▀▄ Miglior Detailing: Audi RS4 - 55-Hours on some truly shocking paint! ▄▀

[Miglior]

​

Audi RS4 - 55 Hour Correction Detail


Hi Guys,


Thanks for taking the time to read another write up of mine. This time it's a huge one, 55 hours on an Audi RS4, I think there's 200 photos!! eaak!
The car was brought to me from Wakefield after the owner had seen some of my other work on another Audi RS4. I was told he had just bought the car and admitted it was quite bad, which wasn't a problem, as that's what we do!


The car was booked for a correction detail + Engine Bay Detail + Deep interior clean + Leather treatment & Protection + Full Alloy Wheel Refurb. (a big job then!)


This is how the car was dropped off…

Even from a distance its plain to see this car's paint is on a whole new level of swirled! I told the owner it would need quite a significant amount of time to bring back paint like that to life!

All kind of ugly in there, buffer trails, swirls, damage from tree sap, random deep scratches, the whole brass band!

My first thought was to do a test section to get an idea of how long it would take and how hard the paint would be. I spend about an hour on the corner of the bonnet assessing the damage and gauging how long it might take to give the owner an idea.

So after a long time measuring and treading carefully, I still had made a huge difference but there were still some deep scratches in my path!


After even more work on the original paint, I was able to safely remove these without removing too much clear.


Before

After

Phew!


So on with the job!


Wheels arches done

Getting cracking with the engine bay… I forgot to take a before shot but it was very dusty and dirty!

Getting started on the door shuts

​

 

[Miglior]

Fuel filler cap

Time to snow foam!

Rinsed off and washed with the 2 bucket method

Now removing any tar

Claying really cleaned out the paintwork!

Now onto some serious work on the awful paint!!

Huge improvements made quite quickly, but it's these sorts of marks that are the crux of a correction detail. The paint was absolutely rock solid. Audi paint from 2004 - 2007/8 is always bulletproof and taking out marks like this without masking takes time! I was determined to completely turn around this car, so with paint thickness gauge and polishing tools in hand, along with a lot of patience, I cracked on!


Always checking the work with CarPro Eraser… I love this stuff!! Not only does it pull out oils from the finish, it helps to dissolve them too, unlike IPA, which will only redistribute oils back onto the paintwork. I think I ordered about 4 Bottles last time from Phil At Shinearama! cheers Phil!

This one half of the bonnet took me about 3 hours just to be satisfied with the finish.

Sun Gun Before

Sun Gun After

Metal Halide Lighting: Before

After

Before

After

Moving onto other areas of the car

 

[Miglior]

I was carefully measuring the paint thickness all around the car and noticed quite a low spot on the Near Side Wing…

This is probably about right for some Jap stuff, but quite low for an Audi of this age in my experience so I tread carefully on this panel.


Before

Here you can see there is a deep mark, and due to the thickness I was happy with that. It still looks great and a lot better than before!

Onto the boot lid…. CRINGE!

Again, it's had some serious stick!

Onto the roof now, which is even worse than the boot lid. I know it looks kind of bad on the photos, but it looked a whole lot worse in person!

Look at those marks! Scouring pad anyone???

 

[Miglior]

Once the upward facing panels were done, I got the car on the lift and took the wheels off and got them off for a refurbishment. You can see they have started to corrode and they were pretty tatty. The wheels had been subjected to some quite poor repairs too.

Back onto the correction!

The car's bodywork had also been subjected so some pretty poor repairs on the arches. The RS4 has pretty prominent arches so they can pick up stone chips pretty easily. It seems as if the arches had been blown in, but pretty poorly. So again, I was careful not to aggravate any repairs.


Some clear coat missing on one of the arches.

Rear quarter before

And after

Now moving onto the rear bumper… There was a pretty deep gouge in it. My only hope with that was to round it off and take the whiteness out of it, there's not really much substitute for paint when there is a mark that severe. It was easily detectable with a fingernail!


Bumper Before

During an Eraser Wipe down.

After

Again..

Bumper

Moving onto he other side now…

Now, a very slow shutter speed shot here with me and the sun gun, this gives a better idea of the difference made in the clarity of the paint! The hard work and steady correction really is brightening up the paintwork and improving reflections.

Thanks for reading so far! I will have the rest of the write up here soon!




MORE TO FOLLOW SOON!!!!!

 

[Miglior]

placeholder for more of the thread!

