Detailing day - my Ibiza Cupra TDI

[a11y]

Since collecting my Ibiza 3 weeks ago from another forum member, I've been gagging to get the paintwork up to scratch (no offence to previous owners, but I don't think wax was ever on the agenda, let alone the 2-bucket method!). Paint was dull, had quite a lot of residues (tree sap, bird sh*t) and was entirely covered in light surface scratching from multiple car washes. Despite all that, this colour does a great job of hiding all this, but I wasn’t satisfied...

It really needed a full detailing, but I just couldn’t face hand polishing it. But the buff(ing) team of Alan and Ali (couple of mates from Cliosport) came over yesterday and got stuck in around my Ibiza. I’d clayed the entire car with Sonus green clay prior to them arriving, so it was all set for a bit of PC polishing to get ride of the washing scratches and minor imperfections. After one pass it was looking damn good already, and a second attempt on the spoiler didn’t yield any better results so we left it at that. This was followed by a coat of CG Blitz sealant (Ali and Alan can correct any errors I’ve made about products used), left for about an hour while we got scran, then buffed off and a layer of Megs #16 (I think) was added to finish it off. CG Rim wax and trim gel finished it off just as it started pissing it down…

Gotta say a big thanks to Ali and Alan – top job guys and thanks for taking the time over it. I really couldn’t have done this (particularly the polishing) by hand and it’s given me a great base to start from now. It’ll be so much easier to maintain now that it’s had decent preparation. I wasn’t able to get any decent “after” pics because it started p’ing it down, but I’ll post up more when I do. But here’s some to start it off…

Ali polishing my pipe...

Big thanks to Ali and Alan, it's come up a treat...

Ally

 

[lil3520]

looks great, well done.

 

[pedy]

brilliant job mate..... luv the carpets in the garage!!!! good idea

 

[rich RS]

Your car looks good, I do like the look of the houses that you have up there mate, very nice. White with those nice corner stones does look better than the boring red like most homes!

 

[a11y]

The carpets are because of the door opening on the Ibiza: I find compared to other cars, the Ibiza doors open very far before hitting the first stop/stage, if you understand what I mean! Unfortunately they touch the sides of the garage before stopping LOL, hence the carpet…

Cheers for the comments on the car and house. Really happy with the results as I couldn’t face polishing out the scratches by hand – it’s turned out very well. Only moved into the house just over a year ago – got lucky finding it, a local builder who’s now actually a neighbour (handy when we had snagging to get sorted), and with a garage for my car – perfect!

 

[jonjay]

looks really nice...best colour of course

 

[shefflad]

why is there carpet on the ground?

nice car btw

 

[Ricardo_Smooth]

if you look on one of the pictures its red floor paint not carpet

 

[Tom B]

I have carpet up my walls as well, its one of the best garage mods you can do!

Looks great, and its a reminder that I need to do something with mine.

 

[a11y]

LOL how posh would that be to have a carpet on the garage floor…

 

[Donnyboy]

Looks great and a really nice car. Always liked the Cupra.

One thing I would say is that on tough vag paint you should work smaller areas to get better correction and stop the polish drying out too fast.

In the pic below you should really at least do half a panel at a time as the polish dabbed on the side will dry out before you are ready to use it.

http://i129.photobucket.com/albums/...ly 2007 - present/2007-08-13Detailingpic5.jpg

This is more advice than picking faults by the way.

 

[Ad Lav]

Wow, came up a treat!

What machine polisher is it and where from?? I need one...

 

[Deleted member 13581]

That looks great mate.

Need to get myself one of them and do mine.

In fact your not far away from me.

 

[pedy]

That looks great mate.

Need to get myself one of them and so mine.

In fact your not far away from me.

or me lol!!

 

[Ant FR]

agrea about the carpet on the walls, i have it on mine, really is good door saver,

 

[a11y]

Looks great and a really nice car. Always liked the Cupra.

One thing I would say is that on tough vag paint you should work smaller areas to get better correction and stop the polish drying out too fast.

In the pic below you should really at least do half a panel at a time as the polish dabbed on the side will dry out before you are ready to use it.

http://i129.photobucket.com/albums/...ly 2007 - present/2007-08-13Detailingpic5.jpg

This is more advice than picking faults by the way.

I'll mention it to my mates - I'm blaming them as they're supposed to be the experts . I was aware that VAG paint is extremely hard (a "b@stard" to work with according to them...) and ideally they wanted to go over the car again with something more aggressive, but didn't have the exact products they'd hoped for. But I'm more than happy with the results - I don't expect a 2-year old car (almost) to be perfect paint-wise.

They've both bought PC (Porter-Cable) machines - these are US devices, don't know much more about them other than they're not cheap! Looking at around £200-250 for one with a few attachements and pads and power supply (they're 110v IIRC). Worth checking out www.detailingworld.co.uk for more info, geeky cleaning site but incredibly useful.

Ally

 

[Nev_LCR]

mate, your from scotland.....but whos that wearing the GDI shirt, as they are based in cambs, used them loads before.

 

[a11y]

Ah, that's a mate of mine, Ali. He knows Ben @ GDI and had a few things done to his Clio 172 engine when he had it - it ran approx 190bhp after a bit of fettling AFAIK.

Think the shirt was meant as a bit of a joke as it's a "small" size and he looks rather silly in it...

 

[Ninja]

absolutely stunning mate.. Love that!!

 

[Nev_LCR]

Ah, that's a mate of mine, Ali. He knows Ben @ GDI and had a few things done to his Clio 172 engine when he had it - it ran approx 190bhp after a bit of fettling AFAIK.

Think the shirt was meant as a bit of a joke as it's a "small" size and he looks rather silly in it...

ah, got ya,

andy and ben @ GDI got my little clio cup running 212bhp, i miss that little thing.

good work on the detailing mate, feel free to lend me the porter cable any time,