1997 Miata

[Osok]

Detailed a 15 year old Miata this past weeked that self admitted by the owner hasn't been touched from a cleaning standpoint for 5-7 years. As he put it, he is an engine guy and could care less what the car looks like as long as it performs.

 

Well this philosophy became evident upon inspection. The owner clearly has many pine trees around his house as the interior was loaded with dead pine needles and stones and the paint had 20+ pine sap adhesions. The car arrived a very very dull green. Thankfully when it left I was able to remind the owner the car actually is a metallic green with flake in the paint. That was one of his first comments.."hey I don't remember this being a metallic green".

 

Process standpoint was a good rinse (didn't do much good as most dirt was adhered (grime, dust, scratches, sap).

 

That was followed with a strip wash using Dawn then a round of clay. Trashed a 1/3 piece of clay with this job. Saddly the clay didn't touch the pine sap blobs.

 

After clay I busted out the 3M adhesive remover to work on the sap blobs. This softened them up enough where i could then scrape them up with my fingernail. Saddly though what was revealed was some bad bad etching in many spots.

 

After the sap attack I cleaned the interior with the full Adams suite. The VacN Blow 500 ate up all the stones and pine needles quite well. A good wipe down with LIC and then a healthy dose of Adams leather conditioner and the interior was shaping up.

 

Next came some polishing. I told the customer (prior to seeing his vehicle) I normally could do a polish pass and see how it looked if more aggressive steps were needed. Well it didn't take all of 2 seconds after seeing the vehicle a polish pass would still leave this car in bad shape.

 

I had been looking for the chance to test out some other 3rd party polishes in hopes of finding something a little more aggressive then the Adams SSR. Much to my delight this was a great opportunity and the other product came through with flying colors. We'll avoid the discussion on that though since it's not an Adams product.

 

After the two level of buffing were done (using the flex) I finished up with a good coat of MSS and cleaned the windows.

 

All in all i was real happy with the turn around after the state is arrived in and the owner was ecstatic! Not that I converted him to caring about the exterior going forward but he did enjoy the "clean good looking ride" he drove away with.

 

Onto some pics:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

After shots!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[JBlack151]

HOLY MOLY!!! That was a huge task for suck a little car. Amazing job!

 

BTW is that crumbled piece of blue and white metal on the front bumper considered a license plate still!

[Marylander]

The car looks great!

[J Tegeler]

that little miata was trashed! nice save OsOk! Them miatas sure are fun little cars to drive

[DenaliDan]

Poor little Miata! They always clean up well though. Tough little cars! Good job!

[Chase@InsanePaint]

Sounds like the owner has no intention of maintaining that pocket rocket. Man........

[Osok]

Thanks folks. It did clean up surprisingly well. He's left with 4-5 of the sap spots etched bad enough into his paint that I couldn't get out but all in all I think it's better than it's looked in probably 10 years.

 

Has anyone else noticed when you do a detail for someone you suddenly start noticing that same particular brand car around town more all of a sudden? We were out lastnight and saw 4 more miatas, same style convertibles.

[paoutdoorsman]

Nice turn around man!