 

[Miglior]

placeholder for more of the thread!

 

[S3 Rav]

That was shocking!!!!

 

[nally]

Nice to see some awesome correction skills in my area

 

[Juicy Jen]

Nice work Jay been following the pics on fb....that was one hell of a state worse then my old S3! Blacks such a dream though for 50/50 shots.

 

[willowsdad]

Best looking Audi ever, but that paint was awful! Awesome correction, what polish/pad combo did you use? It'd be nice to see a products used list, but I bet it's as long as your arm! Nice work.

 

[scotty76]

Superb work. I don't think I've ever seen paint that bad and I'm a detailing forum nerd here and on DW.

 

[GNJ_Motorsport]

I've seen a few pics of this on Facebook Jay. Shocking how someone could treat an RS4 so badly. I'm not saying everyone should be driveway detailers but come on that is horrible!

Great work mate, 1 of your more challenging jobs?

 

[nally]

how can this happen once a week autowashes?

 

[johnnythepie]

Easily done if youre a cheapskate and you get a sandwash by our eastern friends on a pub car park.

 

[willowsdad]

The supermarket ones are the worst. That huge bucket of water on wheels must last all day. Just think of all the dirt and grit that must be swilling around in that. On top of their 1 wash sponge, and 1 chamois. Swirl-o-Rama!

 

[FranA3]

awesome correction there mate , I've seen a few cars in that bad of a state , its shocking to see cars being treated so badly, anyway good work sir

 

[a3sline_nottingham]

Amazing work. How much does that stuff cost for the owner

 

[Miglior]

PART TWO!!!

Straight back into it….


Moving onto the rear bumper again..


Before

After

The rear lights were also taken care of too

After many years of poor washing and car care, it left a very nasty layer of dirt surrounding the badges. With this in mind and the amount of swirling, I decided the best thing was to remove the badges, polished all the areas necessary properly and replace the badges. We replaced them with brand new genuine parts.

Looking pretty nasty!


New badges arrived…

Before

After

Audi Rings Before

After! Much much better!!

Whilst I was working around the back with the car on the ramp I decided to do the exhausts.

The finish had diminished slightly over the years but still very presentable. This exhaust is certainly a much better standard to the Audis of late. The Audi TT-RS exhaust trims are shocking for corrosion!

The wheel nuts were looking a bit worse for wear, so they were cleaned up

 

[Miglior]

The wheel nut caps were not looking too clever either!!

So new ones were ordered and fitted!

Moving back to the correction work…


Small details being covered and corrected!

Moving on to the sides

Looking infinitely better!

Before

After

The wheels were now back, so we polished and protected them with Swissvax Autobahn.

Side sills being polished. These have had some stick in there time and probably want repainting but I still gave them some serious attention. Some clueless person has had an accident with the trolley jack at some point and scuffed the skirt, which was touched in with genuine Audi paint.

On to the other side

Once all the correction work done, the car was covered in dust. You could have a perfectly clean roof and polish just one door and have a mess laid on the roof! It's just what happens when you're trying to fully turn around 5 year old rock hard Audi paint!

So outside for a snow foam rinse and also a full wash.

 

[Miglior]

Dodo's finest wash mitt, which I absolutely love!

When the car was washed, we brought it into the unit and started finishing the car off. This comprised of a full CarPro Eraser wipe down again, so be sure of every panel being hologram free. Like every job I wanted the paint clarity to be spot on.

I also touched up some other areas, which required paint. Here's the edge of the drivers door being sorted


Before

After

Once the paint had dried, I polished the car again with Swissvax Cleaner Fluid Pro and started applying a favourite Wax of mine, Swissvax Crystal Rock. The first of two coats!

Moving onto the interior detail.

The leather needs looking at as it looks a bit worse for wear.

50/50 on the leather. The RS4 has a slight sparkle in the protective lacquer coating. It does appear quite shiny due to this flake in the leather, but it looks a whole lot better after a thorough clean.

Once the interior was taken care of, I finished off the little details like sealing door shuts, cleaning, polishing and sealing glass and seal etc.


The engine bay also got finished off and dressed.

The carbon fibre parts were removed, hand polished and sealed.

Now, the car is done!! Let check the finish under the sun gun!

 

[Miglior]

Finishing off with a Swissvax fluffy towel before the customer arrived.

Final shots!

Reverse Logo shot!

Some Swissvax Crystal Rock beading.

