Renault Clio 200 Cup

Reference for: Mr Paul Harpham

What should have been a simple four hour Protection Detail for Mr Harpham ended up being 6 hours of misery.

Spending close to £14k on a new car you’d expect it to be mint and live up to every expectation (especially seeing as though the dealers were specifically instructed NOT to touch the paintwork on the PDI for fear of swirling (scratching…) the paint.)

This instruction however was ignored. Before delivering the new car to White Details, Mr Harpham did mention how he had spotted some ‘light swirls’ on the cars doors and was a little upset as White Details were supposed to be the first people to touch/wash the car to prevent these swirls being induced on the paintwork that is less than a week old!

Vehicle in question:

After cleansing the vehicle, the paintwork was inspected for defects:

Before getting much further, it was noted that the O/S door had been resprayed. Resprayed, a vehicle that is again less than a week old to the customer!

On the O/S rear quarter nasty overspray/masking marks were found:

So much for the PDI checks…

Also on the drivers door, machine holograms (buffer trails) were spotted where ‘mopping’ had taken place:

In the centre of this next picture, it looked like the lacquer had been burnt through? (no paint correction/machine polishing will ever solve this – resprayed required on the whole panel)

The entire car was covered in a sea of swirls and scuffs:

The leading edge of the gloss black front bumper was very dull and almost burnt:

With the Protection Detail now out of the window, a test section was to be done on the resprayed driver’s door to find the correct polish and pad combination required to remove these dealer inflicted marks.

50/50 test section taped up:

Here, the halogen lamp reflection on the left shows the results of a correctly machine polished car and the right, well, that’s the induced scratches from the PDI stages.

So before:

And afterwards:

100% correction was not possible on a single-pass due to the defect severity:

Multiple polishing sets had to be made followed by a refinement pass to give the desired ‘like-new’ results:

After:

…unlike that of the untouched rear quarter on the O/S:

Again, more defects and niggles:

To show to Mr Harpham how his new pride and joy should have been presented to him, the top half of the O/S door and rear quarter were correctly machine polished and protected.

Before, below the drivers bump strip:

After, above the drivers bump strip:

Correcting the rest of the vehicle to return it to its ‘like-NEW’ condition would require the best part of two days; all this because of one sub-standard wash (which was never supposed to happen in the first place!)

As the Clio now sits awaiting further paint correction:

A good customer of mine made contact late June 2010 asking if the Ferrari F50 could be prepped in readiness to display the car at the Ferrari Owners Club meet held at Walton Hall Hotel, Stratford Upon Avon.

Early July, the car drives ~70 miles to the venue and I took a trip out the following morning to prep it before the crowds came flooding in.

Full coverage of the work carried out can be seen here: Ferrari F50

Weeks go by after Owners Club show and I receive a phonecall telling me the F50 has made it to the front cover of said Ferrari Owners Club magazine. Excellent!

A fantastic display of vehicles on show that day; from the recent 458 Italia back to the 250 GTO and some race prepped ‘grid’ cars as part of the Pirelli display.

VW Corrado Magazine Feature

The Corrado was originally prepared for the ‘Ultimate Dubs’ show back mid-March 2010… Since then, the odd morning has been spent helping the owner with misc. areas, product advice, techniques and general ‘how to’s’.

The intial show-preparations can be seen here

Having come along way (even since the show in March) the Max-Power crew caught on to Adam’s VW and wished to feature the car in their magazine.

Days before the car was shot by the magazine, it was released from the bodyshop after having some minor panel work done to the N/S due to a little accident. A quick pass with the machine polisher on the Saturday morning saw the paintwork fixed up and fully prepped in readiness for its big day.

Magazine feature:

Links to the pages at full resolution:

Page #1 Page #2 Page #3 Page #4

Well done Adam.

Saturday 4th September saw me take a trip out to North Lincs to a Charity Sports & Supercar Day. Passenger rides were open to the public and all proceeds were given on to the Lincs Air Ambulance Trust.

A handful of the cars after their route familiarisation lap:

And at 12 noon, the public chose their vehicles of choice!

Off the top of my head, these were the cars that attended:

• AC Cobra 427
• Aston Martin DB9
• Aston Martin V8 Vantage PRODRIVE
• Audi R8
• Audi TT Special
• Caterham 7
• Ferrari 360 Challange Stradale
• Ferrari 360 Spider
• Ford Escort Cossie
• Noble M400
• Porsche 997 RS GT3
• Subaru Impreza STI
• TVR Tamora

(+Plus a few other bits and bobs that turned up later on in the day)

Feel free to mail me if you’d like any of the above at full resolution…

A most enjoyable day and a great setup for the charity.

Jim

So a few of you may remember the mkiv Volkswagen Golf finished in 1959 Porsche Pastel Green that I took on as a marketing project…

(Original report can be seen HERE )

The understanding was that I prepped the car in readiness for the owner’s shows and highly anticipated mag feature in return for a bit of marketing in that of a mention in the magazine. Cutting a long story short, White Details never did get a mention.

I do however have scans so here are a few pages from the featured article.

Front cover:

#1:

#2:

#3:

#4:

#5:

#6:

#7:

#8:

And the final page with the all important ‘thanks-to’ box:

Although both sides of the deal weren’t met, it’s still nice to have a magazine featured car in White Details’ portfolio.

Dodo Juice, the “lovers of all things shiny”, have asked WhiteDetails to come on board.

I’m pleased to announce I now operate as a Dodo Juice Authorised Detailer (DAD).

http://www.dodojuice.com/

Offering the full range of goodies, from wash-mitts and shampoo, to clay bars and wax, in working together, we’re able to provide a quality package that brings the Dodo to your Drive.

“The way of the Dodo….”