# Refined Detail - BMW Z4 Coupe with added Zaino



## Refined Detail (Nov 27, 2006)

Hello All,

Apologies for the lack of write up's of late - things are still flat out at RD towers - a lot of maintenance and also a lot of leather repairs which I hope to be able to post a few photos of later this month.

As always you can keep up to date with my day to day movements on Facebook and Twitter!

The last 2 days has seen me back behind the rotary on this Z4 coupe - I originally quoted this back in January but due to various reasons it's only just been able to get the TLC it deserves!

Booked in for a major enhancement / mild correction detail with Zaino as LSP, along with an interior detail and engine bay tidy.

Upon arrival yesterday in less than ideal weather conditions:























































Overall, not too bad, just a bit grubby around the edges - initial inspection of the paintwork back in January didn't look too bad either (how wrong could I be!! - more on that later)

First up was the engine bay; cleaned and degreased with Autosmart G101 using various brushes, rinsed off and blown dry with the hot air dryer. Plastics dressed with Autosmart Rubber & Plastic dressing (excess buffed off the following day) metal work tidied with Autosmart Tango, and small runs of transport wax addressed with Autosmart Tardis:



















The owner also asked me to debadge the car, so this was done prior to the wash stage:



















Heatgun on low setting to soften the adhesive:



















and Autosmart Tardis to remove the remaining glue - just requiring some polishing later:



















Next up the tyres and arches were thoroughly cleaned with Autosmart G101 and various brushes, and the wheels with Autosmart Smart Wheels (no photos at this stage as you've seen that time and time before!)

Autosmart Hazsafe was then applied to the paintwork to soften the dirt and left to dwell whilst I filled the buckets before being rinsed off:










before a final pre rinse of ValetPro Orange PreWash through the foam lance was applied, nooks and crannies agitated with a detail brush:










and fiddly bits on the wheels with a cotton bud:










rinsed off and then thoroughly washed using ValetPro Concentrated Car Shampoo using the 2 bucket method, grit guards and lambswool mitt.

Re-rinsed and dried with Miracle Driers.

The first thing that became immediately apparent was the reasonably recent smart repair showing through on the rear quarter :doublesho

I'd noticed a fair bit of compound splattered around prior to touching the car at all, it'd appear that the polish had been masking the wet sanding marks rather than removing them though:










this was gently hand polished with Megs 105 on a Lake Country applicator pad and later machined with Megs 205 on a 3M black pad via the rotary:










On to the decontamination stage (taking care to avoid the above section!) First up, CarPro Iron-X:




























Followed by Autosmart Tardis, re-rinsed, then finally clayed with Bilt Hamber regular clay, using the rain, and Autosmart Reglaze as lube:










Re-rinsed again, and dried using Miracle Driers and the hot aid dryer (as the drizzle had finally subsided!)

Now at this point, photos stopped as plans went out the window! The usual pad & polish combinations I've found to work very well on previous Z4's were failing to touch the paintwork on this - which matched with Scott from Beau Techniques findings on a recent silver Z4 he worked on too - for some reason, solely silver ones seem to be rock solid!

I found it impossible to capture any defects, but the car was pretty severely swirled - a far cry from how it appeared a couple of months back, but I have a feeling the thorough decontamination stages removed all traces of filling products revealing the true condition.

I worked my way up through combinations and ended up with Megs 105 on a Festool wool pad - even after 5 passes and ~6 microns removed, there were a fair few swirls and RDS remaining, but I cut it off at that to leave scope for future work and to keep with in our original timescale and budget. This was later refined with Megs 205 on a 3M black pad leaving the paintwork looking a lot healthier with a great depth and gloss restored.

Paintwork was prepped for Zaino via Chemical Guys EZ Creme Glaze, then treated to 3 coats of ZF-X'd Z2:










(with Z6 wipe downs between each coat)

and topped with a final coat of Z8.

