A Volvo? Detailing is not just for supercars!
A Volvo S40, 5 years old, 50k miles, and utterly, utterly wrecked. I managed to photograph some of the random scratches and marks, but I just couldn’t believe how bad this car was in addition to horrific swirling. The roof, bonnet, front wings and boot lid have all obviously been used many times over as a resting place for bits and pieces while keys are found, before being dragged off.
This detail actually started as a ‘I bet you can’t do anything with that’ statement and ended up as 2 long days spent proving a point. The point was however, well and truly proven!
This is the car at the start, sadly no shot showing the full front of the car, but its quite clear it was in a terrible state.
Not washed in a long time, I thought the wheels would never recover. Before taking any pictures of the paint defects, first job was to uncover the paint. Using a cocktail of cleaning products, the car was covered in foam several times, being rinsed with medium pressure water in between each foam soak in order to remover another layer of grime and allow the detergents to penetrate the dirt.
The wheels were first sprayed with a diluted wheel acid, given a minute to soak, then washed at high pressure. This actually removed an amazing amount of dirt on its own, I put this down to the car not being driven hard so the wheels don’t get red hot and therefore bake the grime on. It still took several applications of wheel acid, and tar remover, along with a variety of brushes to get them looking clean, and they came up amazingly well.
Once the paint was basically clean, the extent of the damage was a lot clearer. The whole car looked misty, not at all glossy. The flat surfaces were not only heavily scratched and swirled, but were also covered in some of the worst tree sap I’ve ever seen, as clearly visible in the picture below.
Despite the use of an aggressive clay, it was clear that the sap could not be removed that way alone, so a dedicated fall-out remover was used to help soften the sap. Once done, the whole car was clayed to remove contaminants all over it. In doing so, the paint went from feeling like rough tarmac, to smooth and glass like.
A final wash of the whole car to remove any clay residue, it was rinsed then dried off with a couple of waffle weave towels before masking the trim with tape and into the garage to start polishing. To give an idea of how bad this car has been, it would be normal to expect to reach this stage of the detail after approximately 2 hours or so. With this car, it had taken 5 hours of hard work.
After checking paint thickness all over the car I found it all to be original healthy paint. With the severity of the defects, and knowing that Volvo paint is generally rather hard, a test section showed that it would need a cutting compound combined with a cutting pad using the rotary polisher to reach the desired result. In addition, every area needed polishing twice (plus another pass with a finishing polish, making it three in total)
The bonnet was the starting point, highlighted here with the halogen inspection lamp.
After polishing, the results were even better than hoped for, as shown by these 50/50 pictures made by taping down the middle of the bonnet and working on one side only. One picture was taken in the garage, the other with the front of the car rolled out into the sunshine.
The bonnet was finished, then time to move onto the wing with similarly dramatic results.
Progress was very slowly made around the car, here are a selection of before and after pictures taken during the correction stage. Not in particular the drivers door. The lighting was exactly the same for both pictures, but the paint was so flat it completely diffused the light from the halogen torch used to highlight the defects.
Similar to the bonnet, the bootlid was severely marked where it had been used as a stand for boxes etc, and a perch for the family cat.
It was taped down the middle to achieve the 50/50 shot seen here to highlight the dramatic improvement.
With the major correction work finished, the whole car was polished for a final time using a light finishing polish to burnish the paint to a perfect glossy crystal clear finish.
It was obvious the owner of the car did not spend time cleaning it, so when choosing finishing products, durability was the main priority. 2 layers of Chemical Guys Jetseal sealant were applied to start with, each left to cure for 20 minutes before being buffed off, with a 30 minute resting time in between layers. Whilst these were curing, the time was used to polish the glass, clean and dress the plastic trim and tyre walls, clean the door shuts and panel gaps, and using some wire wool and metal polish, remove the build up of tarnish and crusty from the exhaust tip.
Finally, a coat of a long lasting carnuba wax was applied for extra protection and to give the paint that lovely deep wet look.
Remember these? Direct comparisons, from at the start to the finished result!
The owner was totally blown away when he saw the car, his first comment being ‘I didn’t know you were going to paint the wheels’. Colleagues at work even asked why he had brought a new car in the same colour as his old one!
It certainly does show what can be achieved with time and patience, and that you don’t need a supercar to benefit from what detailing has to offer.
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“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!)”
