If you have an older sports car, especially a driver, just because it’s well worn, doesn’t mean it has to be worn out. Take the example of this 1997 Ferrari F355 I worked on earlier this month. This is a 39K mile, gated six speed spider which looks wonderful. When you opened the door however, …
One of the most powerful cleaning tools in your garage should be a good steam cleaner. Not only is it great for cleaning interior surfaces like carpets, leather, vinyl, and fabrics it can also be useful for exterior cleaning. I use it on deep contamination of fragile paint; cleaning under the hood and cleaning in …
This Z8 seemed to clean up well with just a washing, but the paint felt like sand paper. Not sure if it was covered with tree sap or what, but it took clay bar, compound, and multiple passes with polish to remove. The 23 year old paint was thick but hard. I used Meguiar’s M105 …
If you have a car that you take to the track often, you know how hard it is to remove the rolled-up rubber marks you get on the exterior. They don’t often damage the paint, they just require some intense polishing to remove. And that’s the risk: If you aren’t careful with the polishing, you …
Sometimes there’s just nothing left to polish. This is especially true with cars from the 90’s. When the auto industry switched over to water-based clear coat paints, many of the earlier products started to fail before the new-car warranty even expired. The other area which caused problems was in door jams and trunks. The flexible …
In a previous blog post, I mentioned that my core service is a detail with ceramic coat, which I offer at three service levels: Stage I, Stage II, and Stage III. Since I’m working mostly with cars that are drivers, it makes no sense to do a concourse-level detail on every car. That said, some …
As a general rule, I try to do minimally invasive work, only removing enough paint to get the desired level of shine and clarity before coating. But occasionally there isn’t anything to work with as was the case with this fender flair. A good bit of paint was scraped off down to bare metal which …
ColourLock LeatherFresh is a good alternative to replacing old tired leather. We can repair small tears as long as they are not along seams as well as deep cracks and creases. It usually takes only a couple of days to refresh both front seats as well as the rear seats. In this case, we had …
Don’t let the condition of your leather steering wheel let down the rest of your interior. You would be surprised by what can be done to extend the life before you need a re-wrap. Here’s a before and after comparison on a BMW E46M3. Depending on the condition of the leather, most wheels can be …
I recently had another E36 M3 in the shop for to detail for resale. A preservation detail can really help a car “pop” and make a solid first impression for any potential buyer. It also helps ensure that the condition they see is more than just temporary as is common with many used car dealers. …
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