After lurking in a couple of the "Detailing" forums and getting lots of info I decided to try the manual polish and wax method to see how that went. After lots of maual labor (mine) and lots of sniggering (Wendys) I decided to contact a couple of highly recommended local Detailers and get them to see if they could do any better than me. Sooooo.... yesterday was D-Day.
It started at 9am and finished at 11.15pm (yip, a 14 hour day and a total of 24 man-hours work between the 2 guys). The transformation was incredible. Hours and hours were spent using paint depth gauges to measure to the nearest micron exactly how much paint was being taken away in the process of removing scratches and swirl marks. At the end of the process you could happily shave in the mirror like reflections from each panel. As far as the waxes went, we tried different ones on a spare panel and I honestly could not tell the difference between the 7k Zymol or the 30 quid cheapo. In the end the decision was to go mid range for Swizzol best of Show wax which is ... well... waxy and nice (and not 7k!!!)
Bearing in mind the intensity of the Detail it was not a ridiculous price (ok.. paying someone to clean your car for 24 hours might well be described as ridiculous in itself) and as long as I pay attention when washing it and also give it another coat of wax in 3-4 months then all should be well.
If anyone is interested the details of the Detail (sorry 'bout that) are here.. (there are a couple of forums but you dont need to register to read things on this one) All in all... well recommended even though they didnt use any Gaffa Tape
Full Write-Up & Pics: => http://autopia.org/forum/click-brag/883 ... 5-gtb.html
