The Vehicle – Seat Leon Cupra R

The Brief –

This was going to be a detail of a Peugeot 306. The owner had visited us earlier in the month, and we had given his 306 a pre detail inspection before taking the booking. At the 11th hour, the 306’s owner traded up to this “straight off a forcourt” Seat LCR. We were asked to do what we had to, to make the LCR look it’s best.

This is how the Seat Leon Cupra R arrived with us-

The Wash Process –

Using the Gilmour and a mix of Super Snow Foam and Chemical Guy’s Maxi Suds II, we applied a foam blanket to the car. This removes any loose contaminant and softens any bonded contaminant making the hand wash stage a lot safer and effective.
Wheels cleaned with Chemical Guy’s Extreme Blue Rim Wash.
Arches and trim treated with Meguiar’s All Purpose Cleaner.
We then rinsed the vehicle, so that we could carry out a two bucket method wash, using Meguiar’s Shampoo Plus and eurow lambswool wash mitts.

After drying the vehicle using Meguiar’s Last Touch and Meguiar’s Water Magnets, we carried out a full inspection of the vehicle using our Paint Thickness Gauge and the Brinkmann Xenon to do a visual inspection with.
The results of the inspection were a little disheartening, we found a couple of areas of poor paintwork repair, that we would be unable to do anything with. We suggested to the owner of this vehicle that he should return the vehicle to the main dealer for the vehicles paint to be repaired properly. We did however agree to carry on and safely polish the areas of the vehicle that were not as problematic.

The Polishing Process-

After carrying out the usual tests, of starting with the lightest possible polish and pad combination, and moving up the abrasiveness scale unto a combination that worked was found, while taking paint thickness readings during each stage. We soon came to the following ‘safe’ polishing combination.

The process being Menzerna Intensive Polish P091L on a Meguiar’s W8006 polishing pad by Metabo rotary polisher. To get the best from the polish on this very hot day, we found that we were having to continually spritz the polishing pad mid session with Meguiar’s Last Touch QD, to keep the quickly drying polish lubricated. We did two sets of passes with this method on each section, finding that this combo gave the best compromise of defect removal without removing too much clearcoat. We did find that due to the high heat, and the way in which the polish kept drying out prematurely, that we were leaving the odd light hologram behind.

Tommy followed behind knocking out these light holograms with Menzerna Final Polish II on a white Lake County pad by PC, and cutting in tight spots using P091L on a 4” Orange LC pad.

The vehicle was then given a coat of Chemical Guy’s EZ Cream Glaze, to deepen the now polished paintwork, and add a layer of acrylic protection.
The glass was cleaned using Meguiar’s Glass Cleaner Concentrate.
The trim was cleaned with Einszett Plastic cleaner.
The tyres got a coat of Meguiar’s Hyper Dressing
The wheels were waxed with Chemical Guy’s Rim wax.

We then applied a coat of Chemical Guy’s M-Seal as last step product. We always apply two coats of M-Seal when using it as LSP, as we find that it offers a super slick and protective finish after applying the 2nd coat.

The afters-