When Marc Arrived...
|
  
  
|
"I have fallen in love with it before I have even detailed it. The symmetry of this car and the way it has been designed with the sweeping curves are just pure heaven. So after about 2 hours looking I decided that I really must slap myself round the face and get working..."
Snow Foam
Foam can be applied to the vehicle and left to dwell for a prolonged cleaning effect. Dirt and grime is enclapsulated and removed reducing the need for contact washing.
"So first of all seeing as the car was parked under many trees and was fairly dirty I would give it a snow foam using 1 inch of supa snow foam on its own without an extra mix. The car was then foamed all over. You can see the snow foam doing its job nicely eating into the dirt and breaking any solids on the car up nicely enabling me to spray the car off and leave a cleaner finish in preparation for the wash stage. The foam was left to dwell for 5 minutes"
|
  
    
|
"I was really praying that the weather was going to hang out today as it was so gloomy and I was concerned that the detail would not show the car in all its glory once I had finished. My camera was also struggling with the light even with my image stabiliser! Now the car was sprayed off I decided to work on the wheels..."
|
Wheels
"The Audi R8 is fitted with 6-arm, 18-inch, 5 double-spoke, design alloy wheels as standard, and can optionally be ordered with 19-inch wheels. The 235/40 size tyres at the front and up to 285/35 at the rear enable this fantastic machine to grip the roads in all conditions. It has 8-piston fixed callipers on the front axle and 4-piston fixed callipers on the rear axle give the Audi R8 supreme stopping power and directional stability.
I decided to use mainly swissvax for this detail as Tim had already invested in some of the finest products they sell as he had already been informed of the world wide quality of the brand and it would suit this car perfectly...
The other thing I noticed about these superb wheels was they were similar to the bugatti when I worked on it with Miracle in that they had a deep well around the outer rim that would collect water and the callipers left little spacing to get to the rears without rolling the car so I decided I would need my full set of wheel brushes for this car.
I used swissvax wheel cleaner diluted 1:1"
|
 
       
|
|
"So I sprayed the wheels and worked the insides of the wheels with the largest brush which reached the backs with no problem. I then switched to the medium brush to get behind the callipers. I also worked on the callipers with my medium brush for the face and my swissvax hair brush for the intricates inside the calliper. The backs of the spokes and then the whole wheel was checked and washed with a lambs wool mitt to make sure they were totally dirt free."
|
Wash
"Next was the wash stage using a silicon free sponge and swissvax car bath which I love using now being ph neutral and working well with my ro water used in the two bucket method."
The two bucket system is the method of choice for detailers. One bucket has the soapy water that you wash the paint surface with. The second bucket has the rinse water that you rinse off your washing mitt in.
|
  
|
"The car was then sprayed off after washing in preparation for the claying stage..."
|
Clay
"Today i am using swissvax paint rubber again because i am finding this a very very good clay and am now prefering it to my normal sonus green. Claylube today is a mixture of car bath and ro."
|
    
|
"I actually found most of the contamination between the logos and hidden areas around the front lights. Now when I was doing the claying stage I noticed what I thought were a couple of imperfections in the paintwork. One was on the bonnet along the crease and the claybar was not pulling off any contaminants along it but it was dispelling water strangely and I suspected that either the clearcoat had an irregularity of that something had eaten into the clearcoat in a fine circle about 3 to 4 mm in diameter. I also found a lump of what was probably delivery wax on the top of the door....
It came off fine with the clay bar.
The car was then washed again with fresh water and the two bucket method."
|
Zero PPM Soak and Dry
"The car was then showered over with zero ppm filtered water. This aids with the drying and leaves zero contamination on the bodywork and is especially effective on sunny days to eliminate water spotting and also the dreaded wing mirror water runs that you always find."
|
 
Before RO   After RO
|
Drying
"Next the car was sprayed panel at a time with last touch quick detailer to aid with drying."
|
  
|
"It never ceases to amaze me how important the claying stage is and the amount of people that see their cars after a proper wash and clay and dry that think the finish cannot be improved on as especially silver gives such a lovely glow that wasnt there before.
I then decided to get the car under cover so drove it into the garge with about 2 inches to spare either side which was fun considering it was making a noise like thunderbird 1..."
|
Taped and Inspected
"The car was then taped up and inspected for imperfections. Straight away I spotted a massive stone chip on the bonnet with another chip about 2 inches behind it which obviously ment that a stone had bounced up the bonnet so I inspected the windscreen aswell for damge but it was fine. It was only about 1 mm in diameter and I knew I could improve it so it would be barely visible and I was confident I could make the second one disappear totally."
|
 
|
"The only other imperfection I could find on the car was what I had commented about earlier and although difficult to pick up on camera there was definetly a problem with the bonnet crease."
|
 
|
"Although this is not a massive problem for the value of the car I felt it would be worth removing if possible and Tim agreed. I decided to use a sonus fx1 pad after trying a fx2 pad which didnt really remove it combined with menzerna 3.02. I worked on the area until the polish had broken down and then buffed off until the imperfection had gone. The same was used in combination with the stone chipping."
|
     
