Anzafin

Hello everybody!

It was time to give my car a slight polish again and redo the GTechniq C1 and CarPro CQuartz coatings. Yes, both .

Car:
- BMW E60 530d 2004
- 326hp & 666Nm
- Quaife limited slip differential

I put the C1 and CQuartz on this car last January. At this point you may wonder what pushes me to do it again, and to be honest, there wasn't any particular reason to do that on whole car. I recently installed OEM M5 front bumper and replica M5 rear bumper, and they needed some protection. Anyway, I decided to make sure the whole car has a healthy coat for the oncoming winter.

Scratches and clearcoat:
Now I really believe these hard coatings can give you some scratch resistance. There was no swirling anywhere. Usually I get some very light swirling in this time. Not many new deeper scratches either were found either. Sure the coatings can't protect from these, but if they can give me this much protection against light scratches, I'm with them. So, the surface wasn't bad at all.

Wash and cleaning:
I used some heavy stuff to get the coatings off as much as possible, but I think they stood strong until the bitter end (polishing). There's a video below to show the sheeting after 8½ months and several washes plus this aggressive wash and claying. The used products can be seen below as well.

Pads and compounds:
I needed the FLEX PE14-2 + Menzerna PO203S + Lake Country CCS orange light cutting pad only on couple spots, but mostly the car was done with FLEX XC 3401 VRG + Menzerna PO85RD + Lake Country CCS white polishing pad. At first I was waiting for the C1 and/or CQuartz to be awkward to polish away, but my concern was unnecessary, everything went fine.

LSP:
So I had these two little bottles of C1 and CQuartz left from last winter, therefore I used them both. Last winter was my first time using these, and I wanted to try both of them. The result is, that they are very similar, but maybe I like the CQuartz better. The water sheets on it a bit better maybe, and I found it easier to apply.

-----------------------------------------------------------------

The process:

1) Pre-wash
- Turtle Wax Superdetergent wash spray
- Bilt-Hamber Autofoam

2) Wash
-Turtle Wax Big Orange
- AutoGlym Intensive Tar Remover
- Two bucket method + sheepskin mitt

3) Claying
- Sonüs Ultra Fine Detailing Clay
- Turtle Wax Big Orange as lubricant

4) Polishing
- Menzerna P203S + Lake Country CCS orange light cutting pad + Flex PE14-2 (only on couple of spots)
- Menzerna PO85RD + Lake Country CCS white polishing pad + FLEX XC 3401 VRG

5) LSP
- GTechniq C1 on bonnet, front fenders and front bumper
- CQuartz on other parts

6) Others
Tyres:
- Meguiar's Gold Class Endurance Tyre Gel

-----------------------------------------------------------------

Then some pictures!

I started with cleaning the wheels.


I've found the little detailing brushes to work best on tiny areas.


Then foaming the car to get rid of all the big debris.




Turtle Wax Superdetergent wash spray.


Here's the little sheeting video after this aggressive wash.
http://s469.photobucket.com/albums/r...915_201818.mp4

Sorry no other pictures from the cleaning process, so let's go straight to the drying.


At this point I was pretty amazed of the condition of the clearcoat!




Then I moved the car onto the another garage to let it completely dry overnight.

Anzafin

Came back at next morning to get the job done.

I started with taping the rubber seals etc.


Then I did some more research about the "before" condition. Looking great!




And suddenly everything was done . Sorry no pics of the working process.






I changed new wipers as well.

Anzafin

After picking up my stuff I took some pics.





The garage isn't at my home so I came there by bike. Had to pick it up before leaving .
















There's another thread on Parts & Accessories sub-forum with some other pics. Link here: Few pics

Thanks for watching. Any comments are welcome .

- Antti -

BlaSTiWi

Shinny ... well done!!!

pradden

Wow, that's a lot of work. I wish I had an indoor garage to wash my car... I do have a big garage here at work, but no spot with a floor drain so I still have to wash her outside.

Good Job!

Ash535d

fantastic job whats the best pad for taking out light swirl marks?

Anzafin

Thanks guys .

That's a question that can not be answered univocally.

I use Lake Country CCS pads, and there are differencies between different manufacturers. And it's not only the pad that makes the correction, a right kind of polish/compound has to be chosen as well. Then, there are different types of swirl marks. The paint can be covered with light swirl marks, but when you get rid of them, new heavier swirls that are consisted of deeper scratches, may be revealed.

But, in a case there is only light swirl marks on a hard(ish) BMW clearcoat, I would choose a following combination from the products that I use:
- Lake Country CCS Orange "Light Cutting" pad
- Menzerna PO203S polishing compound
- a rotary polishing machine

I would take a 2' x 2' area and spread out the polish on it. Then put on the machine on the lowest rpms and spread the polish some more. Next I would increase the power up to 4/6 and do 3-5 passes with a moderate pressure. After that I'd increase the power up to 5/6 and put some more weight on pad and do 4-6 passes. Then would decrease the power down to 3/5 and do few slow and light passes on the area.
I've found LC CCS pads together with even harsh Menzerna polishes make a nice shiny surface, usually ready for the wax, but I would finish it with a lighter polish and smoother pad anyway.

- Antti -

Mikey B-mer

Wow! Very clean!

Anzafin

Thanks Mikey .
I love the car more than ever in these 5½ years that I've had it .

- Antti -

Milko75

Your car look also better than ever. It is perfect.