v_therussian

I thought I'd get a junk panel from a body shop across the street to accomplish a couple of things:

-First, I want to share some of my methods and showcase them on this totally destroyed panel.
-And second, I would like to use it as a long-term testbed for some of the materials and techniques.

Here's what I started off with






As you can clearly see, this panel is beat up badly. I'm guessing it was taken off a car that had been in an accident, and then the tough times really started for this panel... let's see what I can do with it

I hit it with some APC




Then decon over the whole panel



After the panel was cleaned and decon'd, I rinsed it with water and dried it using the sheeting method, then got on the paint. First, I tried to hand-buff it with some M101 and a yellow MF towel,




but that didn't suffice - still too swirly, even for a testbed



So I moved on to bigger better tools, grabbed my DA and a yellow Uber foam cutting pad, squeezed out a little bit of M101 on the pad and went to town, eventually doing two passes with this combo over the test area:




After hitting the test area with a yellow pad+M101 combo twice, I was fairly happy with where this was going, so I did a couple of light tests





See how much better it looks below the tape, vs the paint above the tape?


Next I grabbed a green Uber pad and some v34 Hybrid Optical Grade Compound from Chemical Guys and went over the test area twice with that, to get rid of the finer scratches and swirls




Light test after the green pad+v34 pass:



Next I split my test area in two roughly equal parts and applied Jet Seal 109 from Chemical Guys on the bottom part:



The top half of today's test area received a generous dose of Optimum's Opti Coat 2.0 Sealant:



Then it was time for a break. Jet 109 takes 15 minutes to cure, while Opti Coat states that you should go over any ridges/rough areas after about 5 minutes. Since both sealants need to be left alone to fully bond, I wiped down the panel after waiting the appropriate amounts of time for each area and threw the panel in a very dusty, nasty place of the shop. Chemical Guys say 109 lasts about 6-8 months, while OC is marketed as a permanent coat for your vehicle - I'm interested to see how these products live up to their claims over time. More importantly, I want to try various polishes over the opti coat to see which will "glaze" the best

Here are a few AFTER shots of the test area of the panel

Gene

so on a detail, what products do you use? for washing, claying, polishing, and waxing?

v_therussian

I like to vary products, actually. This way there's an individual approach to each car. Of my absolute musts, I can name, let's say, five favorites:

303 aerospace protectant
Pinnacle soft claybar
Adam's VRT
Sonax Full Effect
Chemical Guys Jet Seal 109

I like to make the car feel like new, but better. Not Armor-All'd up to the sunroof seals, but rather... I don't know... "right" is the word on my mind

For an M3 with comp pk, I would definitely pay attention to the wheels, but your wheels do not necessarily need Sonax. Sonax Full Effect is a deironizer, and it strips any protective coating from the surface. I would - maybe - use Full Effect once every six months, but seal the wheels with some decent sealant every 3-4 washes. I've been using P21S wheel sealant, but saw something at a detailing supply store today, that caught my eye

Jet Seal 109 is a great product for the sealing stage of a detail, but there are deeper glazes out there. The good thing about 109 is that you can layer it to add depth. Like most peers, it's not just a sealant, it adds a shine to the finish. It's a little tricky, in that you have to wait after applying it, although the 15 minutes can be used wisely

Now, take 303 protectant - it's a great product for E60, it dries quickly and leaves the surface looking natural. I've never met an E60 (actually, any BMW) driver, who wanted his/her plastics to be shiny To give you an idea of the range of this product, I've used 303 on marine details and it has never let me down. It's not a wheel treatment, like some people (including myself) attempted to use it. Sure, they coat airplane wheels with it, but it's not for the gloss On rubber, vinyl and interior plastics it's great. You'll notice your dash actually feeling cooler to the touch after applying it. My Lexus seems to react worse to it than my E60 did, but it is still very good. All those black plastics that get hit by the sun, when your car's outside, these plastics heat up and emit fumes, which can actually be harmful. After 303, these pieces do not heat up nearly as badly, plus the 303 traps at least some of the fumes (I didn't want to claim "all" of the fumes, but it could be the case - I just was a little too lazy to check right now )

On RWC's E30 today, I tried out Chemical Guys' spray (don't remember which one it was, but it was either the rinseless or the waterless car wash spray), where I would normally do the quick detailing spray after buffing. It worked really well, because it did what I wanted it to do - lift the tiny amounts of dust and product overspray after the buffing, and leave a bit of protection. Because the E30 doesn't have a clear coat, I didn't go to a yellow or orange Uber foam pad - I decided to use green, because it is softer. On a car with modern 2-stage paint, I could go much more aggressive without worrying about paint transfer (thinning the paint too much).

PS I can't believe it's almost 3AM and I'm still talking about detailing

v_therussian

By the way, something worth mentioning about this test panel in the OP - it did show some serious "orange peel" when I buffed it, so I am planning to continue this thread with some experiments on that (I know a lot of dark Bimmer owners complain about that orange peel effect in their paint )