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Polished Bliss: 09 Frozen White Focus RS...

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Polished Bliss: 09 Frozen White Focus RS...

Postby Clark » Mon Jun 22, 2009 10:56 am

Well after months of waiting and constantly juggling my weekends about to fit it in, my dads new RS finally arrived and I was able to get it detailed over the weekend.

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The dealers had been instructed not to prep the car so it was a bit grubby from sitting about in various compounds etc. The dealership has to be given credit (Arnold Clark Aberdeen) as they were generally pretty good to deal with and they even had the car locked away in a private hand over bay upstairs for a week and a half while it was waiting to be registered - Some of the higher end dealerships we've had dealings with could learn a thing or two!

So in order to get as much dirt off the paint as possible I foamed it with R222 Citrus Degreaser @ 60 degrees:

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This was repeated and then left to dwell for 5 mins:

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Then rinsed off @ 60 degrees and high pressure:

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The wheels were given a quick going over with Gloss-It wheel gel, however these were to be taken off during the detail anyways:

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Arches and tyres were sprayed with Meguiars Super Degreaser and scrubbed:

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Door shuts/petrol cap were sprayed and agitated with Meguiars APC (4:1)...

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...Then pressure washed with medium pressure:

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All exterior trim/badges were cleaned with APC:

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A blade was used to remove the writing from the windscreen:

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Although not exactly minging, the engine bay still needed a bit of a clean:

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Again, APC was used to soak the engine bay:

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Then it was rinsed at medium pressure @ 60 degrees:

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The car was then washed with the two bucket method and R222 and then moved inside for claying.


There was no messing about at this stage - straight to Gloss-It Aggressive Clay Bar (most aggressive clay I've come across yet) due to the fact the car was completely covered in metal filings:

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This is from the back window alone:

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I changed to Megs quick clay for a minute just to show the level of contamination - this was from the top of the spoiler:

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3 hours later and the paintwork and glass were squeaky clean so I put the car back outside for another wash then back in and dried.

This gave me the chance to try out one of our latest new products... :D

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With 300 mile an hour hot air being produced it doesn’t take long to dry a car with one of these, especially when the paint is well protected - goodbye leaf blower! :thumb:


Onto the paintwork itself:

Having inspected the car at the dealers last week I knew what I was facing and in all honesty I was a bit disappointed with the amount of defects present, especially as it hadn’t been prepped for handover.


Being white it was always going to be difficult to show the defects on camera but here's a few I got:

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There was also the odd sanding mark and plenty of buffer trails too, not something I've seen on a new Ford before:

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I'm sure some people reading this will think its a bit OCD'ish but it's a brand spanking new car - it shouldn’t have any defects.


Onto the polishing stage:

As usual, I started with a fairly light polish and pad combination and this actually worked really well, the paint was around the intermediate level in terms of hardness - no way near as hard as the Mk1 RS.

Meguiars 205 and a Menzerna Finishing Pad was used, spread at 900rpm's, moved up to 1200rpm's for 1 pass then ramped up to 1800rpm's with fairly heavy pressure and then backed down to 1500 then 1000rpm's with light pressure to refine:

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Some of the deeper defects needed something a bit stronger so Menzerna 3.02 and a Menzerna Polishing Pad were used to remove these.


While I was doing the paint, Dad turned up to seal the wheels and hubs/calipers (Blackfire Metal Sealant) and to fit a set of mud flaps to the front (you can probably see where my car cleaning bug came from...):

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Back to the paint:

Spoiler before:

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After Menzerna FPII and a Menz 80mm finishing pad (the black plastics were much softer than the white paint so didn’t need so much cut to correct them):

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The rear diffuser needed a 2 stage machine though as it was quite badly scratched. Menz 3.02 and a Gloss-It Light Cut pad was used first:

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I then refined the finish with Menz FPII and a Gloss-It Finishing Pad:

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Round the front now and again I used a Gloss-It Finishing Pad but swapped back to Meguiars 205 for a bit more initial cut:

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Another Gloss-It pad was used for the side skirts, but this time a green polishing pad in conjunction with Menz 3.02 to remove the deeper buffer trails left from the production line:

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Trails gone:

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With the polishing all completed I used the new drier to blast away the majority of the polishing dust and then removed the rest with a lambswool duster:

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A Top Inspection wipe down followed in order to fully remove all the polishing oils so the sealant could properly bond.


Sealant of choice was "Project Awesome" which was machined into the paint @ Speed 5 on the G220 with a Gloss-It Finishing Pad:

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This was left for an hour to cure and then buffed off with a spritz of Ice cold Gloss-It Gloss Enhancing QD.


I was still feeling energetic so I applied some Concorso with a foam applicator by hand and left to cure while I did the other little details such as the tyres (Gloss-It Signature Tyre Dressing), Polished the tailpipes (Brilliant show metal polish), dressed the engine bay (303 Aerospace Protectant) and cleansed and protected the glass with the Werkstat System.

