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Posted on Detailing World by Steve Graves

Subaru Impreza.

This 52 plate came today for a detail.

David had seen the work we’d carried out on one or two other Impreza’s, and wanted the same quality of finish on his pride and joy.

Here’s how it arrived –


Complete with a bug bomb or 2 –




And one or two other issues to be addressed through the day-


There’s only one product I reach for when faced with bug bombs, this one-


A good spray of the Einszett –


Then a coat of foam from the Gilmour –


This is a 50:50 mix of Snow Foam & Chemical Guy’s Maxi Suds II


Gave the foam 5 minutes to do it’s work, then rinsed with the Gilmour. Tommy then set too on the now sufficiently cooled wheels with Chemical Guy’s Maxi Blue Wheel cleaner, while I did the arches with Meguiar’s Super Degreaser at 10:1-


Rinsed the car a second time, then time for the hand wash stage. Using 2 buckets, Meguiar’s Shampoo Plus and Lambswool washmitts from Car Wash’n Wax, Tommy gave the Impreza a good careful handwash.

Rinsed the car a third time, then I treated the lower sections with Panel Wipe solvent, to remove any tar before claying. The Panel Wipe also took care of the adhesive remaining on the bootlid after this Impreza had been debadged.

Rinsed for a fourth time, then out with the clay. Using Sonus Grey clay from “Clean your car”, and using Megs Last Touch as lube, I carefully clayed only a little contaminant from the car. Because the tar had been taken care of by the Panel Wipe, the clay stayed cleanish, apart from pulling out a little touch up-


Rinsed the car a fifth time, then up to the polish shop for prep and polish.

After drying using Megs Last Touch and Water Magnets, the swirls and Random In Depth Scratches (R.I.D.S.) easily visible under the harsh shop lights (but not easily photographed)-




I took a full set of readings using my Elcometer 456 Paint Thickness Gauge, and inspected the depth of the scratches using my Elcometer 121 PIG. This Impreza showing sign’s of being a genuine one, with the trade mark Subaru 50 micron variance across each panel.

Time to crack on with the swirl removal. My current favourite new product is Chemical Guy’s Spider Swirl & Scratch remover –


After priming a LC orange pad with QD, I used 2 x 1” lines of product for a 1’ x 1’ section. Speed 1 to spread, 2 x passes at speed 4 with good pressure, followed by a spritz of QD then a final pass at speed 6. Any deeper but removable R.I.D.S. were gone, or greatly reduced after these 2 sets. The swirls and spider webs gone after the first set. The polish working very well on the Horizontals, but needed a little spritz of QD to remove the residue on occasion-


The Subaru bonnet after 2 sets of passes with the Chemical Guy’s Spider Swirl & Scratch remover –


The horizontals were a lot clearer of swirls and scratches, so we used Chemical Guy’s Medium Compound on a Sonus White SFX polishing pad. This leaves a last step ready finish, nice.

Any scratches were dealt with using Chemical Guy’s Heavy Duty Compound, and the expected haze from such a coarse compound was removed using Chemical Guy’s Professional Polish on a white SFX pad.

The bumpers, spoilers etc were dealt with using the CG’s Heavy Duty compound on a 4” Yellow spot cutting pad from LC, and the marring removed using CG’s Professional Polish on a 4” LC orange pad. We used the slow cut method to remove the defects, and the Pro polish to restore a brilliant gloss.

After wipe down using some ‘bargain’ work cloths from Car Wash ‘n Wax, it was time for the Glaze. David had seen the Blackfire on Scoobynet, and wanted this applying to his car.

David applied the Blackfire Gloss Enhancing polish by PC on a blue SFX pad.


After wiping down, we then applied a coat of Blackfire Wet Diamond by hand.

The alloys given a protective coat of Chemical Guy’s Rim Wax.

The trim treated to a coat of Chemical Guy’s New Look Trim Gel.

The tyres and inner arches to Meguiar’s Hyper Dressing cut 2:1

The glass to Meguiar’s Glass Cleaner Concentrate.

The rubber seals around the windows to Einszett Plastic Cleaner.

It was then time to buff off the Wet Diamond. The amount of static created by buffing off this stuff was a little worrying. After 5 minutes of making one anothers hair stand on end with the static charge filling the shop, we solved the issue with a quick wipe of Chemical Guy’s Anti Static Poly Wipe QD.

The afters –



































StiPPP had popped in to the shop mid afternoon in a rather dusty Impreza, so as not to let the side down, we gave it a quicky detail-

Wash with Gilmour foam, Snow foam:Maxi Suds II 50:50 mix.
Wash by hand with Chemical Guys Extreme Bodywash.
Spritz with Chemical Guy’s Pro Detailer to aid drying.
Quick wipe down with Chemical Guy’s Insta Wax.
Dress trim with CG’s New Look Trim Gel.
Clean glass with Meg’s Glass Cleaner Concentrate.

Not bad for a quicky?










Some of the products mentioned in this write up-











CLICKY to see the whole thread.

 

 

VERY nice what more can you say?

 

Now thats shiney! Very very nice indeeeeedy!

How much and how long does it take ?

 

10 hours and 3 people. Well 2, I only got involved for about 3 hours of it. I'll leave the price as Steve does this as a hobby and only seeks to cover the costs of the products and a few quid for his assistant. Suffice to say it works out below minimum wage.

 

Now that is an amazing looking car. Gonna wait till I got some new bits on the car first then will be looking at getting it detailed myself.

 

L200 Steve...

That guy is a legend

 

stupid question... but does detailed mean a very thorough exterior valeting?

p.s. that car looks beautiful.

 

YUP !

 

MURDERER!

Car's clean dave

 

Wow - Just Wow..

Very very nice

Do you think he'd like to do a black Forester ?

Whereabouts is he ?

 

looks ****

 

Maybe, he likes the more unusual and black is always a challenge. He's in Leeds and can be contacted HERE.

 

I would like to say an excellent job and a top guy,

 

Really is a fantastic job but it would really **** me off that by the time you driven down the motorway home the bonnet would look like this again!!!

 

The bonnet looked like that as I'd arrived at Steve's straight from a 350 mile run back up from Devon. No motorway between his and mine

 

Yeah but you get my point though another 100 miles down the road and it'll be covered in bugs and bird ****!!

Lookin amazing at the moment though mate!

 

Same point as to why we wash our underpants when they're only gonna get smelly again

 

Good work! I'm considering getting a clay bar, to add to the cleaning list. My Mrs took the mick out of me the other day after it had taken me 6 hours to clean the WRX, needed quite a few scratches removing mind.

 

good point but underpants dont take 3 men 10 hours to clean with 50 different products .

but otherwise an excellent job by obvious pros

 

Brilliant write up there and a brilliant result. Thats now one clean 'n' shiny Scooby. won't last long tho

 

Hell of a lot more expensive than washing pants! Besides, who's gonna get there car detailed every time they use it?

Not knocking you mate, just saying its a shame to see it dirty 2 days later..

 

Speak for yourself

 

WOW amazing

 

just doing this for my own satisfaction
Baz

 

something to think about when it comes to selling it tho...

 

Deffo! What an impression that'd make rolling up to that mirror finish!

Thing is trails, would you wanna sell it looking that good?

 

lol, thing is you would have to cover and transport it to keep it in that condition

 

fookin hell, who's had a stevie wonder moment?

great result

 

hoskib, that was nowhere near as bad as it looks on that pic. It was all surface debris to simply remove. There was a little adhesive which had some dust and polish residue stuck to it, but no surface damage so it was very quick and simple to get the whole bootlid up to standard.