Audi RS4 Avant
This car belongs to a top chap in my village who approached me after seeing the results of my work on another local car. Originally intending to buy an S4, Matt saw this car and it’s potential, fell in love, and bought it. Immaculately maintained in terms of the mechanical parts, the exterior had been subjected to a life of motorway miles and automatic car washes. The very rare Denim Blue paintwork (1 or just 3 in the country in this colour) was dull, flat and badly scratched on every single panel. Understanding it wasn’t going to be perfect again, a number of scratches were just too deep, Matt and I discussed what would be achievable and he booked it in with me.
Knowing I had some hard work ahead, with the paintwork correction to be done in addition to the interior and engine bay, I got cracking while I had some unexpected spare time in an afternoon. Here is the car at the start.
The weather was very changeable, but a bit of sunshine showed that even under the layer of dirt the swirls were very evident.
The interior was in desperate need of some TLC, a fine layer of cigarette ash everywhere!
First job though would be the engine bay. Engine bay detailing is generally quite messy so wherever possible should be tackled before washing the car. There was nothing too bad in here, just a thick layer of dust and dirt that hadn’t been touched in some time.
After running the motor for a couple of minutes to slightly warm it, I doused the whole engine bay with a degreasing agent suitably diluted and worked my way around every nook and cranny with a variety of soft brushes to agitate the solution. Then, using a very gentle stream of water, I carefully rinsed the whole thing out making sure the water was not directed at any delicate or electrical items. Most problems with engine cleaning come from the use of steam cleaners or incorrectly used pressure washers forcing moisture into places not designed to deal with it. Using my method is much safer and just as effective.
Once cleaned, a microfibre towel was used to mop up any puddles or excess water and the whole area was then treated with a plastic dressing and protector. It came up like brand new!
Bonnet shut, time for the outside to get a wash. First of all the wheels were visited using an acid free cleaner to make an impact on the brake dust before rinsing and washing with a microfibre mit. Then, I used the same diluted degreaser to soak all the door shuts before agitating with a Swissvax Detail brush. The whole car was covered with a citrus pre-wash to loosen the dirt, pressure rinsed, then washed with a lambswool mit to complete the process. Whilst still wet, the paintwork was clayed to remove contaminants bonded to it. A mild clay was fine for the bonnet and roof, but a more aggressive product was needed to really make an impact on the lower parts of the doors and bumpers. After another quick was the car was dried with a microfibre towel.
Moving to the interior now, I started by emptying out any loose rubbish. Next up was a major attack with the vacuum cleaner and a soft bristle brush to collect the layer of ash that had crept into every imaginable gap! This took some time to do, going around the car a couple of times to first pick up the majority of dirt, then again to address the stubborn bits. The over mats were removed from the car, sprayed with an upholstery cleaner and vacuumed with a wet extractor machine to try and revive them a little.
Now looking a lot better….
This had taken me a little over 5 hours to complete, and with hindsight, it is a good job that time became spare to get it done!
Day 2
Here is a 50/50 picture of the correction being achieved on the door.
Using this method I slowly worked around the car, taking it outside occasionally when the sun poked through the clouds to get a different view. In the garage under the halogen light, the angry looking deep scratches from years of automatic car washes could clearly be seen. Just to note, in the first after shot below, the diagonal line is a reflection of the outer edge of the wing mirror, not a remaining scratch.
I was determined to get the heavy cutting done in one day, which I did, having taken me 14 hours start to finish! The car was completely covered in dust, mostly compromised of sharp little bits of polish residue. So, at 21:00 in the pitch dark, I rolled the car out onto the driveway to give it a quick wash and rinse before tucking it back in the garage for the night ready for a final polish the next day.
Day 3
Once this stage had been completed the car had taken on a whole new look. The once flat paintwork was now glossy and wet looking, the various curves really highlighted. Before I could apply wax, I first treated every panel with Swissvax Cleaner Fluid to prepare the surface and leave the best possible finish for the wax to adhere to. Swissvax Best Of Show was the wax of selected so I applied it carefully to the whole car and left it to cure while I attended to other areas.
The wheels were also gone over with Cleaner Fluid before having Autobahn wheel wax applied and the tyres dressed with Swissvax Pneu. The windows were cleaned using Crystal, the wiper blades too. One area of concern was the exhaust tips which had a hardened black crust baked onto them. A quick attempted with metal polish made no difference whatsoever, so using a Dremel fitted with a wire brush tool, I very delicately removed as much of the black residue as possible. This was then followed up with some metal polish and elbow grease to leave a much healthier looking set of pipes.
With the wax buffed off and panel gaps dusted down, all that remained was for me to try and get some finished pictures in between the heavy downpours of rain.
The result of 29 hours very hard, but very satisfying work:
Testimonials
“I would definitely recommend anyone to use Shine On regardless of marque, Paul is a genuinely nice bloke who has the rare attributes of actually loving his job and doing it to the best of his ability (bordering on OCD). I personally plan to use this service at least every 8months to keep the cars looking at their best.
And to top it all off…..even my wife commented on how and I quote ‘amazing’ it looked, that testimony alone is worth its weight in gold!
Andy (M3 and Battle Bus!)”
