Ford Focus S+, slightly less than the RS but we are not here to talk about performance, we are here for the paint protection. Brand new and fresh from the dealership, this car was collected merely yesterday when we were asked to come the following day.
Upon arrival we do a quick inspection on the condition of the car, some surface check, some stain checks and got immediately to work after some short documentation (photographs)
Initial looks of the car is new and clean, after we did the quick run and we grab our cameras and started looking into the smaller faults and details.
Most of our customers will tell us, "It is a new car, so I would feel that not much damages are on it" but most customer do not know the custom practice of car dealerships whereby we are very familiar with.
So, we looked into the smaller details and we found lots and lots of residue. We touch, feel and rub it on our fingers and concluded that it was just wax, a very not professionally done wax that left tonnes of work for us to catch up with.
Most areas not visible to the eyes when the workers responsible for the waxing process are not buffed properly.
Areas under the hood was covered in wax residue as well.
Yes, we go into the depth that we look at small arches and yes again, we found residue.
Just 1 day old, from the owner's information, the car was just driven home from the dealership and it was already covered in the standard road grime.
Being detailers like us pushes the human patience to a whole new different level, this is Cat Piss, we touch and smelled it to confirm, notice the slight smudge. Disgusting but we need to know what is on the paint before we deal and treat it.
For the surface, we did some inspection directly under the sun. This is a Metallic Maroon Red, which will stand out in the sun, so will the affected damages.
So far, we only spotted some light washable watermarks on the surface from the air condensation cause from the previous night.
We did not find any swirls around but we suspected that it might be the wax that covered some of the swirls or even light scratches.
We continued the "swirl hunt" and still we found nothing
So, we move panel after panel in search of some swirls for us to correct. Irritated by the level of "NEW" we are facing.
Then, we found swirls. Relieved of the not so immaculate condition of the car, we started working on the washing process.
Yet, my partner was not ready to give up on the "swirl hunt" so we did some LED inspection.
We used a LED torch to inspect and for photo documentation, we used a camera LED flash.
We concluded our find on the paint to be a null. The paint was in immaculate condition.
For your comparison, LED could only reveal so much swirls compared to the sun.
Initial water beading and hyrophobicity test prior the wax, seems like the wax didn't hold up too good here.
Here comes the first part of the joy of washing cat piss but first we cleaned the engine to get ourselves ready to wash some piss.
This is the dirt build up from probably since the day of manufacturing.
Dust and dirt is collected in small pocket edges in the engine bay which we took attention of.
After brush and clean.
Wax residue cleaned since we were working under the hood.
Engine Detailing and Plastic protection application. DONE under 10 minutes because we work like beast.
Now for the real deal. Cat Piss is deadly they said. The owner said. I didn't had any experience on pets so I consider it a warning to handle with care. So, after the wash, the car was squeeky clean.
We double checked all the residue affected areas to make sure we cleaned it off.
While checking, we found a permanant damage which might had been cause by a shoe when boarding the car.
The spoiler residue was removed.
All small arch and edge was cleaned to optimum shape.
A commonly missed out area was polish and removed all off carbon deposits. P/S: We treated the Cat Piss affected area with some paint safe cleaner, then topped up with car wash then rinsed off with running water. After that to make sure it is sterile and will not cause any germ or viral infection to us (the detailers) when we were working on the car, we wipe down the entire area with a fully concentrated Isopropyl alcohol*(IPA) which contains 87.7% alcohol, enough to kill any germs I guess.
The swirl infected pillars were treated with some cutting compound and finished off with some finishing polish to get it back to original shape.
After that, we gave the car a light pass of finishing polish with 0% cutting power to get the surface smooth and nice. Prior the coating application, we remove all grease and polish oil with a milder version of the IPA alcohol wipes we used just now. The car is now ready for the coating.
The wheels were filthy for a 2 days old car. Looking into the details of it, it was dirty, dirty and dirty.
Behind all the "Bling" in front is the pocket for brake dust and road grime collection.
The "bling" was also affected from the short drive.
This is how we did it, the front exposing surface was first clean to the finest detail.
And we do mean finest to every last edge and nut.
The pocket behind the "bling" was cleaned to perfection too. We are sorry about the rust as it is a common issue that we had to live with.
Most people tell us that it is impossible to work on the exterior, coating, wheels, engine and still have sufficient time for the interior.
If that is so, we much be defying the laws of time? We clean the leather interior and applied some protectant to keep it smooth and silky, not grease and soft touch to the hand. + UV protection.
As for the glass, we find that it is also in a very good condition giving the age of the car. So we left it as it is and worked on other sections of the car which required more attention.
I personally would not want to brag about the results, but here you go, and as usual, we let the pictures do the talking.
Thank you and we hope you enjoy looking and reading up on our work.
