This 2009 370Z belongs to a client of mine that has been patiently waiting for me to return from my overseas trips. His Z had been detailed by his dealer for $150 and came back with buffer trails and swirls. He had heard about me on one of the Z forums and despite the 1 hour + drive, wanted to get it done right.

I decided to try something different and document the progress using my iPhone 3GS. I think the pix turned out pretty well. I did include a few pix taken with my Sony DSLR as well.

Hope you like!

Tools used: Makita Rotary Buffer and 7424XP Random Orbital Polisher
Pads: Foam (Prima Orange, White, and Black)
Polishing Chemicals: Prima Swirl and Prima Amigo
LSP: Prima Epic
Other Products: Prima Clarity, Prima Hydro for door jambs and wheels
Total Time Spent: 23 hours over 3 days (99% of the time spent on the exterior making it flawless)









Engine bay was detailed as well




After it was washed with distilled water I taped it and prepped it for polishing




Performing the Test with Swirl and a White pad


Before wiping the polish off


Significant Improvement


But obviously needs more work


More polishing


It's perfect now


How much improvement was there???







Two hours later, the whole front end has been polished out


Course we can't ignore the rest of the car!



Ok changing gears, here is the detailed engine bay


23 hours in all! Note the texture of the clouds








Taken with my Sony DSLR



The customer posted on my FaceBook Fan Page

"Awesome, awesome, awesome job Richard!!! Thanks for rescuing my car."

 

OG- you're welcome. I recommended him to come to you. (no joke)

 

Nice OG! Great Work.

 

Excellent work !

 

Thanks everyone!!!

Ken, did you really??? Thanks!!! I was asking him how he found out about me, he said it was from an online forum but couldn't remember who told him.

 

Looks great! And nice referral, Ken!

And looking at your pics makes me miss your shop...does OC still have that big truck I can walk under?

 

Thanks!! We've moved twice since you were last at the shop. The latest location is the best cause we have no neighbors!!!

Richard

 

yah, it was me from the370z.com. he mentioned he was in socal and needed help, so i posted up a link to your shop and gave him my high marks.

post #14
http://www.the370z.com/nissan-370z-g...black-new.html

 

Thanks Ken!! The client will be posting the link to here.

Richard

 

hell, i also promoted Amigo! post #16.

see, do good for kenchan, kenchan advertises for free.

do bad for kenchan, kenchan also advertises for free.

 

Haha! I just saw it! Thanks for the link. Well I used Amigo too, but the paint was already flawless by the time I used it. I always use Amigo on black cars because it adds slickness to the finish and improves the contrast and I just love making that final pass with the orbital and Amigo before going to wax.

 

yah, you definitely do good work, OG. the black in the picts is just beautiful.

i wonder how soon he needs to come back for more OG-luv for his 370z.

 

Thanks!! As for when he will come back? Probably sooner rather than later. Don't get me wrong. He's a great hard working client, but I just didn't sense he had OCD like a lot of my black car clients.

I just didn't have the heart to tell him he needs to revamp everything from the products he's been buying to his method of care because he's in one of those no-win situations. He's doing all he can to protect the paint but he is apartment bound and I could tell from talking to him that the two bucket method, lambswool wash mitt, Dirt Guard, premium microfiber towels, Hydro, Slick, Mystique wasn't going to work for him, so I suggested he use ONR (Optimum No Rinse) instead of going to the local coin op power washer using their soap and the sponge from the local auto parts store. He did tell me he'll be back in 6 months .

 

...which is i guess good for business.

and the paint they used on these 370Z's...man, it's so soft. the brilliant silver on mine is much softer than the brillant silver on my G35C..and they're both nissan's.

 

That's interesting because the paint on this 370Z was harder than most of the black G35's I've worked on, course those weren't metallic either. It took many passes with a white pad on the rotary to knock out the scratches and swirls and far fewer with the orange pad. A lot of times with softer paint, a more aggressive pad also mars the finish, but not in this case. I still had to do a million followup passes, lol, or it seemed like it.

 

hummm... when i used the blue clay from meguiar's, it kinda lightly wet sanded the 370Z's paint. i had to polish out the haze. i was pretty surprised to see this with that clay. and it was a room temperature storaged, fresh clay too.

so im going to be using the griot's mud from now on on the 370Z. ive used
firmer clay than blue on my G and no issue...

 

In my experience, paint hardness varies even among the same models. I've seen that hazing you're talking about on very soft paint. Happened on a black Toyota Camry awhile back...no I don't work on Camry's

Good to have a few different levels of abrasiveness of clays for situations like that.

 

yah, actually the goal right now is not to have to use any clay (keep the surface clean via QD often/SprayOn wax) and just use some Amigo prior to each wax app. and for that, im going to do by hand both apps since it's so easy to apply and remove.

 

OG- now we got a loop...

http://www.the370z.com/exterior-inte...tml#post359700

 

Hahah Ken! Yeah he told me he was going to post the link to the writeup here, lol.

As far as trying not to clay, the premise is simple. Don't let dirt sit or accumulate on your paint, and you won't have to clay. If you QD frequently so that your paint is always shiny and clean, you can go for years, possibly longer without claying. On my first MINI, I tried claying after two years and there really wasn't much to remove, and that was because I QD'd multiple times a day.

Richard

 

OctaneGuy-scaling new heights of OCD!