zapdon

looks great, been waiting to try my swirl killer. rained last weekend. hopefully get to try it this weekend

I've been in the video library thanks for the heads up

Welcome!! Take a look at Adam's video library, tons of great info and techniques to learn! And if you have any questions, post them up!!

I had the opportunity earlier this week to work on a 2001 Mercedes Benz E320. This, nearly, 17 year old garage kept Benz has 98,000 miles on her, and appears to be fairly well taken care of. However, I believe the exterior is being washed at drive through car washes, and probably was kept outside by a previous owner due to the condition of some of the exterior rubber trim and some rust I'd discovered.
 
I picked the car up in Lancaster City early Monday morning, to bring home and get started on at my home.
White is such a tough color to show before's and after's with results, so I'll describe as much as I picture, if not more.
Here it is prior to me doing anything. The paint had very little gloss due to the excessive washing scratches, and was a bit chalky from oxidation.

She has heavy rubber mats (visible on the driveway) over top of the OEM carpeted mats in the car, the carpet in the vehicle appears to be in almost new condition, with very little wear and only a few stains!

I began by cleaning the wheels with Wheel Cleaner, the tires with Tire & Rubber Cleaner and the Inner Fenders/Wheel Wells with All Purpose Cleaner. The rubber mats were scrubbed with Tire & Rubber Cleaner and hung to dry.
I quickly cleaned the engine bay with a pressure washer, started to dry with my Master Blaster (4 horsepower setting), then shut the hood and started the car to let the heat from the engine finish drying.

While the car was running, I set the Climate Control to recirculate, and with the fan on high sprayed Odor Neutralizer into the system as well as spraying the exposed carpeted areas of the interior.
The car was then foamed down with two ounces of Strip Wash in my Foam Cannon.

I let the foam dwell for five minutes or so then proceeded with a two bucket wash, again with another two ounces of Strip Wash. I used the Red Wash Mitt I gotten a couple/few months ago. There was a very light rain/mist falling so I clayed the car's paint and glass out on the driveway while it was still wet. I completely destroyed a new Visco Clay bar. Each 2'x2' section I clayed turned the clay's used surface brown from contaminates. Also, the amount of oxidation on the black rubber was transferring to the clay if I touched it. I rinsed the vehicle again after claying with my Spot Free Reverse Osmosis water system and blew it dry with my Master Blaster.
These two pictures are after clay, rinse, drying.

 

Still really dull paint, but at least it was now clean and decontaminated.
I pulled the car into the garage, cleaned around the door jams, under the hood and cleaned the trunk.

I finished with a thorough vacuuming of the carpeted mats and the interior. That was it for day 1, including the time spent to pick the car up I had just shy of 9 hours in it.
 
Day two began with some more time on the interior. The dash was cleaned, as well as the center stack and console. This all cleaned up nicely with Interior Detailer and an Edgeless Utility Towel.

Next was this:

Both sets of control buttons on the steering wheel had this stuff on them, the left side pictured was far worse. Gum? Make Up? Hand Lotion? I could pick it off with my finger nail, it came off as a black sticky substance. Leather & Interior Cleaner, an Edgeless Utility Towel and some elbow grease and it all came off!

No harm to the white ink on the buttons either, I was worried about removing that while getting the gunk off. A wee bit of the gray dye was removed from the horn pad around the buttons.
The leather seats were scrubbed with Leather & Interior Cleaner, they were pretty dirty. A Cockpit Brush did a good job at pulling the dirt out of the leather. There were stains which looked like they'd come from blue jeans on the lower portion of the driver's seat back, Isopropyl Alcohol removed most all of this staining. I had to be careful as the alcohol was also pulling the gray dye from the leather. These interior pictures are after I'd dressed the leather with Leather Conditioner.

 

 

 

On to the exterior. All the exterior plastic and rubber was hit with either VRT or In & Out Spray to protect it from polish residue. I taped off the rubber trim around the doors and a hand painted pin stripe down the sides of the car.

