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Full Write up….
Hello, and welcome along to another Miglior write up!
Under the spotlight today is an Aston martin DB9 in Tungsten Silver. Now, this car is 4 years old with just short of 20k miles on the clock. The owner of this car used this car whatever the circumstances, it’s been a second car but it has done its fair share of touring around Europe. After 4 years of this, it’s bound to need an overhaul. After looking for a Detailer in Lancashire the owner quickly called and booked the car in.
It hasn’t really been washed a great deal, which on the face of it isn’t ideal, but although the paint is very dirty, it isn’t too badly scratched or swirled. It has probably been washed around 15 times during its life.
Now, with that being the case, dirt has stuck the surface and sat there for a long time. This will need a lot of decontamination, but underneath there shouldn’t be too much paintwork to correct. The paint finish looks dull and lifeless, but not too swirly!
Every inch of the car was either covered in moss, leaves or dirt. The alloy wheels had also taken a fair beating during its life up until now, and with them being diamond cut, they would need some work to correct this. The interior was also needing a new lease of life with the leather showing signs of ingrained dirt and oil.
Summary of the work carried out:
- Full Diamond Cut Refurb of all Alloy wheels.
- Perform enhancement detail to remove buffer trails/dull looking paint
- Full wheel & Arch Detail
- Perform deep interior detail paying close attention to the leather
- Protect the car for the winter.
- Degrease Engine bay and protect
- Touch up paint along passenger sill
Well, on with the write up!
Here are some shots before the car was touched.
The wheels
The ingrained dirt all over the car!
The paint which has unfortunately been knocked off.
Boot Shuts
Engine bay
Interior
Now, it’s time to get some work done! First up is the interior and deep leather clean.
To get a good side by side idea of the difference made, I taped up half of the leather on the driver’s seat.
The leather was gently scrubbed and treated with Swissvax products.
Notice the colour difference in the leather now. The bottom left is clean, the top right is still dirty.
Now, even on the black leather parts, the difference is clear to see.
Leather should not be shiny. When leather has a shiny appearance (other than artificial sheen applied on sofas etc) it has ingrained dirty and oils giving it a shiny appearance.
See the 50/50 shot below
Here we can see the dirt and surface oils have been delicately cleaned away to leave a supple fresh surface that feels brand new.
Above we can see the whole seat base finished.
The rest of the leather inside was treated in the same way.
50/50 shot of the door card. The colour difference is quite impressive.
The same was done to the leather steering wheel
Once the leather was completed, the dash and carpets were dealt with. Any gaps were fully dusted and cleaned as below
Some areas of the door shuts need particular attention
Before
During
After
In between the rubber door seal, there was quite a build of dust and dirt.
Before
And After
All the door shuts and boot shuts and ancillary parts were cleaned and polished then waxed with Swissvax Best of show.
The interior was completed and the car was moved outside.
I started on the very dirty engine bay, and also the door shuts
This was degreased and agitated with citrus degreaser
Underneath the bonnet lid before
After
The door shuts were also cleaned in much the same way.
Once the door shuts and engine bay were thoroughly cleaned, we set about the bodywork.
We cleaned the exterior body panels using our safe two bucket method and lamb’s wool wash mitt.
After the bodywork was washed and rinsed, we made a start on removing the bonded contaminants that are not removed with a normal wash.
The first up was to treat and remove the tar spots on the car.
Above are pictures of the tar spots
Above we can see those tar spots have been safely removed.
In the same way we removed some rubber marks left by footwear as a person enters the car.
Before
After
We finished the tar removal and moved the car into the unit. We clayed the car to remove any more bonded contaminants lot removed in the previous stage. This left a glass like finish ready for polishing.
We can see contaminants in the clay removed from the paint surface.
After claying, we dried the car using compressed air and a microfibre drying towel. Once the car was dry, it was moved onto our ramp to remove the alloy wheels. The owner wanted all four of the wheels refurbishing, for good reason too.
Here are the wheels before any work
More on the wheels later.
With the wheels off, we gained better access to all the wheel arches and suspension components to clean and dress them.
Wheel arch, calipers, discs, and suspension being cleaned.
After
The calipers were polished and sealed with our winter sealant.
Once the wheel arches were all cleaned up and dressed, I started work on touching up the passenger sill which had some paint knocked off. Here are some pictures before.
This was touched in with genuine Aston Martin paint in tungsten silver.
This is an after shot
The car was then left 24 hours for the paint to fully harden before any polishing.
Once the paint was dry, we carried out a full machine polish to the exterior of the car. This wasn’t a correction detail, as the paintwork wasn’t too bad, but it brought out the much needed gloss in this beautiful car.
This is how the paint looked after polishing.
Now the paint looked significantly better, it was time to wax the finish to further enhance the gloss and protect the finished against future contaminants.
The car received two layers of Swissvax Best Of Show.
We can see the wax curing on the surface here.
Whilst waiting for the last layer of Swissvax best of show to cure, I started on a few finishing touches to really set the car off.
The exhaust was polished and sealed.
Before
After
Before
After
I then dressed and sealed the engine bay.
The badge in the engine bay was looking rather sorry for itself, so it was polished and protected.
After
The interior plastics and rubbers were rejuvenated and dressed.
The left side is untreated; the right is dressed and treated.
All done…
Before
After
Before
After
This is exactly what a 6.0 V12 should look like!
Once all the little finished were done, it was time to buff the final coat of Swissvax Best of Show off.
This left me with a finish like…
Once that was complete, it was time to get the freshly painted, diamond cut wheels back on the car.
Once the wheels were back on the car, we pulled the car around the corner ready for our customer to pick his refreshed Aston Martin DB9!
Here are the completed shots.
The paintwork now
Tyres dressed with Swissvax Pneu
Before
After
Before
After
Last two Shots!
Thanks for reading!
Swissvax Detailer: Performing paint correction, covering Manchester, Lancashire and North West.
