Untreated for 3 years and looked it too. Poor things.



and so I went to work on it and firstly those wheels needed some attention.

Stuff used:

1 Megs wheel brush


Autoglym custom wheel cleaner


Megs metal polish


Result!




Next onto the body work. Pretty flithy with lots of marks and droppings all over it.



Foamy goodness to the rescue!











All this was done with the AB lance and some of their Magifoam. Clung onto the car for a good 10 mins and could have stayed on longer.

Wheel polish doing its thing nicely




Stuff used:






Just from the foam I got this finish












After that I began to shampoo the car a couple of times using the usual TBM and after that clayed, glazed and waxed it do something I'm pretty pleased with. I can only imagine what a machine polish would bring up but that'll be for another day.

Stuff used:

Megs Gold Class Shampoo




Megs clay


Autoglym rapid detailer (used a whole bottle!)


Prima Amigo


Autoglym HD wax


And we end up with this:



mmm metalic goodness











And the elder brother is ours too



And finally after a Sunday polishing the exhaust, glass and applying the dessing to the tyres and trim I ended up with the photo at the bottom.

Stuff used:

Megs metal polish


Autoglym Tyre Dressing


Autoglym fast glass


Autoglym glass polish


Autoglym bumper care


Result!



I know it's not perfect and a DA would have done it justice but for a hand-job, so to speak, I'm happy

Commets, put downs, praise, all gratefully received



David

Edited by Ved on Sunday 14th August 19:25

Edited by Ved on Sunday 14th August 19:27

Edited by Ved on Sunday 14th August 19:34

[RS03]

Wow that looks fantastic. Wish my Golf looked that good. Might have to try out some of those products. Since I am a student and don't have much spare money, which would you say are the 2 best ones for getting a shiny result on the body?

[Ved]

RS03 said:

Wow that looks fantastic. Wish my Golf looked that good. Might have to try out some of those products. Since I am a student and don't have much spare money, which would you say are the 2 best ones for getting a shiny result on the body?

The shampoo, then the clay, then the HD wax. You can get a nice Meg clay kits that comes with the detailing spray too.

[RS03]

Ved said:

The shampoo, then the clay, then the HD wax. You can get a nice Meg clay kits that comes with the detailing spray too.

Perfect, thanks. I will try out the foam. Do I need to buy the Autobrite lance to apply the foam? I can see it for £45 on their website.

[Ved]

RS03 said:

Perfect, thanks. I will try out the foam. Do I need to buy the Autobrite lance to apply the foam? I can see it for £45 on their website.

Yes, I tried it with a bog standard one and it was crap. There is a deal on detailingworld from Autobrite which includes a bottle of snow foam. Just make sure you have the right attachment for the pressure washer and away you go. Great fun too

[ferraridave]

Great write up - looks great has even inspired me to give mine a wash by hand tomorrow rather than the car wash at work!

[Defcon5]

I cant beleive how good that foam is! i need that in my life - perfect for mid winter cleans

[Ved]

Defcon5 said:

I cant beleive how good that foam is! i need that in my life - perfect for mid winter cleans

Aside form the result it is bloody good fun too. Getting it seriously thick just makes it look like it was parked too close to the last part of Ghostbusters

[hman]

I took a much simpler approach, local conveyor car wash, srp, meguairs carnuba wax .

1 hour and results were very similar.

This won't sit right with a lot of you but I don't have the time to lavish 8 hours on cleaning my car.

Sorry .

[Ved]

Ved said:

Regardless of the result it is bloody good fun to do. Getting it seriously thick just makes it look like it was parked too close to the last part of Ghostbusters

[brianjone5]

hman said:

I took a much simpler approach, local conveyor car wash, srp, meguairs carnuba wax .

1 hour and results were very similar.

This won't sit right with a lot of you but I don't have the time to lavish 8 hours on cleaning my car.

Sorry .

Yet you have the time to read a thread that is of no interest to you, and diss the original poster? If you had ever clayed a car, you'd know that your results are not similar at all. If your car wash has any brushes etc in contact with your paint, know that the white van that was washed directly in front of your car was covered in grit and that has now left it's mark all over your car.

Still, it only took you an hour... And the wax covers it up, eh?

Edited by brianjone5 on Friday 19th August 09:36

[Synchromesh]

hman said:

1 hour and results were very similar.

How do you know? Have you seen the OP's R32 in person or something?

[nismo48]

hman said:

I took a much simpler approach, local conveyor car wash, srp, meguairs carnuba wax .

1 hour and results were very similar.

This won't sit right with a lot of you but I don't have the time to lavish 8 hours on cleaning my car.

Sorry .

Have to agree with you..my spare time too precious wasting 8hrs or more on a car..

[nismo48]

brianjone5 said:

Yet you have the time to read a thread that is of no interest to you, and diss the original poster? If you had ever clayed a car, you'd know that your results are not similar at all. If your car wash has any brushes etc in contact with your paint, know that the white van that was washed directly in front of your car was covered in grit and that has now left it's mark all over your car.

Still, it only took you an hour... And the wax covers it up, eh?

Edited by brianjone5 on Friday 19th August 09:36

For god sakes man it's only a fking car..end of..

[Mini_Lund]

Excellent More pics of the Mk4 please!

[thebullettrain]

Looks good! I have a 5 series in black which is showing a lot of scratches - would the treatment listed above help?

[shinemyride]

Cracking work on that R32, brilliant results.

If anyone can really achieve those results in an hour, we definitely need to see the pictures . Perhaps the rest of us are doing something very wrong.

Love the pic about elbow grease

Chris

[hman]

Seriously mine was covered in swirls from where some mong mopped it and didnt finish it off properly.

Having clayed cars (that I mistakenly could be bothered to clay - well the last one was silver so you do the maths on how much claying a silver car makes to its appearance) before I figured that for the amount of time involved the results didnt merit the input, so I SRP'd it and carnuba waxed it.

I dont understand why its so important to foam wash a car or whether I took it to the local no scratch conveyor thingy - it was clean (er than before) before I SRP'd it - and it had no more swirls on it when it left the car wash.


So there I was 1 hour to spare, SRP'd it, Carnuba waxed it,

GUESS WHAT- no more swirls (they dissapeared after the SRP BTW) Nice deep gloss from the carnuba wax.


The results look the same as far as i can tell from the photos, in no way do they look 8 times better by spending 8 times as long on it.

Its a nice car which looks very clean but 8 hours? well its your life I suppose :shrugs:

[Ved]

thebullettrain said:

Looks good! I have a 5 series in black which is showing a lot of scratches - would the treatment listed above help?

You'd need a machine polish to remove scratches to be honest.

[hman]

G3, and a wet cloth carefully.

Then finish with SRP and wax - keep the pressure light and even and keep the g3 application cloth wet.

If that doesnt work ( and it will in most cases ) then get it mopped .

Dont forget you need to spend 8 hours on it.(joke)