đź’¦ Detailing IDAFC21 Details His BMW M235i

IDAFC21

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I'm copying a lot of this over from the detailing thread since that will eventually get buried, and I want to be able to come back to this thread and relive the pain whenever I want :LOL:

Just spent the last several days giving the bmw a full paint correction. I had previously done this back in Feb of 2019 where I'd polished it (my first ever time using a DA polisher) and coated it in Cquartz UK 3.0 ceramic coating (also my first time working w/ a coating) It looked great and held in there as long as it could, but my car is daily driven, and out here it gets abused. Sun, heat, wind, dust, several occasions where it will "rain" for 5 minutes and then the sun comes out and immediately burns the water into the paint. So after 2 years and a completely dead coating, my car was DEFINITELY in need of some love. So without further ado, I'll start w/ the products I used (always wanted to do a thread like this)

Towels/Pads
-Rag Company Gauntlet drying towel
-Rag Company Edgeless 300 for leveling
-Rag Company 70/30 420 for buffing/wiping
-Uro Fiber 50/50 Microfiber pads (5" and 3")

Wash/Decon
-Honeydew Snow Foam for pre-soak
-Chemical Guys Clean Slate Strip Wash
-CG Mr Pink Soap (for clay mitt lubrication)
-Nanoskin Clay MItt
-Iron X iron remover

Polishing
-3D One Compound/Polish
-Torq 10FX DA Polisher
-Carpro Eraser

Coating
-Adams Graphene Ceramic Coating
-Adams Graphene Ceramic Spray (for a topper)

I decided to go w/ the Graphene stuff just to give it a shot and see how it does, especially due to its claim of better heat resistance, and better water spot resistance vs a conventional ceramic. Both of which are important things to me out here.

I will say the 3d One w/ the uro fiber pads worked VERY well on my car. It's not a miracle combo, it didn't take out bigger scratches/scuffs that have been in my car for awhile, but I will say it cleared about 90-95% of the surface swirls and scratches which used to REALLY stand out when direct sunlight was hitting the car. This car aint a museum piece, so I'm happy with what I was able to achieve this time. Anyways I won't bore you with any more details, here are some before/after pics I managed to snag during the long process.

part of the hood before

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after

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Here's a good one. My trunk lid, which was not in great shape.

before

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After

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driver side door before

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after

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You can see whats been finished vs what hasnt

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all done

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passenger fender before

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after

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She coated!

mOzkQ65.jpg


And after a long garage quarantine I finally got the car out into sunlight today!

Se8x9Xp.jpg


Look at those perfectly aligned center caps :LOL:

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And to put a point to what I'm saying about the conditions I have to deal with out here, this is what the car looks like after 8 hours of sitting outside at work. And it wasn't even really windy today.

pj7tdAk.jpg


So thats it. We'll see what happens. If i'm vigilant this time and make sure to add another coat of topper (which I didnt really do as much w/ my Cquartz) every month or so, hopefully I can make this stuff last.
 

Rent Free

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Realllllllly looking forward to cleaning up my Kona Blue Mustang. So far that paints been a pain in the ass to keep looking good. It shows way more than I expected it would considering how much metallic is in it.

If the results are nearly as good as yours above Id be pretty happy!

That red looks excellent. My red F150 should prolly be done too but its gigantic.
 
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IDAFC21

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I feel like that chemical guys synthetic detail spray helped reduce the amount of dust that collected on panels, but I want to do a test with it this year and only coat half the hood to see if it really is worth it.

I would subscribe to your newsletter to get the results of such a test.
 
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IDAFC21

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Had some rain this morning. Its actually the first time my cars gotten wet since I coated it :LOL: So needless to say it was QUITE dusty when the rain started coming down, which usually means a spotty muddy mess. But after the rain cleared, the car was actually......very clean. There was definitely some spots and dirt leftover on the car, but unless you were standing RIGHT next to it there was no way of telling. Tried snapping some pics but they just could not capture what was leftover. I mean you can kinda see some spots on my trunk here :LOL:

87H9YhC.jpg


Was raining pretty good when I left work today today too, and I had to stand out in the rain for a minute and walk around the car and marvel at how well the water was being repelled.

I also discovered adams makes a "graphene" shampoo also to go along with their graphene line, so I ordered some up


We'll see if it can replace Reset in my maintenance washes on this thing. Is it a gimmick? Probably, but if it's actually been "formulated" to work with their other graphene products, I've always been a believer in staying in the family whenever you choose a product line to protect your car with. And if this helps add even a tiny bit of protection while I wash it and maintains the life of this coating, I'm all for it.
 

IDAFC21

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Finally gave the car its first actual wash that wasn't rain since I put the coating on :LOL: The water repellency of this coating is great. I'm not gonna say its better than a good ceramic coat, but its definitely right up there with it. I could just see the dirt being trapped in the water and rinsed away when I gave it the initial rinse before I foamed it. Also used that adams graphene soap as well for my 2 bucket wash, which thankfully unlike all the other graphene products in the adams line, this stuff actually has a pleasant scent. Seemed to work well. But yeah, water does not want to be on this car, especially the sides where gravity takes over. If not for my mineral rich shit water thats out here, I probably wouldn't need to do much to dry this thing. But alas, still need to detail it afterwords to get rid of all the spots. But they did wipe off quite easily.

Overall happy w/ my decision to use this stuff so far. We'll see how the long term holds up.
 

IDAFC21

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Well Im really putting this coating to the test :LOL: Had a tree literally rain sap down onto my car, and its been there for the better part of a week now. Actually the way it reflected sunlight, it did make my paint look like it had an awesome metallic flake :LOL: but run your fingers over the paint and it feels like you're reading braille. Yeah no thanks

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Just went thru my normal wash process, and.....no more sparklies!!

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Also decided since its been a couple months since I coated now to give the car a fresh coat of graphene spray to help protect against future sap attacks. Also having lived with this coating for a couple months now, I've been pretty happy with it, but there is one myth I'm starting to find is getting debunked, at least for me. One of the main talking points of graphene coatings was its "advanced" water spot resistance. And while I have found most water spots to come off when I'm cleaning the car (sometimes they require a little work) I am starting to notice some that are not being removed very easily, or at all. To be fair you can't really see them unless you're REALLY looking for them, but I know they're there. I know. But that is one of the things I wanted to find out with this stuff. Still no regrets tho.
 
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