|
"I absolutley love the colour of this r8. I believe there is a choice of eight exterior colours. The sideblades are in a harmoniously contrasting finish, also optionally in Oxygen Silver or Carbon Sigma. Tims car has the carbon added and it gives a fantastic juxtaposition of colour to me.
I decided that after looking at the paintwork the dealership had been instructed to leave the car and not valet it so it was in very good condition and swirl free not saying the dealership would have swirled it obvioulsy just an observation. They had removed all exterior stickers and supaguard was not opted for."
|
Polish
"The polish used today in conjunction with my Festool is 3M 80349 Perfect-it III extra fine combined with a 3M pad. I just basically worked my way around the car. "
|
       
|
"Now one thing that has really impressed me about this Audi of all the things on it are simply the lights. This r8 has Xenon Plus ellipsoidal headlights with a built in headlight washer system, dynamic headlight range control and LED daytime running lights. And they look absolutely fantastic. I decided to polish them after they were clayed to try and get them near perfect..."
|
      
|
"Now whether its an optical illusion or not but after 5 turns on each headlight it just seems to make them virtually transparent as if no protection is visible?? Yes that was an r8 logo in the headlight!! uber cool!! Now the car had been fully machine polished.
It was time to go over it with swissvax cleaner fluid in preparation for the wax...
|
Pre Wax
"The car was cleaned a panel at a time."
|
     
|
"Before being buffed off all areas were checked for cleaner fluid and wiped off immediatly. The carbon was also treated the same."
"Next I decided to treat the wheels to a glazing using ez creme glaze to try and wet the metallic with the glazes oils."
|
Wheel Detail
"This was wiped on and off within one minute."
|
 
|
"Before moving on to the sealent for the wheels jetseal 109 which has had such fantastic reports for durability and the ability to bring out the flake. In my experience there is nothing better."
|
      
|
"Now the wax for today was a tough choice but after duscussing it with Tim I decided to advise him to go for swissvax Mystery as I believed it would look fantastic on silver having tested it on a few colours just lately..."
|
Wax
"Mysterys 'secret' formula is produced using 55% by volume of the purest No.1 grade unbleached white carnauba wax. It also contains high concentrations of wax esters, wax alcohols and long chain fatty acids. Enriched with coconut, almond and vanilla extracts.
The certificate shows its hand crafted and signed by the individual who crafted it which is a nice touch!!"
|
     
|
"So the whole car was then waxed a panel at a time and removed when I felt it had bonded and taken to leave a fantastic shine. The headlights were also waxed...
Next all glass was cleaned with megs glass cleaner."
|
Glass Detail
"All non metallic areas were detailed using a small detailing brush and a larger hair brush for paintwork areas and larger plastic components."
|
    
|
"The weather had perked up now so I decided to get the car outside again to check over the engine bay and interior."
|
Interior
"The interior of the r8 is fantastic. It has various safety features including Active headrests. They automatically deploy forwards to cushion backward momentum of the head to try and minimise whiplash in the event you forget your not at the nurburgring."
|
  
|
"The interior is laden with nappa leather and silver and options include a bangen olufsen sound system.
Now the car was outside I decided to give the engine bay a little spruce up as it was dirty..."
|
Engine Bay
"Now this is obviously no slouch in the speed market and the high-revving V8 petrol engine delivers 420PS, spontaneous response and a thrilling engine sound. It punches the R8 through the 62mph barrier in just 4.6 seconds. ....wow!!! Also the R8’s unique engine position, together with quattro permanent
four-wheel drive, results in outstanding dynamic performance with very high directional stability and enormous lateral acceleration.
So opening the engine compartment a stunning piece of technology stood before me and my aerospace 303."
|
         
|
"So all plastic areas were cleaned with apc diluted 4:1 and then coated and wiped with aerospace 303. I then went over the rest of the engine bay carefully wiping down everything and making sure all jubilee clips etc were cleaned and polished until the engine bay looked the best I felt I could get it.
I then decided to see what was in the front of the car and realised that this was no car to take the kids to butlins in for the weekend."
|
Luggage
"Luggage room was minimal but then I finally realised that the average R8 driver would probably take a miss on the 2 for 1 offer at butlins minehead and would probably be seen cruising along the french riviera!"
|
      
|
"I was actually quite surprised at how much dust had got into here so using 303 again all areas of plastic were wiped over and cleaned aswell. The underside was cleaned and quick detailed as i didnt think wax would be beneficial at the time.
I then decided to do the twin exhausts with auto sol..."
|
Exhaust
|
  
|
"I gave them a really good clean inside and out to give a nice finish but a couple of rock hard areas inside which I wasnt prepared to try and remove with force. Lastly i decided to give the car a wipe over with Tims swissvax quick detail spray and my swissvax special cloth..."
|
Final Wipe Over
|
  
|
"I truly believe this cloth gives the car a small but beneficial improvement as it buffs the wax to a lustrous finish.
So after a fantastic and enjoyable 10 hours..."
|
The Results
|
                     
|
