As you may have read in my post about my Fit it was very neglected by the original owners. They did nothing but wash the car, no waxing no buffing nothing. So after gathering up some info and products of which were consumer available I did it up this weekend. I started off with the products shown here.



I added a couple other things but nothing other than refills of some of the products shown above and a few small things like a lambskin wash mit and a few more microfiber items.

Here is what I started with.







Mostly spider webbing and some small surface scratches that were very shallow and not needing a ton of work to them. So I spent an hour and a half washing my car with Gold Class car wash, used the Deep Crystal wash for the wheel wells and the rims and tires. Here are a couple shots after the base wash and dry overnight.





I then started with a medium clay and lots of Meguiar's quick detailer as the lubrication and clayed the entire car. Here are two shots of the clay during the process.





Once the claying was done, the car was ready to be polished a bit, I found that the paint on Fits is pretty soft so it was recommended to try just buffing with Meguiar's ColorX on my orbital and it came out near perfectly. Not too harsh yet enough agitation to remove the webbing and small imperfections on the paints clear coat. Here is a shot after taping off the headlights and taping off the area to try ColorX on.



Next I polished this area first to test and see if ColorX was going to be enough to do what I wanted it to. Here is a shot of my orbital with the product on it, and then a couple shots of the area after being polished with ColorX.









Not a HUGE difference but it was a big difference to me as the pearl now brightly stands out in this paint, other than just being hidden behind a layer of dirt.

So I then proceeded to polish out the rest of the car with ColorX and here are some shots before putting on the Gold Class wax.















After letting the car cool back off from being in the sun to take these photos I then put on 2 coats of Gold Class Liquid wax. Here are the final 3 pictures of the car done.







Overall I am very pleased with the outcome for over the counter consumer based products I think it came out very well. Overall time was 1.5 hours washing on Friday Evening, and 5.5 hours today. And I got lots of nice looks today while at the grocery store.

 

Great write up. Looks a lot better! Not too bad on the time to result ratio either.

 

Very nice work! I wish I can get mine detailed haha. Someone in Socal details!!??!?

 

i did the same to my blackberry pearl after i bought it from the dealership, it had a ton of light swirls from them washing it before i purchased it =\

 

Looks very good!

You should be proud of your hard work!

 

Time results were worth it as now I just have to maintain it for 6months before having to worry about any major work again. I clay every 6months to remove contaminants and old waxes unless this car proves to be ok with only being clayed once a year I will check it in 6months to find out. I am pretty obsessive of my cars and being clean so it will stay sexy for a while

 

Good job on the car and for some people, its "just a car" but why so many bottles of carwash soap, was it that dirty

 

I must say back when I used Mequiars exclusively, Gold Class worked great on darker colored cars for sure, but you might wanna Mequairs NXT 2.0 if your looking for an OTC (Over The Counter) product to use that produces great results without the great effort which it takes to remove the Gold Class. Its so easy to use infact that you'll find yourself using it once a month, if you've got the time that is

BTW this product can be put on the entire car as its supposed to sit for about 15 minutes but if you go longer its ok, but it still comes off easy w/o any dust and leaves you with a great shine, I really do like this product....alot

 

Looks great. My back couldn't stand 7 hours of pushing wax.

 

I got the Gold Class wash on sale for $6 a bottle Vs $10 normally, that's why there's 4 of them. The gold class wax was applied thin and evenly with an orbital, and it came off easily. I have looked at the NXT, and it does look nice but the Gold Class wax is a relatively new bottle and I have no problems with using it.

 

Now all you need is some klasse. Its a polycoat that I typically apply after polish before wax. It provides a nice protective layer over the paint and is really good at preventing fade, bug acid dig in as well as bird dropping protection.

Then put a nice layer of wax on it. Polycoat will last about a year or so depending on how often you wash and wax.

It's an extra step but if you've already got an orbital its just another part of the process but SOO worth it.

I'm doing a full detailing of my 2 week old fit this weekend I'll try and provide before and after pics its amazing how much of an improvement a good detailing makes for a new car as well.

 

Damn looking sexy u seem as obsesive as me but I favor the black magic wash and then for the wax and inside stuff I use the turtle wax ice ever product from that line I have tried has been the best and longest lasting that I have used so far but ur rides looking sexy as he!!

 

NICE really well put together, PROPS!

 

Looks great, I used to have a 97 Maxima SE 5-speed with the white pearl tri-coat. I was religious about doing the Meguiars 3 step process regularly. Now with kids, I can barely spend 15 minutes washing my Fit.