I was able to remove a couple tiny spots of paint the pin striper got outside of his lines with clay, and was afraid to touch the actual stripe with polish. The tape I had was wider than the stripe. Notice in the above picture the Detailer's Tape is along the upper edge of the stripe. I polished above the tape line first, then re-positioned the tape to the bottom line and polished from there down. This worked out well, and this tape was able to be reused, bonus!
 
Polishing...
I own the Flex 3401 VRG, the Rupes Bigfoot15 LHRES and the Rupes Bigfoot15 MarkII. Any one of these machines would have been a good choice on this extremely hard Mercedes paint. However, I also own Adam's new Swirl Killer. I figured why not give this machine a work out and see what it could do.
No, it's not going to have the bite of the direct drive Flex, it's not quite as powerful as the MarkII Rupes, it is a bit more powerful than the LHRES and it's Adam's new offering. Why not let you all know what it's capable of on this hard German paint?
Well, it took me quite a while to dial in my procedure. I started on the driver's side with a section of the hood using the Orange Foam Pad and the Paint Correcting Polish. Seemed to do the job. I finished half the hood, half the roof and began on the rear deck lid when I realized this was not giving me the results I wanted. I went back over the same areas again believing I had it right with the Blue Foam Pad and Heavy Correcting Compound on the Swirl Killer, followed up with the Orange Foam Pad and Paint Correcting Polish. Nope, by the time I started on the rear deck lid I again realized I didn't have it dialed in to where I wanted.
Since I'd spent so much time on the driver's side I moved over to the passenger's side where I'd finally figured out what I needed. The new White/Blue Microfiber Pad and Heavy Correcting Compound, followed up with the Orange Foam Pad and Paint Correcting Polish. Perfect? No, but for a daily driver in white with the condition the paint had been in, it was really nice. The deeper scratches were still there, but much less noticeable, and the washing marks and lighter scratches and swirls were gone.
Before:

After:

Again, white is so hard to get good pictures of. The spots around the reflection of the Swirl Finder Light in the After picture are reflections off the camera.
The entire car was polished except for the rear bumper that was parked up against my garage door (that was saved for day three). Tight areas of the front bumper, roof beside the sunroof, the areas between the roof drip rail and door glass, B-Pillars, door handles, door handle pockets and areas needing extra attention were taken care of using either my Rupes Mini or Nano. By the time I finished polishing I found three more spots of paint left by the pin striper. These wouldn't come off with the polisher. Who knows, perhaps I could have polished over the pin striping? Better safe than sorry, glad I took the time to tape them off.
Paint Sealant was applied using my Porter Cable and a Gray Foam Pad to most of the paint. I applied Quick Sealant to the leading edge of the front bumper, the B-Pillars, the door jams, the wheels, and under the hood and trunk lid. I turned the car around in the garage and called it for day two; just over nine hours today.
 
Day three began by polishing out the rear of the car I couldn't get to on day two and applying Paint Sealant to this area. I also wiped down the entire car with Detail Spray to make sure all the Paint Sealant residue was off. The glass was cleaned inside and out and Glass Sealant was applied to the windshield. The tires were dressed with Tire Shine and Invisible Undercarriage Dressing was sprayed into the wheel wells. All the door panels were cleaned and wiped down with Interior Cleaner and Leather Conditioner was applied to the leather inserts.

 

 

 

I vacuumed the interior one more time, reinstalled all the mats and delivered the car back to the owner. Just shy of 5 hours on Day 3. Total time spent including pick up and delivery 23 hours.
 
The Swirl Killer pulled it off! The car looks phenomenal. The oxidation's off, and the gloss is back. Most all of the scratches and scuffs were removed as well as the swirls, and marring to the paint.

 

 

 

Impressions of the Swirl Killer?
It did a great job. As a Long Throw machine to step up from the Porter Cable, or to start with, I don't believe you can go wrong at its price point.
15mm throw, soft start up, variable speed, trigger lock, smooth, vibration free operation, it didn't get hot with continued use, a long 20' soft cord. My only complaint, and it wasn't a big deal, is that it's louder than either of my Rupes Bigfoot15's. Well, I'm not 100% sure if it's actually louder, or if it has a higher pitch, but my ears began to ring. After about an hour I put ear plugs in.

