The Vehicle – Renault Clio 182
The Brief –
This is the owners ‘Pride and Joy’ car, saved for weekend use only. Although obviously well cared for, a slightly poor wash technique had in the past instilled swirling into the paint, distracting from what would otherwise be a gorgeous example of the 182. There were also some water blade marks present that the owner asked if we could either remove or lessen.
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The Wash Process –
Foam soak with the Gilmour and a 50:50 Chemical Guy’s Maxi Suds II: Super Snow Foam mixture. The super thick creamy suds that this creates slides most loose dirt from the body of the car, and clings to anything remaining. A good rinse from the hose after about five minutes of dwell time, leaves a good clean surface safe to be washed by hand. No chance of trapping a bit of grit with the wash mitt after a soak of this mixture.
We treated the wheels to a spray of Chemical Guy’s Extreme Blue Rim cleaner, and allowed this to soak while –
We treated the tyres to a good soak of Meguiar’s Super Degreaser cut 4:1 through a foaming spray dispenser. This takes care of any old tyre dressings, the foam turning an almost immediate brown colour. This was also allowed to soak.
We treated all plastic trim and the inner arches to a good soak of Meguiar’s All Purpose cleaner, cut 4:1 through a foaming spray dispenser. This removing any old trim dressing. We allowed this to soak while we treated the front end and mirrors to a good soaking of Einszett Bug remover – What a top product this is, softening all but the hardest off bugs with just a quick squirt, so there was no need for any hard rubbing to remove the dried remains, and no change of instilling scratches.
We gave the whole car a good rinse, then set about the 182 alloys with a Meguiar’s spoke brush, Meguiar’s MF wash mitt and Meguiar’s tyre brush. We used a mixture of Meguiar’s Shampoo Plus for wheel and tyre duties, and also to wash down the inner arches.
After rinsing off the lower areas again, we set about giving the car a good hand wash using Eurow wash mitts, and a two bucket method. Using Meguiar’s Shampoo Plus cut 128:1, ensured that the wash solution offered very good lubrication to the Eurow’s.
Rinsed off again, ready for the first inspection.
We did a pre clay inspection, and found some tar spotting and transit wax stuck to the lower sections of the car. This was dealt with using Panel Wipe solvent. I’d always prefer to remove old tar using a chemical, than risk dragging it around with the clay bar.
We then gave the car a good clay using Sonus mild clay, to remove any bonded contaminant (there was a lot of muck stuck to the tailgate) We used the ever useful Meguiar’s Last Touch as lube.
Finished claying, then one final rinse. Dried off the car with my ‘passed the CD test’ Meguiar’s water magnets and a spritzing of Last Touch.
The Inspection -
We then inspected the paint on the Clio using a PTG (Paint Thickness Guage) to establish that this was a good genuine example. Out with the Brinkmann though, and we did find some bad swirling.
The Polishing procedure -
Masked the Clio off, including the white body stripes using 3M 3434 tape, then set about establishing a good product and pad combo.
Started with a Sonus SFX2 pad, and Menzerna Final Finish PO106FF – Left a gorgeous finish after removing all of the fine swirls, but didn’t touch the deeper random scratches.
Lake County orange pad with Menzerna Intensive Polish PO85RD3.01 – Didn’t touch the deeper scratches, so moved up in coarseness again. We check the paint thickness after each initial set of passes with the polisher, to establish how much total thickness of paint is being removed by a particular process. This enables us to carry out our polishing with a degree of safety.
The final polishing combo turned out to be –
Rotary with Meg’s Burgundy cutting pad, Menzerna S34A Powergloss and a slow cut action to ‘shave’ 10 microns plus from the Clio’s paint thickness. This still didn’t remove all of the scratches, and left some hideous marring, but did remove some of the scratching.
Followed by Menzerna IP PO85RD3.01 on an orange LC pad with a high speed PC approach.
Followed by Menzerna Final Finish PO85RD on a white Sonus SFX2 pad by PC.
We followed this with a coat of Chemical Guy’s E-Z glaze, by Blue SFX pad on the PC. This is a glaze that contains acrylic sealants. These not only leave a bright wet look shine to the polishes paint, but also provides the best of keys for the next layer of product to bond to.
We followed this with a coat of Mothers Sealer Glaze, applied by German applicators from C&S. This was applied to take advantage of its heavy fillers, to try and hide the remaining scratches that we had to leave in the paint because they were just too deep to be removed safely.
We followed this with a coat of Clearkote Red Machine Glaze by PC with black LC finishing pad. This gives an awesome wet look shine.
We then followed this by two layered coats of Chemical Guys M-Seal. Two coats of this applied 30 minutes apart, and you end up with the slickest finish that I have come across, and one that lasts too.
Wheels – Chemical Guys Rim Wax.
Tyres / Inner arches – Meguiar’s Hyper Dressing cut 4:1
Trim – Chemical Guy’s New Look trim gel
Glass – Meguiar’s Glass Cleaner concentrate.
Buffed the car up with ultra plush MF’s, then rolled it outside to find that the sun had gone in. While we were unable to remove all of the scratching safely, we did add ‘just a little’ to the look of an already gorgeous car, and do this safely.
The Afters -
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