Wet Shine Detailing

Proton Wira SE Deep Red. This colour is a metallic colour. The car was very dirty to start with, interior was a mess, and many straight line scratches on vertical panels caused by bush twigs.

Pre-Detail Evaluation

This is the condition of the car when it arrived.

Hood has many swirls and medium acid rain etching, after washing, swirls were more evident.

dirty exhaust tip

Wheels had a lot of brake dust, on the spokes and also at the back of the rims.

The roof had either bird dropping or tree sap, not sure which one, etched through the clear coat and base coat, these could not be helped.

Washing and Cleaning

After the car arrived and wheels were cool to touch. They got cleaned with an acidic wheel cleaner(safe for clearcoated wheels only, not for bare aluminium or chrome),

After the wheels were cleaned, the car was then sprayed with a mixture of Meguiar's All Purpose Cleaner and Osren's Snow Bubble wash to ease rinsing later on.

the car is then washed with the two bucket method with Meguiar's Hyper Wash shampoo and a cotton chenille wash pad

Then the car is clayed with Perma Glass No.2 Clay, horizontal panels were quite contaminated and the lower areas of the door had the most contamination.

Before Claying :

After Claying :

The car is then re-washed to remove clay lube residue.

Polishing (Defect correction)

Before :

After :

After :

Half and half shot on the bonnet :
Driver's side unpolished. Passenger side is polished.

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After :

After :

Before :
note the long straight line scratches

After :

After :

Before :

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After :

Another after :

The rear driver's side door has been repainted, the clear coat was 'harder' hence more difficult to correct, so it had to be compounded( M85/w8006/900rpms) to get rid of the majority of defects and followed by a medium abrasive polish on the rotary (M83/w8006/600rpms), followed by a fine polish on the rotary(M82/w8006/600rpms) to get rid of any hazing or buffer marks left by the medium abrasive polish and followed again by the same fine polish on a gentler machine, the random orbital buffer (M82/w8006/Speed 3) to remove any fine traces of buffing marks caused by the rotary. Below is an after shot, it is not perfect maybe about 70% swirl free.

After :

Paint transfer removal

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During :

After :

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After :

Here, a friend and I tried to compare two waxes side by side, on the left of the picture, wears Zaino Z-5 and the right side of the picture, the bonnet wears Duragloss 105 sealant. We concluded that there was little or no difference at all. Looks are mostly subjective and other poeple may view different results.

The rest of the car is then sealed with Meguiar's M21 Synthetic Sealant and followed by Meguiar's M26 Hi-Tech Yellow Wax
Previously under the sunlight and the porch lights, swirls and many defects were obvious. After about 10 hours of machine polishing. This is the result.

Indoor pictures :

Outdoor pictures :

I'd also like to thank my friend, who is also my detailing mentor for taking some really awesome pics of the car. He does some freelance photographing part-time, a great one at that! His site is www.zeytee.blogspot.com

You can see the pictures that he took of the Wira SE here :

http://www.pbase.com/zey/wetshine

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