I finally decided to go to the next step in detailing my cars and bought the Porter Cable kit that Adams offers.
I got a lot of advice from people here on the forums and everyone was very helpful.
 
My 2016 Civic got the full treatment this weekend.
Strip wash
Clay bar
PCP with the Porter Cable
PFP with the Porter Cable
H2O GG
American paste wax
 
The car came out great. Thanks everyone for the advice.
 
Heres a coupld pics and a video.
 

UPDATED: nice desert photo shoot on sheet 2.
 
Traded my Jeep in for a 2016 Camaro SS with the 2ss package one week ago. Dealer was want to buy our $700 sealant, I showed him a picture of my detailing cart and he said yeah you don't want that hahahaha. Paint is called mosaic black and has gold flakes in it.

So this past Saturday did my first detail on her.
Started by cleaning wheels and tires using wheel cleaner and rubber and tire cleaner. Then foam gunned the car, followed by a 2 bucket washed, then dried.

Did clay bar test with plastic bag to see how it was. I figured it would need to be clayed, but was surprised how bad it really was. Guess it makes sense sitting out in lot and transport. So clayed whole car.

Then applied paint sealant to whole car including glass, wheels. Then followed up with patriot.











Reflection shots

Your Camaro has been off road more than most trucks I see!
 
Great looking shine!

Got a nice early Christmas gift from my dad. Was a nice surprise to come home to. Still have quite a bit old patriot left in the billet container so guess I need to wax some more lol

I would recommend Racedeck flooring and if you join the garagejournal.com you will get a discount.
I have Racedeck Freeflow in my garage and I really like it.
As far as the cabinets, I have Gladiator garage and they too are nice.
 

 
 

good looking ride. welcome!!!

I can't even comprehend what is being stated in this thread. 
 
The scent of LC is one of the best smells in the entire universe.  Its like saying you don't like the smell of a fresh-cut Christmas tree, or the smell of a chocolate chip cookie right out of the oven. 
 
Utter nonsense!
 

Hi Kapri, welcome to AdamsForums! 
 
That's a great looking Challenger...I love that color
 
Unfortunately improper washing and drying create the overwhelming majority of swirl marks and scratches, so while I do appreciate when others offer to wash my vehicle at a dealership and so on, I politely tell them absolutely no washing of my vehicles under any circumstance! 

2014 Porsche GT3
White
3,200 miles
 
It’s been a Porsche past couple months here at Autodermatology!  I will keep the P-cars coming!
 
I had a client bring me his new to him 2014 Porsche GT3 in white.  The car has low miles.  Approximately 3,200 miles are on the vehicle. 
It came in for a paint correction and ceramic coating.  The front end is covered in PPF. 
 
It was in overall OK condition. The typical marring, swirls and light scratches.  It has been tracked before so some scuffs/etc were evident as well. 
 
Tools/equipment/chemicals/etc:
 
Flex 3401, Rupes iBrid.
PTG Defelsko
Lighting by Scangrip.
Lift by Ranger QickJack.
Clayed .
Washed .
Misc  mf towels.
HD/3D CUT and POLISH
 glass cleaner.
Adam’s Trim coating.
Adam’s Paint coating.
Adam’s Ceramic Boost.
 tire dressing. (this was baked on for greater longevity).
Interior was wiped down
Leather conditioned.
Adam’s wheel cleaner.
 tire cleaner.
 wheels/calipers.
 
