Mercedes Tackled with The Swirl Killer!

[BRZN]

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.

Edited December 29, 2016 by BRZN

[shane@detailedreflections]

That's some nice work you did there.  I can only imagine how happy the owner was when they received the car back.  Seeing people's reactions when their car transforms is always one of the highlights of any detail I do.

 

And it sounds like the Swirl Killer was a great product for those looking to get into a polisher with a reasonable cost and good features.  Seems like it's a great buy for anyone in the market, especially for those looking to do some detailing at home on their own vehicles.

[neontrucks]

Great work, and excellent write up. I can see the difference in the pictures. Thinking of getting a Swirl Killer in the spring, for home use, glad to know it can also tackle some big jobs.

[Sizzle Chest]

Excellent write-up and work!  That thing looks like it just came off the lot! (only better)

[blcksilv08]

Great work, that Benz clear is hard stuff. I still need to pick up a swirl killer to add to the collection.

[zapdon]

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

[BrianT]

Dave, another great write up!! It's great to hear the Swirl Killer is up to a serious workout! I'm not sure sure a PC could do that in a timely manner.

[rkj4243]

​Great write-up Dave, showing the potential of the Swirl Killer!

 

Great results on the complete detailing of that Benz!

[Mariner]

Fantastic work! I understand your pain in trying to document the transformation of white paint.. but it does make a difference! 

[Dan@Adams]

Awesome write-up Dave! Thank you for sharing

[Chris@Adams]

Nice job Dave!

[Thorsager]

That's a lot of work! Nice job!

[BRZN]

That's some nice work you did there.  I can only imagine how happy the owner was when they received the car back.  Seeing people's reactions when their car transforms is always one of the highlights of any detail I do.

 

And it sounds like the Swirl Killer was a great product for those looking to get into a polisher with a reasonable cost and good features.  Seems like it's a great buy for anyone in the market, especially for those looking to do some detailing at home on their own vehicles.

The owner's in India until mid January, I hope her son doesn't run it through any automatic car washes before she gets to see it!.

I agree, this machine is perfect for the weekend warrior who's going to detail just a couple cars per year. I do work for Adam at several shows and I know how hard it is to get a first time polisher buyer, or someone ready to move up from an entry level machine to shell out $400. With this Swirl Killer at $229.99 for just the machine, yet alone the awesome prices for kits this machine is perfect!

 

Great work, and excellent write up. I can see the difference in the pictures. Thinking of getting a Swirl Killer in the spring, for home use, glad to know it can also tackle some big jobs.

You can't go wrong!

 

Great work, that Benz clear is hard stuff. I still need to pick up a swirl killer to add to the collection.

Do it! Do it!

 

That's a lot of work! Nice job!

3 days is about the usual amount of time for me to complete a full interior/exterior detail Travis, with polishing and an LSP applied. I work at my own pace and don't cut any corners.

[pirahnah3]

Nice work, def brought the shine back to that Benz. White cars while great looking when clean just do not show off that shine as well as others but when done right look awesome

[EB C5 Z06]

Nice job!!

[Captain Slow]

Bam! You made white, whiter.

[mathews31]

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've actually been looking for someone with actual picture experience with the SK, I was thinking of getting it as a weekend warrior, but have been a little unsure if it was up to the job. Any other experience...BTW really nice write up !!

[BRZN]

It's a very fine and capable machine. I've used the prototype machine from about April of last year through the release of the sale version. The sale version has a few upgrades from the prototype and is perfectly fine for corrections. I'd had the machine for testing purposes, and not showing it but...

 

I was comparing it to other machines in this detail:

http://www.adamsforums.com/topic/31635-adams-2009-chevy-silverado-3500hd-dually-club-cab/

and this one:

http://www.adamsforums.com/topic/30938-chrysler-nationals-at-carlisle-july-15-17/?p=485286

and here:

http://www.adamsforums.com/topic/30755-full-on-detail-wifes-volvo/ 

Edited February 22, 2017 by BRZN

[Wy_detailing]

Great write up!