Gave my Polo a clean up

Dangerous Dave · Post by **Dangerous Dave** » Wed Mar 29, 2006 5:44 pm

I gave my Polo a big clean up to get rid of the huge amount of swirl marks I had on my car, I did the clean up over 3 days last month when the weather was dry but its taken until today to get a dry day to get some photos of the finished car. Big thanks to detailingworld.co.uk for tips and hints and polishedbliss.co.uk for all the products and advise.

Here are a few photos at the start, the car was a little dirty to start with.

It was amazing how much dirt ended up in the rinse bucket of the two bucket method with a lambswool wash mitt (I should have really re-filled this bucket half through but I wanted to give the idea off how much dirt ended up in it)

Here some photos of how bad the swirls are in direct sunlight

and a close up

I got myself a polishing machine from the states after reading up about them at detailingworld.co.uk, I then used SSR2.5 polish however the vag paint is very hard so it didn't take all the marks out. I then tried Menzerna Intensive Polish which is suppose to work great on VAG paint and it certainly did the trick ! I also cleaned out my wheel arches which had huge amounts of dirt in them.

I have dressed the tyres today but I took the photo just after I did the wheels,I also sealed using poor boys wheel sealer which should help protect them.

The bumper before I went over it with IP, my dog getting in and out of the boot caused all the marks on it luckily they weren't too deep.

and after, the sun wasn't great today so was hard to get an angle to pick the light up.

The car has a great wet look now after I finished it off with Clearkote Carnuba Moose Wax by hand

Roof in direct sun

vr6south · Post by **vr6south** » Wed Mar 29, 2006 5:49 pm

Nice job mate. How do you rate the polishinng machine and being US is it 110v? Some new BBS centre caps for the wheels would set it off nicely

Dangerous Dave · Post by **Dangerous Dave** » Wed Mar 29, 2006 5:57 pm

Its a Porter cable polisher, its excellent there is no way on hard vag paint you can get all the swirls out without a machine polisher. The UK ones are rotary which can stripped the paint off easily if used in the wrong hands, the porter cable is a random polisher so much safer. I got a step down transformer for the polisher from screwfix.co.uk, used by a lot of workmen on sites for there power tools etc.

Never got round to getting new centre caps ment too at the time.

moynas · Post by **moynas** » Wed Mar 29, 2006 6:18 pm

Lookin very nice! Just got to keep it like that now, I got my third order from polished bliss today more cleaning products! Me thinks a show and shine is in order for me this year!!

dino · Post by **dino** » Wed Mar 29, 2006 6:45 pm

That looks amazing Dave - are you a member on detailingworld?

Dangerous Dave · Post by **Dangerous Dave** » Wed Mar 29, 2006 6:50 pm

Yeup I'm a member, great site for hints and tips about cleaning up your car.

Mike_M · Post by **Mike_M** » Wed Mar 29, 2006 8:22 pm

Looking really clean there

hedgehogharvey · Post by **hedgehogharvey** » Wed Mar 29, 2006 8:52 pm

VERY NICE! Can you come and do mine

nickpolo · Post by **nickpolo** » Wed Mar 29, 2006 10:08 pm

nice job!! i'm in a very similar situation - red gti, covered in swirl marks - i'm looking to do what you've done, have asked on detailing world if there is anyone who knows what they're doing who could help me with it, pref with a porter cble, but to no avail, i'm in west sussex now, just want to get my car looking good.

now you've done that are the swirls gone for good? ie takes a good polish to brig it up nice every time from now on?

Si_GTi · Post by **Si_GTi** » Wed Mar 29, 2006 10:38 pm

Top work Dave, really nice

inder · Post by **inder** » Thu Mar 30, 2006 12:33 am

Nice one m8, lovely end results

1) you can get a VW dog guard for the interior of the car - someone is selling one on ebay!

http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/VW-POLO-HATCHBACK ... dZViewItem

might be useful for you

2) what products did you use to clean the wheel arches with?

clees · Post by **clees** » Thu Mar 30, 2006 12:28 pm

Nice job there mate!!

is there any chance of you listing all the products you used and cost of them??

Also could you list the machine you used, price and where you got it from!!

I have a few swirl marks on mine which i would love to get out!!

Christian

mk4 glx 1.6 · Post by **mk4 glx 1.6** » Thu Mar 30, 2006 1:01 pm

It looks great, the paint really looks in totally different condition now.

The porter cable produces some amazing results, there seems to be nothing that compares.

Polaris · Post by **Polaris** » Thu Mar 30, 2006 1:05 pm

Nice one. Looking Great. Gonna have to give mine a good clean up.