I then buffed off the Concorso and topped this with 2 coats of Werkstat Acrylic Trigger as this is what my dad will be using to keep protection topped up:

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In between the curing of the 2 coats of Werkstat the interior was given a quick hoover and APC wipe down. The shuts were wiped down with Gloss-It QD:

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With everything complete I just had to give the paintwork a final wipe down with Werkstat Acrylic Glos and then got the camera out for a few pics:


We initially put the car outside but it was approaching 10pm and the mist was coming down so the car didn’t really look anything special...

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I'll have to get some sun shots at some point to do the finish justice :)


Car back inside :rolleyes:


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I still wasn’t that happy with the final pics so we took some more on the way home at ASDA where it looked a bit better :)


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Total work time: 28 hours (4 of which were dad removing the wheels)


The car is now back in the garage awaiting the application of some paint protection film and then it shall be getting driven...hard :driver::thumb:


Thanks for reading, apologies for all the pics!

Clark
Going round corners just got a whole lot faster...
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Postby WR1 Bro » Mon Jun 22, 2009 11:27 am

WOW... And from me, that is saying something - I hate Fords and I hate white cars. I've never seen a car in white look so glossy. Top job Clark... Goes to show, you can polish a turd :wink:
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Postby Megaman » Mon Jun 22, 2009 11:41 am

Amazing job there Clark - that looks really good... When do i get a spin in the RS? :)
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Postby Scutch » Mon Jun 22, 2009 12:50 pm

Absolutely fantastic, Clark, as always.

The Focus really does look superb. Bit of a shock seeing the condition it was in from the showroom, though :shock:

Saying that, I wouldn't have noticed any problems at all! :lol:
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Postby danr55 » Mon Jun 22, 2009 4:35 pm

great job, and great looking car!! 8)
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Postby eck » Mon Jun 22, 2009 5:11 pm

Lovely job, lucky old man you have there Clark
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Postby presa900 » Mon Jun 22, 2009 7:23 pm

Very nice indeed, those pics in the Asda car park are awesome, really shows off the condition of the paintwork. 8) 8)

Definately the best of the three colours for the RS 8) 8)
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Postby WR 1mposter » Mon Jun 22, 2009 7:26 pm

You are simply the best ! :lol:

When can you visit for a holiday trip to clean ours :lol:



Cant believe the condition of the car seeing as it was new digusting even thou its a dusty bin :lol:
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Postby John Mc » Mon Jun 22, 2009 8:00 pm

Absolutely Stunning Clark... you are the man!!

Bro, you can't polish one of your turds..... ever :lol:
[Just incase this gets lost in translation, I am not slandering you, I know people can be sensitive to these harsh words.]
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Postby MaverickUK82 » Mon Jun 22, 2009 8:24 pm

How much would it cost to have a car done to that degree... a WR1 for example.
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Postby Chris B » Mon Jun 22, 2009 9:10 pm

Great job Clark.
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Postby zedder » Mon Jun 22, 2009 11:49 pm

amazing transformation!! white is defo the best colour looks so 8) nice 1 clarke :thumb:
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Postby John Mc » Tue Jun 23, 2009 11:05 am

MaverickUK82 wrote:How much would it cost to have a car done to that degree... a WR1 for example.


I've personally no idea but when you price up the local "Stavros Flatley Crew" doing a "full Valet" with used water, wire brush and some Netto furniture polish for £50-60... you have to be thinking in the region of £300-500 to do your WR1, depending on how much work it needs...

Might be wrong but I suspect you are looking at more than you would imagine!! At the end of the day, you usually get what you pay for!! :lol:
[Just incase this gets lost in translation, I am not slandering you, I know people can be sensitive to these harsh words.]
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Postby WR1 Bro » Tue Jun 23, 2009 11:11 am

John Mc Tiddler (Dogging Expert) wrote:
MaverickUK82 wrote:How much would it cost to have a car done to that degree... a WR1 for example.


I've personally no idea but when you price up the local "Stavros Flatley Crew" doing a "full Valet" with used water, wire brush and some Netto furniture polish for £50-60... you have to be thinking in the region of £300-500 to do your WR1, depending on how much work it needs...

Might be wrong but I suspect you are looking at more than you would imagine!! At the end of the day, you usually get what you pay for!! :lol:


OMG - are you talking about a charitable donation from his left over change???
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Postby John Mc » Tue Jun 23, 2009 11:14 am

WR1 Bro wrote:
John Mc Tiddler (Dogging Expert) wrote:
MaverickUK82 wrote:How much would it cost to have a car done to that degree... a WR1 for example.


I've personally no idea but when you price up the local "Stavros Flatley Crew" doing a "full Valet" with used water, wire brush and some Netto furniture polish for £50-60... you have to be thinking in the region of £300-500 to do your WR1, depending on how much work it needs...

