2008 Jeep Liberty - UC/M205 w/Flex 3401

[dwaleke]

Well after detailing my SRT4 a couple weekends ago (http://meguiarsonline.com/forums/showthread.php?t=37551) I offered to cleanup my mom's 2008 Jeep Liberty. I wanted to do the Liberty because it looked like it already had a nice black paint job and I figured I could make it really stand out. The Jeep has mostly been washed with an automatic car wash and has never been clayed or waxed. Being roughly a year old I figured I would clay, do one pass with M205, and throw a couple coats of M21 on it and be done.

After thoroughly washing the car I found out quickly that the car had more defects than I thought. There were scratches near the door handles from what I can assume came from rings and fingernails. There weren't a lot of swirls, but the ones that were there didn't want to come out easily (perhaps this Jeep has really hard clear coat). And there was the occasional scratch that just didn't want to come out.

I did a test spot of M205 on one section of the hood and was really bummed out to see that it barely put a dent in the swirls. It finished very clear, but not enough defect removal.
So on to my test spots. I did the following test spots on the hood all with a W8207 Yellow Polishing Pad, my Flex 3401 DA, and 3 alternating passes of horizontal and vertical motions.

1) M205 - Flex Speed 5
2) D151 - Flex Speed 5
3) Swirlx - Flex Speed 5
4) Ultimate Compound - Flex Speed 5
5) M105 - Flex Speed 5

I started with the M205 and that wasn’t enough so I reached for the D151. I’ve read conflicting reviews that said D151 was more aggressive than M83 and others say less than M205. I found it to be less aggressive than M205 and it didn't finish off as nicely.

So then I thought I’d try some SwirlX. I hear it is supposed to finish out like M205, but with more cutting ability than M83. I ran up to PepBoys and picked up a bottle. I found that the cutting action from SwirlX to be less than M205 and it didn’t finish out as nicely as M205. I also found it harder to use SwirlX than M205 or D151. The product seemed thick and hard to work (a lot more like M105 than M205). So since I didn’t get a M205 like finish and I wasn’t removing the swirls I reached for the UC. UC seemed to do what I needed. Since I was doing all of this comparison I decided to try M105 for the first time. M105 is a little tricky to use compared to UC. UC can be worked longer (also allowing for a larger work area). I find that UC also finishes out better than M105 which is probably to be expected from a less aggressive compound. So I decided that I was going to do a pass with UC and then decide if I wanted to follow it up with anything else.

Defect Removal Effectivness:
M105>UC>M205>SwirlX>D151

Finish Quality:
M205>D151>UC>SwirlX>M105

My process:

1) Body Wash, Tire Cleaning, Wheel Cleaning (60-90 minutes)
2) Clay with Meguiar's Professional Mild Clay and Last Touch 1:1 (60-90 minutes)
3) Meguiar's Ultimate Compound with Yellow SoftBuff 2.0 Polishing Pad W8207 (Flex on 5) (6 hours)
4) Meguiar's M205 with Yellow SoftBuff 2.0 Polishing Pad W8207 (Flex on 5) (5 hours)
5) Two coats of NXT 2.0 - 12 hours apart. (1 hour each)

The UC removed 100% of the swirls. I hit a few of the deeper scratches with UC by hand before going around the car with M205.

The exterior side plastics, tires, and wheel wells were cleaned with APC+ 4:1 and dressed with All Season Dressing. Glass cleaned inside and out with Meguiar's Detailer Line Glass Cleaner. The headlights and taillights were polished with D151 and waxed with NXT 2.0. The wheels were cleaned with Meguiar's Hot Rims All Wheel Cleaner and then waxed with NXT 2.0. Door jambs were cleaned with APC+ 10:1 and then waxed with A12 Cleaner Wax.


Here are some before pictures:

I knew it was going to be rainy and colder all weekend. I had an opportunity to wash the truck on Friday night when it wasn't rainy, the wind calmed down, and the temps were around 60 degrees.

Doesn't everyone set up like this?


















When working the products I was at 60 degrees and 62% humidity. During periods of rain the humidity level read up to 75%.






I was able to capture a little bit of the swirls. My camera had a really hard time with this one. I couldn't get my camera to focus just right. The black paint has a metal fleck to it - perhaps that had something to do with it. I need to pic up a new camera.









Here is a shot after the pass with Ultimate Compound.





Here are the After shots. It was cloudy all day so it was hard to get some with the Sun on it:


























Here are some reflection shots. The metal fleck in the paint makes some of these appear grainy in my camera:




















Other thoughts: I really like ASD for tires. My new standard tire dressing.

Thanks for looking!

[CieraSL]

Wow! Very clean and crisp reflections! Great job!

[J. A. Michaels]

I bet mom was thrilled. The Jeep looks great. Nice reflections. Great work. Way to go.

[SHYNEMAN123]

I hope you got a BIG raise in your allowance LOL
Great Work and nice shots

[dwaleke]

Thanks everyone!

Originally Posted by SHYNEMAN123

I hope you got a BIG raise in your allowance LOL
Great Work and nice shots

LOL! Back when I lived at home I used to take care of the cars as my chore every Sunday. Had I done this quality of work when I was a teenager I probably would have!

.

[Mark Kleis]

Nice work, and really good work with the camera. That color paint can be very difficult to photograph, but you seemed to get it down no problem.

[Tuck91]

Nice work on the Jeep.

The first time I tried ASD I fell inlove with it and never looked back.

[cnfowler]

Very nice job. Love the after pictures. I know your mom was thrilled.

Colin

[KC's]

mamamia
its ready for a car show

[dreamps]

great work bro!!! i had just posted about my jeep grand cherokee with the same brilliant black paint! d151 didn't cut it and it sounds like the jeep CC are harder than i thought! glad to hear UC worked! thanks bro! you just saved me a lot of time