PortlandRL

For you long-time AZiners and those who haunt W&W on a frequent basis, you'll recall that I did some minor surgery on this NBP TL last July. You can see that thread here. The car belongs to AZ member skyfox23 and doesn't really see much action. Despite this it is impeccably maintained and was brought to me to just make it just that little bit better. In the year since I last worked on it it, the odometer had gone up another 3,500 miles but the car looked just as stunning as it did the day it left my garage.

Initially I was going to have at this with my trusty Makita but the paint on this particular TL is even softer than normal, so much so that even a blue pad (designed for applying wax) left holograms! So I pulled out the trusty random orbital and had at it.

Due to it's essentially perfect shape, this car was a cakewalk. I had it in and out with only (roughly) 10 hours of work.

Process:

Exterior:
Wash with Dawn to strip numerous coats of 4-star UPP
Clay with Griot's Clay
Polished with Random Orbital, 6" white and Menzerna Super Finish (PO106FA)
Re-wash with Dawn to remove oils from polishing
Sealed with 4-Star UPP applied by hand - Cured for an hour

Wheels & Undercarriage:
Wheels were removed from car and deep cleaned as were wheel arches
Tires dressed with Griot's Tire Dressing

Interior:
Vacuum carpets and mats
Clean and condition front seats with Lexol leather cleaner & conditioner
Dust dash and center stack with Griot's interior cleaner and microfiber towel

There are no before photos as you wouldn't have seen much of a difference.







I think that's just a little left-over sealant residue...














More stinking sealant residue popped up in this photo!!!


As always, thanks for looking!!!

wong05tsx

iTrader: (6)

Velly nice! I usually walk around the car at least 10 times to get the residue off, but when the car drive off I usually spot at least one little area haha. I think it's pretty inevitable unless you spend like an hour going through every inch. Sometimes the sun isnt at the right angle to cover every spot too so its tricky.

I love black cars!!! So clean even when stock!

princelybug

iTrader: (16)

Jesstzn

Great job ... Ya we ( me & the help ) do a bunch of walk arounds looking for missed spots .. I even turn the car around in the driveway to see the other side and get the wheels in a different position to see if we missed anything in the spokes.

Waltah

iTrader: (3)

easy on the exposure, some of the pics are hard to pic up details in.

exhaust tips look good, did you use nevrdull?

97BlackAckCL

iTrader: (6)

Gorgeous, makes me even more motivated to apply some 4* UPP

Marc08EX

that car looks amazing!!! the finish looks so deep and wet! Great job sir!

jstahnke10

iTrader: (1)

Great Job! Looks great!

SweetJazz

Nice work. My wife is real good at picking out the areas I miss.

PortlandRL

Thanks for the compliments, everybody!

I'm not sure what was up with that but I did notice it. I think my camera was on crack because it was on 'Automatic' but kept doing stupid stuff.

I just gave the tips a quick wipe-down. They were perfect to begin with.

Mr_skillet

geez if you were down in socal.. could i bribe you to do this for me? haha

skyfox23

Thanks Andrew, TL-S as always looks fantastic! I'm glad that we finally have some sun to really apperciate the NBP finish, let the blue flake PoP!!!!!!!!!!

Steven Bell

iTrader: (2)

It doesn't get much better than that!

paz840

iTrader: (2)

Looks absolutely pristine! Nice work Andrew.

I wish I only drove my TL 3,500 mi/yr. I do closer to 35,000 mi/yr.

skyfox23

^
Yeah its mainly garaged, advantage of being only 6 blocks from work!

Rhlieu

WOW! That looks fantastic!

CocheseUGA

Mine would cry if it saw those pics.

Summer here sucks.