A recent purchase, this 10 year old 996, although in excellent mechanical health, had been cosmetically neglected for most of its life, leading a typical city car life.
My brief was simple and the challenge laid down – make it look good!
So it was dropped of with me, and a list of items that needed attention was compiled, which consisted of the following.
- Paintwork Correction
- Rear wheel refurbishment
- Front seats refinished
- Black grill behind front bumper repainted
- Localised repair to some missing paint on inner front nearside wheelarch
- PDR to nearside rear wing
So onto the car in question, even in its unwashed state it was clear to see how 10 years of automated and cheap hand car washes had taken their toll on the metallic Ocean blue paintwork.
First up get everything clean…
First stage – degrease, starting at the front corner and working my way around the car…
Then tar remover
Once that the degreasing stage was finished, the car was foamed up
Rinsed and wash with a lambwool mitt
Rinsed and brought indoors to be clayed..
The put under the lights to reveal the full extent of the defects….
To end that day off the wheel nuts were given a couple of coats of silver paint to tidy them up a bit….
Next day involved getting all the heavy cutting and compounding started..
A few areas need a bit of localised wet sanding…
Next job was to get the PDR man in to sort out a dent on the rear nearside wing, can be seen in the reflection of the strip light…
While that was being done I made a start on sorting out the interior, which included refinishing the front seats
And how the passenger seat looked afterwards…
Compared to the drivers seat (not done at this stage) you can clearly see how cracked and dirty the finish is….
The rear wheels returned from being refurbed and were sealed with Swissvax Autobahn, the car could now be taken outside and re-washed to remove all the dust from the compounding stage
The paintwork was then refined using finishing polish and pad
Once this was completed, the paintwork was treated with Swissvax cleaner fluid and the first of 2 layers of Swissvax Zuffenhausen wax applied.
While that was curing all the other finishing touches were applied
Tyres, arches and engine bay dressed with Swissvax Pneu.
Glass cleaned with Swissvax Cristal
Seals (including under rear spoiler skirt) treated with Swissvax Seal Feed
Exhaust polished up with Britemax metal polish and sealant.
And finished in the early morning sun awaiting collection.
