MuttGrunt
Ready to race!
Perfection. The best value in the small car market today, the GTi has world class build quality and materials, engine and drivetrain, performance, and appearance. The 4-door version of the GTi add even more value, with a clean non-4-door style and additional utility. This particular GTi was loaded: Leather, Nav, with a Manual 6-Speed. The owner contacted us awhile back, and we advised to wait until all the mods were done so we could "fix" any issues that happened along the way. After suspension work, window tint, and a few interior enhancements the owner dropped it off at our place. The goal: perfect paint and to not have to use a towel to dry the car. Our initial thoughts: Meg's MF followed by C-Quartz and Reload. The vehicle had under 4,500 miles. It had been washed a handful of times, including at the dealer at least twice.
Exhaust tip:
Swirly Wheels
Jacob began on the jambs first with cleaner followed by steam and a wipe to dry, then sealed.
As shiny as his head!
Engine bay started with the underside of the hood:
Got to get behind the seals and gaskets as well as these are the areas that accumulate hard core grime:
Engine was doused in degreaser, brushed and wiped, rinsed and dried. No dressings.
Notice the R8 oil cap
Plate comes off of course:
The best license plate mounting ever: Volvo piece fits Audi/VW with rubber feet the only thing touching paint. I wish my car had something similar!
And we are ready for wash. We get many inquiries asking how much shampoo to use in the foam gun. Here is our "secret ratio for maximum foam" for using a strong shampoo like Chemical Guys Citrus Wash. This is not the shampoo to use for maintenance washing, but works good for pre-polishing.
There were minimal suds left from using Optimum Car Wash on a previous car:
Here we add the soap first to make the quantity easier to see. It is best to add HOT water first, then add soap – this process helps reduce foam blowing out of the bottle as you fill it.
Enough soap:
Now added water to top it off:
Ready to rock:
... and rocking!
Each foaming consumes about half our bottle. So each bottle is enough for washing once (as we foam, rinse, foam again and then wash).
Rinse:
Clay:
The lube is just a diluted soap solution:
“Hey wait! What about washing the wheels?” We usually do the wheels prior to the paint. But today was special.
Tim working his mechanical powers on the lugs:
Removal was completed by hand as to not scratch the barrels of the lugs. Notice the super cool sockets, lined inside and out to help keep the wheel's lug holes scratch and nick free. If you search for our wheels-off articles you will see a cool trick to do to your own sockets to make them less scratch-ing for the cheap. These sockets are from Griots, and are an insane value for just $75 IMO.
We will get into more on the wheels in a bit. Next up: Polish prep.
De-badging begins:
Flossing well between the molars:
Pop! goes the last one:
With the car up in the air and taped off adequately, we were ready for polishing.
Mirror, mirror on the hood...
There were significant paint defects for its age, and they were DEEP! Some were light, like this marring:
Others were medium like these swirls:
And others were deep like these Random Isolated Deep Scratches. You’ll notice multiple scratches perfectly parallel to one another as a result from either a water blade / jelly blade, or the brushes of an automatic car wash:
Some more nastiness:
Paint was typical: very thin down low and building up as the robots worked their way up the panels. If you are working on soft and thin paint trying to correct deep defects, you better know your paint's health. Who do you trust your car to?
Three measurements on the same panel at the same longitude show paint growth caused by global warming! …or something like that
For polishing we decided, after trying a few combos, to use the good cutting power of the Meguiar's Microfiber pads but with M105 for additional cut. The defects in this paint were deep. The worst ones were long and straight, as if caused by a water blade or automatic car wash brushes. Others were somewhat more curved, either from drying or a dirty wash mitt. Dealers will never be able to wash correctly when they pay bottom dollar and put rookie guys in charge of tasks like touching your expensive car. The dealer/washer who put these marks into this paint was negligent in doing so, and should be held responsible for the damage. There is no way a car this new should be this thrashed.
Here I'm working the area around the door handles with the PC and the 6" mf cut pad:
This is one of those that will never come out and is large enough to be seen easily
We got a taste of what Bob Willis of Auto Concierge enjoys by having the car slightly raised; it makes for a less stressed and cramped back. Unlike us, Bob has a top of the line Snap-On scissors lift in his shop. We envy his set-up like you cannot imagine!
Paint and fans of paint:
Now we go back to the wheels. Since they were going to be removed for cleaning we left them dirty during the initial wash. We removed them, and laid them down on carpet to avoid scratching them while we hit them up with cleaners. Sticky Gel 3:1 worked well enough. The hard stuff would require much more than the gentle wheel cleaner could offer.
An early Michigan Spring day meant it was quite cold still:
Looking good so far:
Next was to flip them and wash the faces:
Looking good after a wash, eh?
Lets look closer:
Some of these scratches were mind-boggling:
Improper tire mounting messes up the inner lip edge of the wheels. “Who cares, it is on the inside where nobody will ever see, right?” goes the thinking, but much like the type of people that bring us their cars; we certainly do care and would like to have seen such avoidable damage never occur.
The “Sledgehammer”:
Just a spray and a nail is all that is needed to remove most adhesive residue and tar:
