Leather Seats Detailed: GMC Canyon

A customer of mine bought these seats used for his truck and asked me to detail them before he installs them in his truck. The seats were used and it shows. There were tons of stains on the bench seat and the driver's seat, the passenger seat was in a better shape but not good by all means. Enough with the talking and let's get right to it. This is the passenger seat when I received it. 

I started by taping off one of the seats to do a 50/50 for comparison purposes. 

And here are the results after cleaning and conditioning half of the seat, pretty dramatic!

After I completed the detail on this seat and the driver's I moved on to do tr bench seat. Here's a before and after. 

Before:

Notice the circled stains!

After

And here's a 50/50 for comparison purposes.

Finally, I noticed that the belt receptacles are faded so I decided to restore them by cleaning the inside of the letters where it says "PRESS" and clean and condition the whole receptacle. Here's a before and after.

After

And here's a 50/50 for comparison purposes.

Thanks for reading! Please follow the blog and let me know if you have any questions or comments. 

Detailed: 2005 Acura MDX

I received this one on a short notice last weekend and I happened to be free. The owner wanted to have the car reconditioned as he decided to sell it. The car was in a bad condition, inside and out. Deep scratches, rust (nothing I can do there), caked brake dust, etc. but he focus was not on paint correction but more like getting the car back in shape so that it can be sold for a fair market value. The owner has 2 kids and the car was never detailed, so the interior was particularly in a bad shape.

As always I started by doing the wheels and tires. I scrubbed the tires and sprayed Adam's Deep Wheel Cleaner on the wheels. Here are some before, in process and after pictures:

Before:

In process:

After:

Next, the engine bay. I sprayed Adam's All Purpose Cleaner and slowly worked my fender brush over the different parts of the engine and used my detail brush to clean around small areas then I rinsed the whole bay down with just hose water (don't use pressure washer on the engine bay, especially on older cars). Finally, I applied Adam's SVRT for the plastic parts. Here's a before and after:

Before:

After:

Next, the exhaust tips. Surprisingly the tips were not in bad shape so minor metal polishing brought them back to life. 

Before:

After:

After the engine bay and wheels were done, it was time for some headlight restoration. The headlights were in such bad shape that visibility at night must have been minimal compared to what it was originally and to what it is now after the restoration

50/50 driver's side done:

Both headlights are done

After I polished the car (no pics, sorry!), it was time to take care of the interior. As stated before, the interior was a detailer's challenge full coffee stains, melted candy, food, papers, post it notes and more. I used my Ridgid Shop Vac, Mytee Vapor Steamer, Adam's Leather and Interior Cleaner and bunch of microfiber towels. Before and after pics of the interior:

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After:

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If you have any questions please let me know in the comments section below.

Detailed: 1988 Ford Mustang Saleen

This one was a referral from the client for whom I detailed the Audi last month. The customer wanted to me to do the engine bay, headlights, polish the rims and.......the undercarriage, not just wheelliners or mufflers but the whole bottom/belly of the car. Here are some shots of the car before I touched it.

I started with the wheels and polished the metal on lips after cleaning the wheels with All Purpose Cleaner. Here's a 50/50 shot (notice the mark line)

Next, the engine bay and used my Mytee Firebird steamer and my detailing brush to loosen the dirt and grime on the engine, cables, battery, etc. Here's a before and after shot

Before:

After:

After I was done with the engine bay I hit the headlights to try and bring them as close to new as possible. Keep in mind that these are 26 years old headlights. Here's a before and after.

Before:

After:

Then I started working on the carriage. The owner has a lift and I was working at his place so that made some of the work easier. I don't have a lot of after shots here because after I sprayed the undercarriage with All Purpose Cleaner and worked the steamer to dissolve some the grease and gunk, it was literally raining garbage on me from the bottom of the car, thank God I was wearing a cap! Here's a 50/50 shot of the muffler, one detailed and one not.

Finally, I started my favorite part which is paint correction. The car had minor scratches and swirl marks but they were so minor I couldn't really catch them with the car using the light in the garage and Energizer LED headband I have. I used Paint Correcting Polish, then glaze and finally some Americana paste wax. Here are some after shots.

As always hope you enjoyed the write-up and let me know in the comments section below if you have any questions.