Pictures from July 10th, 2010 - BMWCCA LA Chapter

[Michael Stoops]

Pictures from July 10th, 2010 - BMWCCA LA Chapter

Class starts in a few minutes, pictures to follow!

[Michael Stoops]

Re: Pictures from July 10th, 2010 - BMWCCA LA Chapter

What a fantastic group these BMW folks were yesterday - you made it a great day all around!!

It's always a treat to start a day with a gift - in this case a classic bottle of Meguiar's Mirror Glaze Furniture Cleaner was given to me before we even got started! Thanks for that!


Plenty of great looking BMWs of all series and generations were present.


This late '80s 5 Series has just recently been restored and it is stunning in every way.


We packed the house yesterday!


The perfect demo car showed up - a 2007 335i with plenty of cobwebs, water spots, scratches and even a nasty etching from a bird dropping. A challenge for us???


The car was in need of claying as it felt quite rough. After claying it was glass smooth but strangely the clay never looked dirty. Whether this was due to the bonded contaminants being a very light colored overspray of some sort or something else we can't say for sure, but the paint was glass smooth after claying while the clay looked hardly used.




The group then clayed together to get a feel for the process.


Then it was time to tape off for our two test spots - hand application on the left and machine application on the right. Ultimate Compound and Gold Class Carnauba Plus will be demonstrated on both sides, plus an application of Deep Crystal Polish on the hand applied side.


Ultimate Compound is applied by hand to remove all those defects shown in the earlier photo above.


After applying DC Polish and then GC Carnauba Plus we covered that area and prepared to machine polish. The question posed was - which pad do you use for applying Ultimate Compound by machine?


The answer - Yellow!


No heat to worry about with the G110v2 dual action polisher.


So far, so good. But we're still in the garage so while the lighting is good it isn't quite as revealing as direct sunlight. This demonstrates why doing a test spot is so critically important.


Out in the sunshine the real story is told. The untreated area is still full of swirls and water spots, but the area we worked on is clear, deep and glossy.




The left side was worked by hand, the right side by machine. Above them is untreated as is the strip between them that was covered by tape. The difference is striking, even on the hand applied side. Not only are the defects gone, but the paint looks blacker, deeper and richer.


We mentioned an etch from a bird dropping, and here it is in all its nastiness.


Our students then tried their hand at the G110v2, here working specifically to address that bird dropping etch.


After a few passes with Ultimate Compound on a W8207 Soft Buff 2.0 Polishing Pad the etching is almost totally gone - it took us a minute to find it again! Keep in mind the person who buffed this out had never even held a D/A buffer before this!


Other students wanted to get a feel for the G110v2 before we closed out the session.




There has been an awful lot said here on MOL and other detailing forums about how BMW paint is extremely hard and difficult to correct. We certainly did NOT find that to be the case with this 2007 335i. The cobwebs and water spots were heavy throughout the finish and that etching was pretty extreme. But even in the hands of a complete novice we managed fantastic results with Ultimate Compound, an inexpensive and widely available consumer product, and a 7" polishing pad. We never reverted to speed 6 on the G110v2 either, using a steady speed 5 to achieve the results we did here. Sure, the etching required 4 passes to get it to the point you see above, but that was 4 passes by a complete novice on an extremely bad etching. We will admit to having worked on other BMWs with paint that was more challenging to correct, but this just goes to show that even within a single manufacturers range you can't make broad generalizations about paint hardness or workability.

We'd like to once again thank the whole group for spending a Saturday with us, and we again apologize for the lack of air conditioning while some construction was going on in our building. And a very special thank you to Andy Wong (bmrfan) for coordinating this event with the BMWCCA LA Chapter!

[Michael PALERO]

Re: Pictures from July 10th, 2010 - BMWCCA LA Chapter

Thanks again for sponsoring the class & thanks for answering my seemingly endless stream of questions! I definitely came out of Saturday's Class knowing alot more than I knew coming in, and I'm glad I didn't have to spend hours searching on the internet to wade through conflicting answers!

[eurpga]

Re: Pictures from July 10th, 2010 - BMWCCA LA Chapter

Mike and Andy:
Thanks for the great class. As was said in the class "You can always learn more" Now I'm off to get my red e30 in its best shape. Hope to see you again on a Thursday evening.

[Contact Patch]

Re: Pictures from July 10th, 2010 - BMWCCA LA Chapter

Mike and Andy, thanks again for putting up a great class. There is always something to be learned, and it was certainly the case here. I came away gaining a whole 10 points to my detail skill

A quick question for Mike: when claying the car, can I use diluted car wash solution instead of Quick Detailer for lubrication? Just a thought.

Best,
Jack, not the black 335i Jack.