In this installment I will be detailing our family sedan, a 2004 Pontiac Bonneville. The color is Crimson Tintcoat which was a premier color for the 2004 and 2005 Pontiac Bonneville. I will be using top shelf boutique sealer and wax for the protection. The polish is manufactured by Menzerna for German clearcoat cars. The German cars have a hard clearcoat as does the Pontiac Bonneville. I like the way Menzerna corrects paint and the ease of use. Your results may very.

The total time I spent working on the car was close to 25 hours spread out over 4 days. I am fortunate to have a garage and an understanding wife.

In January of this year our Pontiac Transport blew an engine and we chose not to fix it. The Bonneville was a third car but now became my wife'* daily driver to and from school. I was expecting the paint to be worse off than what it was so I felt pretty good going into the detail of the car.

The first step was to wash the car with Zaino Z16 and claybar with Pinnacle Poly Clay. I like to make note of problem areas when claying a car so I know what will need to be corrected. The wash mitt is called the Wookie mitt and for a good reason. It holds about a half gallon of water.



These first pics show some of the marring and spider webbing on the hood of the car. Better than I thought it would be.











When getting ready to determine what I need to do in order to fix the paint problem I like to mark off a section of the paint with tape.



I run a bead of polish on the outside portion of the pad.



Then I just tap the pad to the paint in 3 or 4 places to deposit polishing compound for use when polishing the area.



I like to work the polish over the area 4 times using a top to bottom pass, a back and forth pass and two diagonal passes. This ensures that the paint is being fully polished. Below is the section with the paint corrected.





For this detail I needed to use Menzerna Micro polish with an orange pad and Menzerna PO85RD polish with a blue pad. I removed the polish from the section after the pass for each polish compound with a green microfiber towel. Once I finished polishing the car I wiped it down the entire car with a solution of 50% Denatured Alcohol and 50% distilled water, also known as IPA wipe down.. About a pint of each is enough. This ensures that all the polish residue is removed. You may also elect to wash the car at this time instead of the IPA wipe down. I used a green microfiber towel that was rung out almost to a dry state



The next step was to apply 3 coats of Zaino Z2Pro with a terrycloth pad. This process took 2 days. I waited 12 hours from the secon coat to the 3rd coat of Zaino. Even with 2 coats of Zaino the reflection is pretty strong.



This next shot is with 3 coats of Zaino and 1 coat of Pinnacle Souverän™ Carnauba Paste Wax.



I had to wait 24 hours for the first coat of Pinnacle to cure before applying the second coat. I also applied a wipe down using Wolfgang Instant Spritz Detailer to remove any solvents from the Pinnacle wax. I applied the Pinnacle wax with the random orbital buffer and a red pad. I wiped the wax on to the red pad using a foam wax pad. The wax goes a long way so I did not need a lot of the wax. The jar says there is enough wax for 30 coats and that appears to b true.



While waiting for the wax to cure I polished the exhaust tips on an old free standing buffer using a buffing compound and a sisal wheel. The tips were dirty but cleaned up well.





I also cleaned the wheels and tires using Zaino Z16 and DP Wheel Glaze.



I also cleaned the interior using the following products:
Woolite heavy traffic on the carpet and floor mats.
303 Aerospace Protectant on the weather seals and other rubber/vynal parts.
DP Krystal Vision on the glass surfaces.
Optimum Leather Protectant on the dash trim panels.
Leatherique on all the leather surfaces.
Pledge on the wood trim.



And last I polished the front windshield using Zaino Z12. I also applied Aquapel Rain Repellant.



Below are the pictures of the complete detail. I did not do a full engine bay detail but I did clean the highly visible items in the bay.

As always, great work. The car looks new. I'm sure it will be turning heads as it drives down the road.

Very nice! Looks like it just got out of a paint booth!

come do mine please

Filled up at the gas station yestersday and received comments. LOL

THX Dan. Wish it did not take so long to do. Being a family man yourself sometimes it is hard to devote more time to the car than the family. This detail was not so bad since both the wife and son were at school during the week.

I've done a lot of cars. I've already spent 8 hours on mine. Nice when strangers walk up and complement your car after all that work.

very good work, and i REALLY like your car, its nice to see other people who keep their cars looking good.

That'* just spectacular. Great job.

Great job, time well spent. Thanks for the educational post.

gbod