 
Process:
I used a super-secret beta test rinseless/waterless/claylube/paintprep formula for the rinseless washing duties.  The vehicle was then clayed . Wheels were cleaned as were calipers and tires. 
Paint readings were taken and showed plenty to work with. That’s always a nice thing to find!
Test spot revealed that the paint was medium-medium-hard.  It liked CUT and a medium pad.  Finished down nicely without much marring and no haze.  NO dust.  Nice!  Final polishing was with POLISH.  Came out like a white diamond!  The defects were very difficult to capture for me on this paint…you will have to trust me that they were there! LOL
I am a self-admitted coating geek…I just love them.  I wanted to try Adam’s new offerings. 
Paint was prepped prior to coating.  The trim was also prepped. 
Coated.  Cured.
Boost was applied 24 hours later—it really slicked up the surface.  The Adam’s Ceramic Paint Coating is a little grabby on its own. Great shine, reflectivity.  It is easy to apply and remove.  Flashes quickly in my temp/humidity. 
Tires dressed.
Glass cleaned.  Interior tackled. 
DONE!!!
 
Thanks for reading my write-up and looking at my many, many pictures!

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

looks great, nice looking ride.

Brother came into town so took him for a small cruise in the Az desert. Took this opportunity to do some photos of the car. As always Adams making her shine. Waxed with buttery wax about a month ago and applied ceramic boost last week before this little cruise. Impressed with the shine it leaves. here are a few of many of the pics i took.  lol

Looks awesome. The pic of your Camaro reflecting your GTO is my favorite. I saw it in the other forum, and instantly a bar was set.

This past week we had a propane heater installed in our garage. This means I can now detail in the winter! I wanted to try out the heated garage so I decided to do a full detail on our 2012 Challenger. It had been 18 months since the last polished the car. This was due to me putting in a lot a lot of hours at work and buying a house that needed some work.
     I was happy with the condition of the paint. There was just some light scratches but no swirls. So after a normal wash I clayed the paint and  decided to go with just a one-step process with Adams Paint Correcting Polish and a foam pad. My main polisher is the Flex 3401.  I then used Adams Liquid Paint Sealant. The following day I topped that with Adams Patriot wax. I also sealed all the glass with Adams Glass Sealant. I used Adams Quick Sealant on all the black trim and wheels (I bought 8 cans when I found out it was being discontinued).
   
 

 

 
I would have taken pictures outside but it decided to snow today!
 

I need to update this. Here my recent details on my SRT:
 
Adams Tire Shine:

 
VRT on the engine bay plastics:

 
Hood contamination:

 
A client's Chevy Tahoe (Shampoo, VRT and H20 GG used):
 
Before:

 
After:

 
Interior:
 
Before:


 
After:


 
 
And another's Hyundai Tucson(Wash and Wax Shampoo, VRT and dried with Detail spray):

Nothing but love here for the new glass towels.  I liked the old version but the new one works even better for me.
 
Love them. 

Glass can be tough, I always use at least two Glass Towels.....I spray the GC on the glass then use the first towel wiping the glass over several times then I always follow up with the second  dry glass towel.  Tip......I always clay the exterior of my glass too.

I'll be honest here.  I have two "babies".  A Cadillac and a Corvette. But I've been using Adam's products for over 12 years and I have NEVER diluted anything and also never had one single issue. I pamper my rides and take a lot of pride in how they look so if I thought it would be better to dilute stuff, I would.  But I've used nearly every chemical product that Adam's makes full strength and never had any bad effects, from tires to leather to interiors.  

Just wanted to show off some pics after doing my winter prep.  I didn't correct the scratches, just a thorough wash, clay, seal, and shine.   Correction will happen later when it warms up.

I stripped, clayed, and sealed last week, so this week was the wash and HGG application. It's also been a really long time since I really pampered the trim and glass, so I took care of that. The following is my process, and the products used.
 
Wheel Cleaner
Tire and Rubber Cleaner on tires and rubber trim
Wash with CWS
Dry with HGG (paint and wheels)
 
Under Carriage Cleaner in wheel wells
Waterless Wash in all door jambs
SVRT on ALL trim, cowl, roof racks, running boards (makes them super slippery so it's a good thing I  don't really use them), and etc
Tire Shine
Glass Cleaner on all glass, inside and out
Glass Sealant on windshield and rear window
Waterless Wash final wipe down
 
Enjoy!
 

 
 
 
 

Cardboard works too.