Hi all, my brother and I are auto detailers in our spare time and recently detailed our good friend's beautiful Jaguar F-Type R. I thought people might be interested in the steps involved. Bear in mind every detailer will have their own preferences on products and tools, so our way is not the only way for those who like to use other things.

Here is the car as-delivered to us; it's 3 months old. It came delivered with factory swirls that needed cleaning up (which is not uncommon at all), and of course you can never have too much gloss. I should mention I am a lifelong Jaguar fan and am saving for an XK8 myself, so working on this was a real treat.







The sunlight showed the damage that the paint had suffered, and the swirls were distracting when viewing the car.





As usual, we started with the big 20 inch wheels and arches.



We spray an all-purpose cleaner into the arches to soak, and then scrub them with a Vikan wheel arch brush. Then they are rinsed. There was just enough room to fit the wheel arch brush between the tire and the inner guard.



We use Bowden's Own Wheely Clean on the rims, bleeding purple as it does when it reacts with the contamination.



We spent a fair bit of time on the lug nut barrels and the brake calipers to ensure they looked their best. The calipers were huge, they left little room around them to clean.







We then moved onto decontaminating the body. A snow foam mix of Iron-X snow soap, Simple Green APC, and Megs Gold Class was sprayed on to loosen any grit on the paint, before being pressure cleaned off. I should mention that we tried removing the number plates but they refused to budge, which was pretty unusual as we've removed many before. I feared we were going to break the mounts so we left them on.





We use some chemical products to strip the surface of contamination. Iron-X reacts with iron contamination but showed very little reaction on this car, and some Tardis softened the small amounts of tar residue on the sides of the car for easy removal.



Once fully washed again, she was taken inside and given a full clay bar for the smoothest paint possible. We inspected the condition using some clay bar but completed most of the car with the clay bar towel.





We then inspected every panel with the paint depth gauge, and all panels were comfortable for paint levels as you would hope.





We then proceeded to tape up any rubber and plastics that the machine polishers could burn. Although we are using non-forced rotation dual action polishers, the speed and heat of the head can still cause damage to rubbers and plastics.



Under lights, this was the sort of damage we were seeing around the car.



The paint was nice to work with but had some really deep scratches in places.







The scratches and water etching on the bonnet was so severe that I had to work the bonnet twice with HD Cut on the HD wool pad to remove all the damage, which is a lot of cutting on a paint that isn't rock hard. The time that we saved on the glass roof I spent working that enormous bonnet.





This scratch was in an obvious place on the spoiler and it wasn't coming out without a fight, so we gave it a quick wet-sand using a 2000 grit wet sanding pad on the 3 inch Griots, and then glossed it back up.







The heavy cutting left micro-marring that was easily visible outside, which was expected. We were always going to be jeweling the paint with HD Polish on the black pad anyway, which cleaned up the micro-marring nicely at the same time.







Because the damage to the paint was so obvious in the sun, we took her outside a few times during the day to inspect our work and ensure we were getting the results we were working towards.



We gave the badges a good clean as well to clean out the grime that builds up in them and hand polished around them. We would never let the machines touch them as they could rip the badges right off, and if they didn't, they could mark the chrome.







So after jeweling the paint, the gloss was building nicely. It's hard to photograph gloss on white cars, but it was pretty hard to miss. This is pure paint before any wax or sealant has been applied.







We applied my favourite sealant HD Nitro Seal and left it to cure overnight.



In the morning, we buffed down the Nitro Seal to reveal a beautifully glossy finish.



We then moved on to cleaning the rest of the car. That bonnet is huge.











For me, one of the fun parts of detailing a car like this is learning all the little tips and tricks about how the vehicle works, such as manually raising the rear spoiler for cleaning.



The interior got a full clean and the protected with 303 Aerospace, which has a UV protective quality. The interior loved it; check out this 50/50 on the door trim. I left the top left hand side untouched so you could see the difference in depth of colour. The sun is just so brutal on interiors. It was important that the satin finish was maintained while enhancing the depth and providing protection.











This bit of trim in the drivers doorwell had come out of the seal, so I carefully replaced it. It's really easy to bump this with your foot as you get in and out as the seating position is so low.





Once it was all done, we took it outside for a final inspection before the owner arrived. It's a shame the pictures just don't capture how glossy it was because the white shone so brightly out in the sun, however I am hoping you'll still be able to see how glossy the car is.







One unexpected bonus was this small black panel on the roof. With all the swirls and marks it had on it, we didn't even realised it had an awesome colourful metallic flake, which really popped once it was polished. Here is a before and after.





Well, I hope people found that interesting. We apply the same process to most cars, although some of the older classics we've done like a Porsche 911 need metal work done as well.

This car was a really beautiful machine to work on.



Thanks for looking; hope you found it interesting.

 

Wow thanks for sharing! Glad there are so many pictures

Interesting read! How long did it all take?

 

Very professional!

 

+1. Well done with a great result!

 

Beautiful Job!!!

 

Great photo essay - you clearly take pride in your work. Too bad the drive is a bit too long to drop my car off.

 

Had to scroll up for location myself - knew this couldn't be an American Millennial hahaha.

 

Thanks all, glad it is interesting!

This one took us 38 man-hours.

Usually it's about 3-4 hours of washing and prep on the Friday afternoon/evening, then a solid 12 hours on a Saturday which is the machine polishing part, then another 3-4 hours on the Sunday buffing it down and attending to all the detail work like finishing off the interior, engine bay, etc. There's 2 of us working that long, so you rack the hours up pretty quick!

When it's a car like this, you don't mind so much though.

 

Haha yeah, removing all the seaweed and fish from the engine bay would add too much extra time.

 

WOW, thanks for sharing.

 

OT: Foosh, if the weather cooperates, you should join us on the New Years' Day Snow Cat Run.

 

Very nice, guys! I have a Flex DA machine that I really love. I've never used a Rupes, but I hear they are wonderful.

 

Thanks! Yeah the Rupes 21 is a nice machine for the larger flatter surfaces, but it's not as handy on the curves because the large pad and large throw of the machine makes getting into tight spots difficult. But it's brilliant on the main panels.

 

Awesome work. Looks amazing. You guys should be proud of the hard work you put in to make it look so great. No cutting corners. Well done.

 

Don't worry, we can arrange professional transportation that will ensure no wildlife is harmed in the process....

 

Or...

 

Haha oh no, perhaps I should take a working holiday instead...

 

Gooday! Lovely job and awesome post, thanks. On the XKR forum there has been a bit of discussion about nano mitts (I think they call them) instead of clay bars. I havent come across the mitts in Oz though I only discovered claying about 3 years ago. Have you formed a view about the mitts?

 

Thank you!

We use a clay towel instead of clay bar if we are going to polish the car, because they do large areas fast but they are prone to causing marring in the paint. I only use clay bar if I am not going to polish the car and the paint needs a deep clean.

While I haven't personally used one, I wouldn't hesitate to use a nano mitt if it did the same job with the same result. There's always more than one to skin a cat and if it did the job in a faster time with the same result, I'm all for it.

 

Well done, brava!!!