2004 SRT-4 Electric Blue Detail

[dwaleke]

Here's my story. I bought this car just about 2 years ago. Since I owned it I never once hand washed it. I've never once waxed it and I think I cleaned the interior only one or two times. I know. That is bad. I guess I never really took car care seriously because I could never get the results that I wanted.

About a month ago I noticed that one of my lightweight wheels was beginning to crack at the spoke and that I needed to replace it. I decided to purchase new rims for the car and at that point decided that I had to get this thing looking good (OEM wheels with snow tires pictured below).

I started my search on another forum specific to the SRT4. I researched Zaino because I have heard good things about it. Pretty much everyone claimed that it was the best thing for our cars. I almost placed a $250 order right before I found one thread that discussed the Zaino System vs the world. A member by the name of ‘Mike-In-Orange’ (Michael Stoops I believe) talked about the difference between proper paint correction and the Zaino system (Z-PC excluded). I decided that I wanted to get my car looking good with permanent results. The thread was from 2007 and mentioned that with a G100, M83, M80, and Yellow & Black Meguiar’s pads I could get done what I wanted. Then I found Meguiar’s Online Forum. Fast forward 2 years worth of product development and information and here we are.

I basically decided I wanted to go with the M105/M205 combination. I also ran into threads that discussed the difference between the G110 and the Flex 3401. Once I read that some guys wished they bought the more powerful Flex I was sold. I gathered up everything I needed and placed numerous orders. I tried to get as many things to my house as quickly as possible so I could start working right away. I ended up getting the old version of M105 (not DA approved) from a very close online retailer. I have shipped that to Meguiar’s for an exchange for the new DA approved version. That’s why I went with Ultimate Compound (bought OTC at PepBoys a block from my house).

I’m rambling on now so I'll get to it.

This is my first attempt at polishing with my Flex 3401 and Meguiar's products.

I apologize for the pictures. I discovered Macro Mode on my camera after I took all the pictures. None of the before pics show all of the swirls and paint imperfections. I have a few that show witness marks from physical contact with other objects. I have before/after shots of those.

My process:

(1) Wash

(2) Clay with Meguiar's Aggressive Clay

(3) Polish with Meguiar's Ultimate Compound with Yellow SoftBuff 2.0 Polishing Pad W8207 (Flex on 6)

(4) Polish with Meguiar's M205 with Black SoftBuff 2.0 Finishing Pad W9207 (Flex on 5)

(5) Two coats of M21 2.0 - 24 hours apart.

A couple things to note. I did the Dawn dish soap to get a thorough cleaning. I also went with the Aggressive Clay because it has never been done before, the paint felt really rough, and I knew I was going to do paint correction so any imperfections caused by the aggressive clay I figured I would remove with my paint correction process.

Before Pictures:

You can see some swirls in this pic, but it's no where near what it really looks like.






Looks like someone leaned against my car while walking through a parking lot and scratched the side a bit.








Here are pictures as I was working.

Drivers Door Before: (rear door already done)




All of these are after one pass with Ultimate Compound:








Rear Door Before (see scuff mark? from another plastic bumber):



Rear Door After #1: (You can see the mark is almost completely gone and only the deeper scratch remains).



Rear Door After #2:





Rear Door Second Half (front half) Before:


Rear Door Second Half (front half) After:




This is a pretty good one.


Rear Quarter Panel Before:


Rear Quarter Panel After #1:


Rear Quarter Panel After #2:



Some crazy oxidation or something. I didn't even notice this until I took the spoiler off.

Top Trunk Before:


Top Trunk After:





One of my favorite pics. I was beginning to clean up around 2:00AM and saw this reflection in the paint. I thought it was a pretty cool reflection shot of the Ultimate Compound. (I should mention this was after one pass with Ultimate Compound only).








This is the first set of pics when I was pretty much done. I didn't clean the rims yet because I swapped them out with a new set. You'll see those in the 2nd set of 'After Pics' below.


















And here are the final pics of the car with the new wheels on it. I'm still getting used to them. I think I like them better on a red car, but this is about the paint and not the wheels.































I don't have any before/after pics on me right now, but I detailed the interior as well. I hit the carpets with APC+, aggitated with a brush, and then extracted with the LGM. I washed all interior surfaces with APC+ and followed that up with Quick Interior Detailer for some protection. I used M39/M40 on the rubber surrounds in the door jambs. I used All Season Dressing on some of the exterior trim and Meguiar's Gold Glass Endurance High Gloss to dress the tires. Glass cleaned with Detailer Glass Cleaner.


I would like to thank the entire MOL community for the wealth of knowledge that has been shared. I must have spent over 40 hours reading through this forum in the last 3 weeks (probably 10 times that long now that I think about it!).