I rolled the RS4 out with some other cars I had in the unit at the time.

Also a 12 plate BMW M5 with less than 20 miles on that was delivered to me from the dealers which needs a full correction detail!! This was brought to me on the 1st March too.

More on this M5 soon






Well guys, its been a very long one… 201 photos! Hopefully you're still awake at the back, thanks for checking in with me for this one. It needed quite a big write up due to the amount of work that went into it! Please leave a comment or question!


Kind Regards


Jay

 

[Danman1]

Mate. Brilliant work. Most people dont look after cars, its a real shame.

 

[badlydrunkboy]

Incredible work!

How on earth can someone own such a beautiful car and let it get in that state though? Must have added a lot of value to the car, although I dread to think how much 55 hours detailing would cost lol

 

[willowsdad]

Immense mate. I hope the m5 was easier, but IMO it can't hold a candle to the RS4. An awesome car, looking better than the day it rolled off the production line. The owners a lucky man (or woman). What were you using on the da to clean the mats? I've never seen that before.

 

[warren_S5]

Stunning job, gives me hope no matter how much swirl I get there are places which can get me out of jail.

Still adore the RS4, never tire of it!

 

[markos72]

Excellent job-love the car porn too

 

[audigex]

Superb stuff - as Warren said, it's nice to know that no matter how amateur I am with my paintwork, guys like you are around to make it look brand new again.

Only problem with the end result is that the disks are rusted up - maybe you should start suggesting new brakes to customers, so they stop ruining your perfect finish with their crappy metal.

 

[babyaudi]

wow I have just a question how do u learn to be that good and know how to do it? Ops should be questions

 

[sulaiman]

What a turnaround!

 

[Maz]

Great work!

How could anyone abuse an RS4 like that? Those swirls you corrected were horrendous as if it had previously been washed with Brillo pads...

 

[BlueSpark]

Awesome work mate, some of the best detailing i've ever seen there. well done

 

[Miglior]

Incredible work!

How on earth can someone own such a beautiful car and let it get in that state though? Must have added a lot of value to the car, although I dread to think how much 55 hours detailing would cost lol

The current owner of the car and my customer has only just bought this car. This damage and ill treatment was already on the car when it was purchased. Im lead to believe the owner did infact get a bargain upon realising the condition

And the cost of the detail was EASILY outweighed by the additional value added to the car!!

 

[Miglior]

Immense mate. I hope the m5 was easier, but IMO it can't hold a candle to the RS4. An awesome car, looking better than the day it rolled off the production line. The owners a lucky man (or woman). What were you using on the da to clean the mats? I've never seen that before.

That was a treat from chemical guys UK

 

[Miglior]

Stunning job, gives me hope no matter how much swirl I get there are places which can get me out of jail.

Still adore the RS4, never tire of it!

Yes i guess there is a get out of jail card! lol Its worth bearing in mind that proper care and prevention is always better than a cure

Sometimes scratches are too deep to do anything about. We saw very very few on this RS4, but the amount of medium swirling, as you have seen was ridiculous. You can sometimes get cars with less swirling but with more deeper marks. These tend to look better than the RS4 on initial inspection, but when it comes to correcting, these deeper marks remain. I come across this a lot on Range Rovers where they have been driven on small country lanes and branches etc have run down the car.

 

[willowsdad]

That was a treat from chemical guys UK

Just found it online. Thanks mate, I may have to invest in one for the da.

 

[jay z B]

****** brilliant, hurts to see an RS4 treated that way, amazed at the work completed........ how do you get into this line of work.

 

[WAFTER]

Only problem with the end result is that the disks are rusted up - maybe you should start suggesting new brakes to customers, so they stop ruining your perfect finish with their crappy metal.[/QUOTE]

Surface rust from all that washing, will soon go within a mile or so of driving.

 

[WAFTER]

Incredible work!

Must have added a lot of value to the car, although I dread to think how much 55 hours detailing would cost lol

Do the maths - I doubt if the charge is £10 an hour = £550, so mutilpy by at least 3 ie £30 per hour at the very least ?????

 

[A3_Black_Edition]

WOW, that is amazing work and attention to detail is awesome!

Loved reading every bit!

Cheers,
Si

 

[whitey]

Jay thats fantastic work!

Great to speak to you the other day aswell, i mentioned you to the guy with 7 series

its whitey with the white RS you carded btw