Bentley Continental - Diamond Black

[Jimmeh]

Lots of maintenance work carried out as of late - A new customer and a new car though, so, lets get trigger happy with the camera!

Bentley Continental – Minor Paint Correction Detail

Before being tucked away for the winter, the owner wanted to treat the car seeing as though the last x-amount of washes were done at the local hand-wash station.

Product

• 3M Glass Cleaner
• 3M Ultrafina
• Autosol
• AutoSmart G101
• AutoSmart Tardis
• Blackfire Wet Diamond All Paint Protection
• Dodo Juice Born To Be Mild
• Elite Car Care’s Mild Grade clay bar
• Jeffs Werkstat Prime
• Meguiars All-Season Dressing
• Meguiars Hyper Wash
• Menzerna 203s
• Menzerna 106FA
• ONR (Optimum No Rinse)


Upon arrival:

You can see already the defects and marring scattered down the side of the car…

Closer in:

On the initial ‘walk around’, I spotted a slight colour difference between the O/S rear quarter and the bumper:

News to the owner, but at somepoint the car has had a knock and fresh paint applied. An area of caution for the later on.


Old polish residues:

Although covered in a sea of swirls, there were a few deep scratches spotted like these on the bonnet:

Starting with the wheels, AutoSmart G101 was applied to wheel facing and the inner-rim. Using a selection of brushes and mitts, the wheels were cleaned inside and out.

A few tiny tar deposits taken care of with AutoSmart Tardis:

With the tyres and arches being scrubbed at the same time as the wheels, it was time for the pre-wash.

After rinsing the car, foam was delivered to help soften surface dirt whilst allowing for intricate areas (window jams, petrol filler housing, badges, panel gaps etc) to be cleaned with a soft-tip brush.

Working bottom to top, the car was pressure washed to remove the foam and detritus found along the way.

Buckets filled and a second foam application was given to assist a super-slick wash.

And rinsed:

You wouldn’t have thought it (considering I had to de-ice my car at the start of the day) but it was pretty warm outside; the Bentley was put indoors for the decontamination (clay) stages to help prevent water spotting.

A few rough patches were found on the lowers but overall, nice and clean.

Shifted back outside to remove the standing water from panel gaps, badges, wheels etc… Black Baron Vehicle Dryer in operation:

With the car bone-dry, we’re back inside and taking a look at the paint defects:

 

[Jimmeh]

Certainly room for improvement – even with a ‘Minor’ correction detail…

Paint thickness readings were healthy. Averaging ~160um throughout.

Readings were a little higher than usually high up on the O/S rear quarter/C-pillar:

Blown-in perhaps from the repair work done on the bumper below?

Starting with Menzerna 203s (Power Finish) on a 3M yellow polishing pad:

50/50 on the O/S door:

Correction was good although I struggled with the larger polishing pad. A great percentage of the correction throughout was done with small spot pads. Why? The Continental is one curvaceous vehicle! (It’s tough with large pads (especially with firmer polishing pads) to ‘flow’ with the lines of the body if curvy and ‘arched’.)

A white Hexlogic spot pad was used on the lower O/S rear quarter and gave good results. Before/After:

Examining the repair work on the O/S corner of the bumper (Not the best!)

As the sun bounced off a nearby window, I completed the drivers’ door and the rear-wing:

Continuing with the tight spot pad work:

Before/After

A-pillar:

A general before and after:

…now with company!

Bonnet before/after and a 50/50:

Roof and little gloss-black spoiler corrected:

Gloss-black section on the boot lid corrected in much the same way (Menz IP 85RD 3.02 followed by 3M Ultrafina to remove machine hologramming)

Before/after:

And finalising the rear end…

 

[Jimmeh]

Rear light clusters polished with a yellow 3m spot pad and Menz 3.02.

Before/after:

Before/after:

Before packing away on Day 1, I put the bonnet through a two-step machine polish to further reduce the deeper marks spotted earlier on. (Still not 100%...)

Returning early on Day 2 and the sun is once again on our side:

Remember this?

After the minor correction:

Flip-reverse things and we’re now working down the N/S of the car.

Before/Afters:

Door 50/50:

*note to self, don’t leave product in direct-sun for prolonged periods as otherwise it expands!*

With the sides, bonnet, roof and a boot out the way it was time to work the bumpers.

More repair shots on the back end (now corrected)

Before:

…but no after I’m afraid (by the time I’d completed the polishing set and found the camera the sun had moved – D’oh!)

The front end suffering from stone chips and kamikaze bugs.

Before/After:

Headlights lightly polished to remove tarnishing.

Left side (O/S) not polished. Right side (N/S) polished.

Machine work complete.

Due to the dust build-up, the car was rinsed off before moving on to the IPA wipe and protection.

Water was then sheeted over the panels with an open hose for the final rinse – doing this effectively makes the car self-drying!

Before/after:

 

[Jimmeh]

Much less water to collect with the drying towel and easier to ‘dab’ dry as opposed to running the risk of wiping it dry and inducing marring.

Once blown dry again to remove excess standing water, an IPA wipe was given to remove any polishing oils and BlackFire’s Wet Diamond All Finish Paint Protection was applied.

External britework (grille, badges etc) polished with Jeffs Prime.

Before/after

Although very time consuming (and haven left me with a square finger!) it cleaned up nicely.

Exhausts tidied. Wheels cleansed and protected with Jeffs. Tyres dressed. Glass cleaned. A final wipedown and we’re done.

The following shots were captured the morning after due to a cancellation on an e46 BMW Tourer.

Sun-gun shots showing correction levels:

And outside,

 

[Jimmeh]

Thank you.

Jim.

 

[Smoothie]

cracking work there mate

 

[PH1L]

nice work next time youre at one of the meets ill have to have a chinwag about compounds etc with ya, also thanks for throwing in the pussy pic, A S is quite partial to pussy

 

[N8]

Fantastic work/report/writeup/pics as usual, was truly in a poor state to start with.

 

[S4twiggy]

excellent work as always jim, one day i will get my hands on this type of vehicle. brilliant stuff mate!!

 

[thebott]

brilliant !

 

[Jimmeh]

Cheers all!!

Bit of a teaser as to what I've been playing with today,

 

[crazypainter]

Awesome !! Can you let me know what that costs please? PM if you wish.

 

[CHRIS555]

Fantastic!