This car was almost new and with very low mileage but had a fair amount of dirt and road grime covering almost all of the vehicle. I discussed with the customer and agreed the best package would be a single stage enhancement and five-year ceramic coating to the paintwork with a two-year coating applied to the alloys.
I started by washing the vehicle down, as the wheels would come off later in the stage, I left that till later. I start by jet washing the wheel arches trying to remove as much dirt and mud as possible- I can clean them further once wheels are removed but it's good to get the majority of the dirt off prior to coming inside the studio. Bug and grime across the front of the vehicle followed by Valet pro Citrus wash and Bilt Hamber Touchless across the entire body of the Tesla. this helps soften/remove the dirt prior to contact washing. Detailing tip- using a small detailing brush at this stage can be handy around trims, fuel or electric charging ports and grills.
Once left to dwell the snow foam mixture was rinsed off ready for the bucket stage. We use two buckets which is often referred to as the two-bucket method or 2BM for short- this consists for two buckets both with grit guards, one is used as a rinse off bucket and one with the shampoo solution in. The idea of this is to prevent adding additional swirls by mixing dirty water and then touching the panel with the wash mitt. Once the panels have been washed from top to bottom the remaining suds are jet washed and a mix of fallout and tar removers are added to remove bonded contaminates. The Vehicle has a final rinse and it's taken inside.
Once inside I dry the vehicle using a mixture of drying towels and heated filtered air, this helps removes water from tight gaps around the lights, grills and trims. Prep is then applied across the entire vehicle to remove any water spots, residue and give us a bare finish to carry out inspections on the Tesla for paint defects or damage. If any are found, they are passed on to the customer. On this Tesla the boot lid had some deep scratches where someone had attempted to write some letters (I couldn't make out what it should say) amongst this the paintwork was pretty scratched up in areas- most people are aware now of how poor tesla paintwork is, the lacquer is thin making it easier to scratches.
We start the polish stage here, knowing how thin the paint is I opted for Menzerna 3800 on a blue pad but for the bad areas I went for 2500 on a white pad, luckily almost all the defects came out after polishing leaving an almost perfect base for Ceramic Coating.
Tesla's have super thin paint so ceramic coatings are very helpful in protecting the cars paintwork from swirls light scratches. birdlime and UV rays. Exo is used to repel dirt and rain and also offer mild self healing and cleaning properties. I firstly apply Crystal Serum then after 24hours of curing I added the Exo- the car is then left for a further 24hrs inside our unit in the warm to continue to cure. As the model 3 have lots of glass I decided to coat the customers glass for free with Soft99 Glaco. This will last around 10months. In this time the wheels also had a deep clean and was coated with Gtechniq Wheel Armour.
I did a final wipe down of all surfaces interior and exterior, wheels are refitted and tires dressed in Gyeon Tire. Before customer collection I arranged joe to pop down and take some photos of the car as you can see below.
Thanks for reading, please take a look at our other vehicle blogs and if you have a Tesla and want to book in with Kent Detailing Studio please feel free to drop us an email at dan@waxpack.co.uk or drop me a call 01233612055.