Might be wrong but I suspect you are looking at more than you would imagine!! At the end of the day, you usually get what you pay for!! :lol:


OMG - are you talking about a charitable donation from his left over change???


Don't understand...
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Postby Ferret WR1 » Tue Jun 23, 2009 11:37 am

Another amazing job :D
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Postby The Swede » Tue Jun 23, 2009 11:56 am

Great job.

Amazing a new car could look like that when delivered.
Especially when you see how up their own @rse Ford is about this car... :roll:
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Postby MaverickUK82 » Tue Jun 23, 2009 12:05 pm

I was expecting it to be around the £500 mark...
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Postby The Swede » Tue Jun 23, 2009 12:20 pm

Friend of mine does the same treatment as Clark. He charges 500 Euros but if you work with him, you can do a car on one day and pay 250-300 Euros.

You need to pop over to Belgium though. Although that is less far than Scotland :lol:

Clark, you know this guy, I understand: www.wax-it.be
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Postby Clark » Tue Jun 23, 2009 1:34 pm

That'll be Bert?


Price wise for the Focus (2 day minor correction) you're from £695+ VAT 8)
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Postby John Mc » Tue Jun 23, 2009 3:03 pm

Clark wrote:That'll be Bert?


Price wise for the Focus (2 day minor correction) you're from £695+ VAT 8)


....and worth every penny!! :lol:
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Postby CAVEMAN » Tue Jun 23, 2009 3:41 pm

love the description - minor correction....but still took 2 days!!

for me a minor correction is just a spray down with the jet wash and a spritz of trigger afterwards!

bet it doesn't stay like that for long though!!
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Postby Clark » Tue Jun 23, 2009 4:58 pm

The Swede wrote:Friend of mine does the same treatment as Clark. He charges 500 Euros but if you work with him, you can do a car on one day and pay 250-300 Euros.


I'm not doubting his work at all, but even with someone helping me (which I would rather not have in all honesty) there's no way you could do a decent correction job in a day, takes me a good 8 hours to do an all surface protection detail!
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Postby The Swede » Tue Jun 23, 2009 5:38 pm

Clark wrote:
The Swede wrote:Friend of mine does the same treatment as Clark. He charges 500 Euros but if you work with him, you can do a car on one day and pay 250-300 Euros.


I'm not doubting his work at all, but even with someone helping me (which I would rather not have in all honesty) there's no way you could do a decent correction job in a day, takes me a good 8 hours to do an all surface protection detail!



Indeed Bert.

Few things indeed to mention:

1. Bert does this during the weekends as he has another job during the week. This means he does welcome help.

2. Bert likes to 'teach' people how to do it as he is more trying to make money out of teaching people and selling them the right products. When I did the S320 with him, I learned a lot out of it.

3. He divides the work in a smart way, i.e. he does the correcting and you go behind him with the second machine to polish the swirls out and wax the car. Also, I have been doing this before, tbh, so we could work fast. Also, the inside isn't really rocket science.
It took us about 10h together to do the Merc.

4. Cost of living in Belgium and UK is not the same. If you charge 695 plus VAT, you're pretty equal with his 500 of which, as Belgian 'tradition' wants it, sure not everything is declared to the taxman.

Bert did speak very high about you, btw :wink:

He does live a tad more convenient for me though than Aberdeen.
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Postby Clark » Tue Jun 23, 2009 6:24 pm

haha everywhere's more convenient than Aberdeen :lol:

Bert visited us a year or two ago but I was so busy working on a car I never really got to speak to him which was a shame :(
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Postby WR1 Owner! » Tue Jun 23, 2009 10:58 pm

that really really is a gorgeous job.. never commented on any of your work but i keep getting amazed everytime i see new pictures. loving it keep it up 8)
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Postby The Swede » Wed Jun 24, 2009 8:49 am

Clark wrote:haha everywhere's more convenient than Aberdeen :lol:

Bert visited us a year or two ago but I was so busy working on a car I never really got to speak to him which was a shame :(


Must have been last year. He came up to Scotland then. I remember he even bought my Magiuars G220 then in the UK.
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Postby CAVEMAN » Wed Jun 24, 2009 9:19 am

I got one of those too...not that impressed to be honest. Waste of cash I reckon.

can't even keep the handle fixed on when putting it back into its case!! Gotta take it to bits again when putting it away.

doesn't feel that well engineered at all.
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Postby Clark » Wed Jun 24, 2009 8:41 pm

I dont bother with the handle on the G220, its much nicer to use without it.

If you're unhappy with your one take it back to where you bought it, Meguiars are very good with replacing any faulty ones :D
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Postby SPIKE LIKE MIKE » Thu Jun 25, 2009 5:03 pm

Sweyour mate BERT, sounds like he should join hin ere.

What with Fat boy bro being Ernie we have the full set.....
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