I'd really like to thank Michael Stoops for leading me here with his posts on the other forum, all the Mikes, Tim, and Bounty for purchasing a Flex and doing some write ups on his details with it.

I now own more Meguiar's products than I care to admit (consumer line, professional line, and detailer line) and I'm ready with a good maintenance plan for my vehicles.

Thanks for looking.

[Tuck91]

Nice work on the Neon, You did a great job.

Keep up the good work.

[Hemin8r]

Great job on the SRT-4. Being a fellow SRT-4 owner myself I'll refrain from calling it a Neon, um umm, Nick. Lol. J/k, that blue is a great color and when done right it really stands out and looks like you did just that. The wheems look as well. Wow this is the second SRT-4 write up I see within a week. Cool! I did a write up on mine as well if you want to check it out to get any other ideas, otherwise looks like you have it covered.

[Jeff U]

Great job!

[Michael Stoops]

This is such a "wow" post in so many ways; thanks for taking the time to document your process so fully and for the props you gave all around to the whole MOL community and several individuals in particular. I personally appreciate the comments directed at me, especially since I was not a Meguiar's employee when that discussion took place.

Your car looks fantastic - E Blue is an awesome color when done up right. We've seen a handful of PT Cruiser GTs come by with the same color and when polished up the flake just jumps out. The SMAT technology in M105, and now Ultimate Compound, do wonders for the clarity of a finish, as you've discovered first hand using an inexpensive over the counter consumer product - Ultimate Compound. Good stuff, huh?

Oh, and that spot on your trunk lid that you thought was some sort of oxidation? Looks like etching from a bird dropping that didn't get wiped off soon enough. Nice to see that came out so thoroughly. Good work!

[Tuck91]

Originally Posted by Hemin8r

Great job on the SRT-4. Being a fellow SRT-4 owner myself I'll refrain from calling it a Neon, um umm, Nick. Lol. J/k,

LOL, yes that SRT-4 does look really great, what a great writeup you put together documenting your process and photos as well.

Seriously, makes me want to go find one and detail it

[Eddie6th]

Really nice work Nice car.

Blue....It's my favorite color. You really got it PoPpin'

You got a good mixture in there. The swirl shots were clear and ample. Not overkill.

I like your new wheels. I think they suit the vehicle very well. Maybe you're just used to seeing them on red and find it hard to adjust. But they look great from here.

UC did a lot there....Cool!

[KC's]

Fabulously documented
thanks for taking time & sharing it

I enjoy reading it

BTW, welcome to the club (MOL) u r a converted.....LOL
keep it up & keep it rotating

looking 4ward to view more of yr work

[dwaleke]

Thanks for the comments everyone.

Jesse - I did see your write-up when I was first researching. I was really excited based on your post here with the results you got.


Mike - I do like Ultimate Compound. It worked great. I can't wait to test out M105 (future projects). I did find that I could work M205 a bit longer than Ultimate Compound. I always did 4 passes on all panels (Alternating vertical and horizontal motions). UC seemed to want to dust when completing the 4th pass - M205 did not. I was able to manage so not really a big deal. I'm thinking I just need to use more product with UC.

BTW: I was cleaning the pad with a toothbrush style brush after every couple of panels so I don't think the dust was built up material on the pad. I also used 2 Yellow pads on the whole car. After about half way I swapped to a new one because the 1st one was harder to clean on-the-fly after a while. Probably could have done 3 pads. I tried to limit to 2 because I wasn't sure how they would end up after machine washing. They look almost brand new so I shouldn't have saved my other pads. I should have put them all to work.


Here are a couple more pics I forgot in the first post.

Rear door scuff before:



After (that one scratch in the center is still there but you have to look to find it - I could hit it with UC by hand I'm sure or just wait until I do more polishing steps over time for it to diminish on its own. Haven't decided yet):




I can't believe I left this one out. This is the left rear quarter panel. I rubbed up against a fence post (ok in my driveway! but in my defense it was in 12 inches of snow and I just 'slid' into it). The bumper has scratches in it and the quarter panel has a dent in the metal, but the paint didn't scratch through. I think I can massage the dent from the inside.





After: (You can see the indent in the quarter panel, but barely. If you're not at eye level it's hard to see. The bumper edge only has some scratches in it, but no discoloration like before. I can probably attack it by hand to get better results, but to be honest I'm pretty happy with how it turned out already).





Overall I would say that I removed 100% of the swirl marks. Only a few smaller defects remain. There were a couple imperfections left in the clear on the hood and couple really minor imperfections on the roof. They were so minor I figured they would just get worked out as I do future polishing. I did do the roof and the hood twice (2 seperate passes of 4 overlapping motions).

[roushstage2]

Just like the black one that was posted, great job!!! Makes me want to get to work on mine!!!