E46 Detail - Newbies attempt at machine polishing ('05 E46)

[Owen E46]

With the weather clearing up, getting sick of looking at a dirty car and wanting to finally let loose with the da on my car here are the results.

The following was completed in 5 hours (with many more to come)

Steps:
Interior
Interior Wet vac finishing (drivers seat and footwell, forgot about the door card)

Exterior
Quick Soak with Orchard Preclean
Snow Foam with Orchard Cotton Candy
Tar Removal with Orchard Tar Cleanse (cant recommend enough)
Iron Removal with Orchard Iron Cleanse
Clay with dodo juice born slippy concentrate
Machine polish (only top of boot lid and lights so far :sad: but more to come tomorrow weather permitting)

....and now for the pics:

Interior first:

Now too bad you would think:




After a quick hoover:


After the wet vac:




From just the footwell (mats used every day)


From just the drivers seat (bought second hand, roughly 130 miles worth of wear and tear)


Exterior
The dirty pics :wink:









A quick soak with preclean and a covering of cotton candy quickly ate into the dirt


So much so this shows how easily the dirt washes off as a result, at this point I hadnt touched the paintwork with anything (have to thank Autoglym EGP aswell :tounge




Had to throw in this cheeky 50/50 so show how dirty the wheel was:



Looks clean:


But after a quick rub of the mitt.....im not too sure haha, its definitely worth investing in a second bucket


A quick de-tar and clay resulted in this:


Now was time for machine polishing, with the weather closing in and the light fading decision was made to focus on just the boot lid and lights, pictures are only from the phone but shows a 50/50 of the bootlid





The biggest transformation was seen in the rear light, 3 hits with a finishing pad with meguires 205, below shows the difference between the left (polished) and right (not touched)





Thats all for 1 day, hopefully weather permitting I can get more polishing done tomorrow

[Johnnyghia]

Great job on the clean up. She looks great, Wet vac does some job.

[Chrispyfish]

Good man Owen. Nice thread an write up will keep an eye out for more updates

[Gar]

Looks great nice job man

[Curran]

Good to see that you got cracking with the few bits and the DA

Expecting big things from ya! Keep up the good work, and keep the thread updated with the jobs you've done and of course pics!

[BannerBmw]

Good stuff! She looks well, im wating for the weather to clear to do my own,

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[eddiem74]

Great work, looking well. Thanks for posting and look forward to seeing your detailing updates. :-)

[John_D]

Nice work, and I may have said it before but kudos for having a sweet tech-1 saloon

[Owen E46]

Thanks for the comments lads, Unfortunatly not much in the way of updates due to bad weather and a combinatation of working hours when the sun does come out.

Today only got the rest of the boot lid finished off and a start on the bonnet, apologies for the size of the pictures and also the quality of some of them, trying to get a hang of photographing swirls, next on my shopping list will be a halogen with stand combo. So ill let the pictures do the talking





A few random swirls:






Before:


After




The light colour is very difficult to capture on camera, as a result the polished bootlid can look both lighter and darker depending on the angle as shown in the following pictures:





But in reality the paintwork does 'pop' more and is a slight shade lighter (but hard to show with the angles of the various panels



Then came the bonnet, one of panels I am willing to spend the most time at to get right due to the large area and therefore easy to spot any imperfections. Time was limited to say the least so got cracking as fast as possible:





Some more swirls:





The swirls were first tackled with a medium foam pad with meguires 205, this did not have enough 'bite' so upped to a heavy pad with chemical guys V32 Compound and felt this has suffecient bite to get through some of the swirls/defects.



Unfortunately the rain began so had to throw in the towel



Time taken - 3hrs (Quick Wash/dry, take apart boot lid, polish rest of boot lid to finish, half bonnet with heavy pad/compound)

Lessons Learned: will be worth buying a halogen lamp/stand to spot swirls (have no garage)
do not cut corners - prime the pad with a wax before first use, i didnt and the polished 'caked' to the paintwork

I will leave ye with 2 of my favorite pic:

Bonnet after compound:


Bootlid after a shower on wednesday morning:

[BannerBmw]

Good work! Light colours are hard to photograph all right, shes lookin well though, I dont know why but E46s in all models be it coupe saloon or touring still look great to my eye I think the have aged very well, when compared to contemporary cars from other manufacturers!

But I might be just Biased!

My little coupe my not be worth alot, but to me it is, I know it inside out and what's done and needed, if I sold it tomorrow id only buy another! Haha

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