Miscellaneous
Full Valet - 06/03/2010
over the last month or so I've been accumulating a whole load of new valetting products, I've even gone through the efforts of purchasing some storage containers to keep things tidy!
I've been using Monza Car Care, owner Eamon has been a tremendous help with selecting the right products and offering advice whenever needed. I can't recommend them enough so be sure to visit their website and place an order
The car started off looking pretty sorry for itself, although nothing in comparison to Jonttt's dirty Imola M!
I decided to give it a fairly extensive detail, ensuring the paint was thoroughly rinsed off prior to washing with Zymol Auto Wash whilst making good use of my new 25l bucket with grit guard (more on this later).
Once washed, I dried the car using a series of Meguiars water magnet towels (I have three - one for the roof, one for body and one for wheels
).
I then broke out my Dodo Juice Born Slippy clay lube and my Meguiars Professional Mild Detailing Clay; using the Born Slippy to provide lubrication I ran the clay bar over each panel, removing lots of dark-tar bonded contaminents.
After an extensive clay session, I diluted the remaining lube residue by rinsing the car down again and re-drying. The next stage was to prepare the paint for wax, for this I used Meguiars Stage 2 Deep Crystal Polish - applied using a foam application pad, removed using microfibres.
With the whole car polished, it was time to apply my latest purchase - Dodo Juice's Purple Haze soft carnuba wax. I had seen a few testimonials on the Detailing World forum which highly commended this wax when used on dark paints and I can certainly see the appeal! I applied the wax sparingly with a cotton applicator before allowing to cure and then buffing with a microfibre.
The final touches included tyre dressing (using my new Meguiars tyre gel applicator), glass polish (buffed using blue engineering paper), exhaust polish (applied using blue engineering paper and buffed using microfibres) and a very quick interior wipe over.
The photos really don't do the car justice, partly due to my photography and mostly to do with the somewhat overcast weather and deminishing sunlight!
In reality, the paint looks to have a permanent glaze which really adds a new depth to the cosmos paintwork.
Going back to the aforementioned Grit Guard, I'd highly recommend this product to anyone... after washing my car I decided to photograph the amount of grit deposits that had settled beneath the guard... better here than on the surface of the sponge