The Vehicle - Subaru Impreza.

The brief –

The owner had seen the high quality of work we’d carried out on one or two other Impreza’s, and wanted the same quality of finish on his pride and joy. The Subaru had the usual light swirling, which wanted removing. It also had a smattering of dead bugs, dried across the front of the vehicle, that the owner was finding difficult to remove. There were marks where the adhesive had held the manufacturers badges on the bootlid, that the owner also wanted removing.

The wash process –

The bugs dried onto the front of the vehicle good a good pre soak of Einszett Bug remover spray. This gently softens the dried on bugs, allowing them to be safely rinsed from the vehicle without any form of agitation.

We then sprayed the whole car with a mix of Super Snow Foam and Chemical Guy’s Maxi Suds II. Allowing the foam blanket to slowly slide from the vehicle, taking with it any loose grit or dirt, and also softening any baked on grime, to make washing easy later on. While we allowed the foam blanket time to do its work, we set about the wheels using Chemical Guy’s non acid Blue Rims wheel cleaner, and also treated the arches and tyres to a soaking of Meguiar’s Super Degreaser cut 4:1 through foaming trigger sprayers.

We rinsed off the Subaru using high volume low pressure, then set about using a two bucket method hand wash. Using lambswool wash mitts, and Meguiar’s Shampoo Plus as shampoo, we carefully hand washed the Subaru starting at the top, and working our way down. The car was then rinsed again.

Due to there being a lot of tar / rubber residue bonded to the lower sections of this car, and also to remove the adhesive remaining from the badges, we treated all of these areas with a solvent called ‘Panel Wipe’ This makes light work of removing this type of residue, and is a much safer way of doing this task than just using clay. Rinsed the car down again, to remove all traces of the Panel Wipe, and then the Subaru was ready for claying.

Using Meguiar’s Last Touch as clay lubricant, and Sonus Grey clay the Subaru was carefully cleaned. Due to previous Panel Wipe stage, very little contaminant was left for the clay to remove.

We then rinsed the car again, to remove all traces of the claying residue, before drying using Meguiar’s Water Magnet waffle weave drying towels.

The Inspection -

I took a full set of readings using my Elcometer 456 Paint Thickness Gauge, and inspected the depth of the scratches using my Elcometer 121 PIG. This Impreza showing sign’s of being a genuine one, with the trade mark Subaru 50 micron variance across each panel.

The Polishing process -

We used a product called Chemical Guy’s Swirl and Spider web remover for the polishing process on this vehicle.

After priming a LC orange pad with QD, I used 2 x 1” lines of product for a 1’ x 1’ section. Speed 1 to spread, 2 x passes at speed 4 with good pressure, followed by a spritz of QD then a final pass at speed 6. Any deeper but removable R.I.D.S. were gone, or greatly reduced after these 2 sets. The swirls and spider webs gone after the first set. The polish working very well on the Horizontals, but needed a little spritz of QD to remove the residue on occasion-

The Subaru bonnet after 2 sets of passes with the Chemical Guy’s Spider Swirl & Scratch remover –

The horizontals were a lot clearer of swirls and scratches, so we used Chemical Guy’s Medium Compound on a Sonus White SFX polishing pad. This leaves a last step ready finish, nice.

Any scratches were dealt with using Chemical Guy’s Heavy Duty Compound, and the expected haze from such a coarse compound was removed using Chemical Guy’s Professional Polish on a white SFX pad.

The bumpers, spoilers etc were dealt with using the CG’s Heavy Duty compound on a 4” Yellow spot cutting pad from LC, and the marring removed using CG’s Professional Polish on a 4” LC orange pad. We used the slow cut method to remove the defects, and the Pro polish to restore a brilliant gloss.

After wipe down using some ‘bargain’ work cloths from Car Wash ‘n Wax, it was time for the Glaze. David had seen the Blackfire on Scoobynet, and wanted this applying to his car. David applied the Blackfire Gloss Enhancing polish by PC on a blue SFX pad. After wiping down, we then applied a coat of Blackfire Wet Diamond by hand.

While the Blackfire was given chance to set up and cure-
The alloys given a protective coat of Chemical Guy’s Rim Wax.
The trim treated to a coat of Chemical Guy’s New Look Trim Gel.
The tyres and inner arches to Meguiar’s Hyper Dressing cut 2:1
The glass to Meguiar’s Glass Cleaner Concentrate.
The rubber seals around the windows to Einszett Plastic Cleaner.

The car was then given a final wipe down, using Poorboy’s DMT Microfibre cloths, and Chemical Guy’s Synthetic Anti Static QD.

The finished Subaru -