Wheels and door shuts were sealed with Zaino CS:



















and glass with the Carlack twins:










Exhausts made presentable (the best I could achieve) with Britemax twins and fine wire wool:



















Up next was the interior, again not too shabby, but requiring a bit of attention in places:










A thorough hoover was up first, followed by all plastics cleaned with Megs APC (including all air vents etc with little swabs etc):










Leather with Dr Leather wipes:










and mats shampooed with Autosmart Brisk Low Foam:










and a quick spray of Chemical Guys New Car Scent:










leaving:










Internal glass cleaned with Espuma Crystal Blue, tyres dressed with FinishKare Top Kote Tire Dressing, honeycomb mesh with Aerospace 303, arches with Autosmart Rubber & Plastic, and I think we're about there:













































































































Another vehicle ready for the Refined Detail 'seal of approval' :lol:










As ever, thanks for looking,

Rich @ Refined Detail


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## Gleammachine (Sep 8, 2007)

Some of the toughest paint I've worked on has all been on Z4M's, ceramic clearcoat for you. Still enjoy working on this shape though.
Nice work Rich.:thumb:


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## Beau Technique (Jun 21, 2010)

Looks real crisp and well worth all the aggro and hard work buddy.


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## The_Bouncer (Nov 24, 2010)

Looks great - heard that before about the Z4 paint - nice touch on the windae sticker

:O)


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## Refined Detail (Nov 27, 2006)

Gleammachine said:


> Some of the toughest paint I've worked on has all been on Z4M's, ceramic clearcoat for you. Still enjoy working on this shape though.
> Nice work Rich.:thumb:


Thanks Rob 

I knew they are / were ceramic clearcoat so are tougher as a result, but can't quite understand how other colours I've worked on have been fine to correct, yet this silver was just ridiculous! Have you found that at all?


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## 888-Dave (Jul 30, 2010)

Very nice mate, shame about the weather though, just makes thing a little harder than they need to be eh...

Camera doing your work justice :thumb: Canon?


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## stefstef (Mar 20, 2011)

Nice work mate
Fantastic colour for Z4


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## uzi-blue (Mar 16, 2011)

Great job, car looks amazing.


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## Refined Detail (Nov 27, 2006)

Thanks all!

Dave -yeh that's the downside to being solely mobile obviously, but due to covering such a large area and a large percentage of my clients using me because I'm mobile, it's difficult to change that! The weather always keeps me on my toes :lol:

And thanks for the comment re. photos! I still struggle to capture ones I'm happy with! It's just a Fuji FinePix bridge camera - want to upgrade to an SLR in the future though.


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## 888-Dave (Jul 30, 2010)

Mate, if your getting those kind of pics with a Fuji your doing very well.

I had one, a S8100 or something. compared to a friends EOS it was like using a stick of chalk and a black board, couldn't get on with it at all.


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## tonyy (Jul 26, 2008)

Fantastic car..


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## Refined Detail (Nov 27, 2006)

Thanks guys, much appreciated.


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## RandomlySet (Jul 10, 2007)

looks much better


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## NorthernNick (Mar 23, 2011)

beautiful beautiful BEAUTIFUL car! wanted one of these for a long time, thanks for posting


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## kempe (Jan 9, 2011)

Nice work there :thumb:


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## Rowan83 (Aug 21, 2007)

Absolutely stunning results, I can't get over how clean that engine bay is! :thumb:


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## 3976 (Nov 20, 2006)

Fell in love with this shape a while ago. Not sure silver shows it off, but we're not here to comment!

Great work!


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## gally (May 25, 2008)

Love it in Silver mate, not a boring colour when combined with the correct shape I must say. 

Nice write up. Thanks for posting.


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## 3976 (Nov 20, 2006)

Disagree you Northern wee lad 

But agreed'ed on the correct shape!


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## The Cueball (Feb 8, 2007)

Lovely work there....

Do you notice if your zfx'd z2 gets thicker, and becomes quite hard to get out of the smaller bottle?!?!?! 

:thumb:


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## Refined Detail (Nov 27, 2006)

Thanks for all the kind words guys 

I personally quite like them in silver - I don't see many in it - usually black or the jade green they do!

And Cueball; yes it's a PITA - the little bottles are too hard to squeeze!


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## Grizzle (Jul 12, 2006)

Cracking job Rich


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