Audi S3 - 2010 - Blackfire'd

This ones for you, Gops!

Audi S3 – 2010. Phantom Black – BlackFire Enhancing Detail

Only 300 miles on the clock for this one; makes a nice change!

The car hasn’t been washed since collection from the Audi Dealership. Interested to see their washing efforts! (To be fair, other than one or two bad areas with some wash marring and swirling, and, faint buffer trails on the spoiler, it was in a fine condition.)

Product

• AutoGlym FastGlass
• AutoSmart Tardis
• AutoSmart G101
• Belgom ALU
• Blackfire Gloss Enhancing Polish
• Blackfire All finish Paint Protection
• Blackfire Midnight Sun paste wax
• Blackfire All Metal Sealant
• Blackfire Deep Gloss Spray Sealant
• Chemical Guys JetSEAL109
• Dodo Juice Born To Be Mild
• Jeffs Werkstat Prime
• LTT Auto Ultra Foam
• LTT Auto Ultra Protect
• Meguiars Endurance Tyre Gel
• Meguiars Last Touch
• Sonus Green Clay

Before:



After:





Now, I might add, although there are close to 100 pictures on this report, the majority of them are afters!! It was the first time I’d used the Blackfire kit, so, a bit of an adventurous day through the stages.. Once finished, wiped down and sat in the sun however, I soon made up for the lack of progress photos with full-sun afters.

Inspection..










Light wash marring:




A few finer scratches:











This isn’t any ordinary Audi S3 by the way..

It’s heavily modified! “Performance?” No. “Handling?” No. “erm.. Aesthetics?” No.










Modified controls:







Brilliant! Very scary manoeuvring the vehicle with the push/pull lever though when you’re so used to pedals! Got to get me one of those steering-wheel thingies, too!


Anyway.. As the finish was near perfect and with the sun beaming down on the black paintwork, I thought I’d give ONR an outing (a wash solution which, in theory, allows a car to be (safely!) washed without the use of a hosepipe/pressure washer, or, without worry about water spotting due to the intense heat.)

A great opportunity to test this today..

Firstly, I allowed the area to be worked to soak in a pre-mix of ONR (always start high and work your way down the vehicle (drying as you go!))

I begin on the water spotted roof..






Paint condition before ONR wash:




Paint after ONR wash: (…excuse the water mark!!)




I continued to work high; roof, windows and then down to the doors..

50/50 on bonnet:










Looking good..

Colour difference in rinse and wash solution buckets certainly shows the system works.




However. At this point, I gave up and washed the car in my usual manner. “Why?” It was windy. Although I’d finished the roof some ten minutes or so ago, it was covered in all matter of fallout. With a ‘wet-wash’, any foreign substance like this will be taken off immediately before the drying and polishing stages.

ONR certainly has its place in ‘detailing’. It does have its limitations however. Wheels and arches for instance; unless you’ve raided a microfibre warehouse and have extremely long and skinny arms to reach into the backs of the wheels; you’re going to struggle without the use of a hose (another reason why ONR on a customers’ car like this wasn’t such a great idea) It comes into it’s own when A) arriving at a show and requires a light wash without the risk of nasty Quick Detail holograms/marring etc. B) Weekly wipe downs to remove dust and light fallout and C) using it as a pre-wash/clay lube!

So anyway, the vehicle was pressure washed. Snow foamed. Washed with the two buckets and Born To Be Mild and then towelled dry.






After five minutes of clearing the crevices with the Black Baron blower, it was popped away into the garage and I began reading the Blackfire kit instructions!




My plan? Polish – Seal - Wax.

Gloss Enhancing Polish - All finish Paint Protection - Midnight Sun paste wax.

It seems a little strange leaving a polish residues (once worked and applied to a vehicle) to haze and dry.. I don’t think I’d left it on long enough on my first few passes; quite greasy and left all manner of streaks and holograms. A few further passes later and all was sorted, but, a strange first experience.

On with the Sealant – that was fine. No issues at all. Effortless to apply in a fine thin layer and muchos easy to take off.

Midnight Sun wax? Again, effortless application. Very pleased.

It was around this time I was dying to check the finish out in the sun.. (final dressings, windows etc yet to finish!)

Deep scratches poking through:









Happy with the results and how the Polish had cleaned and cleared the paint, I buried it back into the garage and finalised the last few finishing touches.

Windows – FastGlass
Alloys – JetSEAL109
Exhausts –Belgom ALU / Blackfire All Metal Sealant
Interior – G101
Leather – LTT
Britework – Jeffs Prime
Exterior plastics – 303 Aerospace
Widedown – Blackfire

……LOTS of photos.

So yes, the car looked stunning. I’ll certainly be adding the Blackfire kit to my collection in the near future and look forward to completing maintenance detail’s on the S3 in the months to come..

Total time just over 7 hours (6 hours of that was probably taking photos!!)

Cheers!

Jim

Thanks guys.

S3 Rav said:

Great work Jimmeh mate. How do you rate the overal gloss etc of blackfire when comparing to other products you've used say on Jason s3 and prevoius coloured cars?

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For the first outing, I was impressed with BF. It was actually the customers' kit, I was asked to use it (..with pleasure! )

The car felt very very slick. I'm tempted to say the 'gloss' was a bit warmer than my usual SuperNatural approach.. Interested to see its durability in the coming weeks and months.

WX51TXR said:

Looks fantastic Jim; the full Blackfire system is very hard to beat on dark metallics. :icon_thumright:

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Cheers Rich. I'll be in touch soon to put in my order!