I've done quite a few updates this year:
- Alpine upgrade – a must if you have the standard speaker package
- 313M wheel refurb – previous owner painted them shadow chrome. Exel wheels (who use Lepsons) returned them to their factory diamond cut and ferric grey finish.
- Michelin Pilot Supersports all round – Exel wheels supplied and fitted these too at the same time and Camskills supply only price by £36.
- 12mm spacers all round – car now has the perfect stance and the wheels fill out the arches nicely
- BMW Performance Exhaust – The best way to describe it is – “growling and roaring at low revs with howling crescendos at higher revs”. It has a very E46 M3 sound to it, has lots of nice low speed burble and zero drone.
- Sliding armrest retrofit
… and a much needed detail:
I've been wanting to do detail on my car for the last month or so, but the ridiculous amounts of snow that we received at the end of March delayed this somewhat. With a few days off work over Easter, the sun coming out (albeit still very cold!!) and a recently refurbished set of summer wheels back on the car, now felt like the perfect time to give the car some much needed attention.
Again, I decided against using any corrective cutting compound to polish the paint, as the paint is in pretty good condition with little swirl marks or defects. When I was given the Blackfire wax a few weeks ago to try out and having already got the rest of the kit, I couldn’t wait to try and get the well renowned Blackfire Wet Ice Over Fire finish. A good wash and clay, polish with the non-abrasive Blackfire Polish & Blackfire Sealant, an application of Blackfire Midnight Sun Paste Wax and to finish with a coating of Blackfire instant detailer. A range of Auto-finesse products were used also like, Obiltarate, Crystal, Iron out and tyre gloss.
I won’t bore you all with the details, but I did the usual two bucket wash, with a lamb’s wool mitt for the bodywork, microfiber for the wheels and a detailing brush for the shuts, grilles etc. Contamination was removed with a combination of the iron out, obliterate and a clay bar. The polish and sealant was applied using a DA polisher and the wax/ instant detailer was applied by hand. For finishing touches I cleaned all the glass with Crystal, applied Poorboys sealant to the wheels and applied tyre gloss. A new product that I’ve recently acquired is the Nanolex Trim Rejuvenator, which I applied to the diffuser and fog light plastics. This restored the factory satin finish from the horrible aged finish that was seen before.
Having a lovely leather interior that I spend so much time in, I wanted to really treat it! So out came the Swissvax leather cleaning kit which did a superb job at restoring the leather to a factory like matt finish. Interior plastics were treated to Aerospace 303 and the Individual wood trims were treated to Swissvax Wood Polish. Naturally, the usual vacuuming process took place before this and the carpets/ trims were cleaned with Auto Finesse Total
Overall I'm very happy with my work - the true beauty of the metallic paintwork has been brought to life, the lines of the car have never been so prominent and the Blackfire products have given the car a real wet look. A bit of sun really brings the metallic finish to life too with plenty of flake pop!!
