# Rs Focus Concours Detail



## HeavenlyDetail (Sep 22, 2006)

Today my mate Dave came round with his RS Focus....

It was his 21st so i wanted to make sure that the car was ultimatly perfect for him ready for Fast Ford in a months time....

The car upon arrival in the worlds worst week for terrential downpours....










The first thing to do was to spray the arches with Apc diluted 4:1 and then mix up a good strong mixture of snow foam to give it a chance in the wet conditions....I decided to mix about 150% of my normal mixture topped with about half a centimeter of zymol autowash to give it a really shaving foamy feel to try and make it last longer...










The car was then bathed.....



















and left to dwell for around 5 minutes...










Before being sprayed off.....










Then using a two bucket method using Zymol autowash ....










i continued to wash the car in straight lines.....










Once the car was washed i decided to work on the wheels with Zymol wheel cleaner because these rs focus wheels seem really delicate compared to most and even hd cleanse i tried a few days earlier had actually taken off some of the coating......I can only presume that this is a problem with the wheel itself and not the product...










Using my wheel brush i proceeded to work away at the insides which were covered with road grime but not to bad with pitting or tar....










The owner treats this car with care and only takes it out at weekends and very rarely in the rain......










I always pay particular attention to the weights as they drive me mad if i cannot read the numbers on them.....Does anyone else find this?










Ok so the wheels are finished so its on to the clay...I decided on sonus green simply because Dave takes good care of the car and there wasnt much contamination on the bodywork at all.....










Then using Zymol autowash as my claylube i clayed the car but didnt feel much pickup at all.....










And the clay bar at the end....










I then changed the water in the soapy bucket and washed again .....










The car was then sprayed off.....










Before pouring 50 litres of ro water over it to help with the drying and wing mirror drips issues.....










The car was then dried using Megs Last Touch as a drying aid.....










and drag dried.....










Once the car was dryed i inspected the paintwork under fluo lighting to find that actually this was going to be a very long day.....The car was not in good condition and had got some serious swirling and contamination possibly from a previous owner....




























Infact knowing the reputation Rs paintwork has i knew i would need all my products today and a fair few cd,s.... :lol:










I then decided to mask the car up.....










Ok first i decided to do a test panel and started with a megs pro polishing pad with menz 3.02 and found that after 2 passes i was barely takeing the swirls away......










I then decided to try a sonus fx-1 pad using menz again and found that this again was not really making an impression so tried a 4" pad and found this to be better.....










Ireally didnt want to rush this as i wanted it perfect so worked a touch with this combination before ultimatly moving upto a megs pro cutting pad which after 2 passes worked a treat but it took a while and much sweating... :lol:










Now i realise i could have gone upto powergloss but i really didnt want to try this on this car so decided to stick with the combination i was using and i felt that it also left the paintwork lsp ready.......

These were the sort of roof scratches i was trying to get out.....



















So after nearly 2 hours just on the back end i started with this.....










a paintwork i would personally call kryptonite (comments please??) and ended up with this.....










Next Dave had some hd cleanse which i said i would use and let him have some of my concours as he had only ever used carbon before on another car.....










So i proceeded to apply it to the car panel at a time before buffing off each panel.....










Whilst i was doing this i was also doing a wheel at a time to get my timing right as i wanted to apply the wax and have 20 minutes for the Jetseal 109 to bond with the wheels for ultimate protection.....










Jumping ahead slightly but the wheels buffed up to a nice shine inside and out.....










So onto the wax.....Concours was the order of the day although i feel the colour would have also suited a glaze / sealent combo....










This was how much i used for the bonnet .....










which i then applied by hand.....



















and gently buffed off after approximately 2 minutes due to the weather.....



















THE RESULTS








































































































































AND MY WALKROUND VIDEO


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## Epoch (Jul 30, 2006)

Just lovely mate the car work and write up.

I take it the Jetseal was kind to the wheels, dodgy if even HD was taking the coating off


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## Ducky (Mar 19, 2007)

Woohoo, real nice job there fella and lovin' the step by step pictures! :thumb:


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## Trist (Jun 23, 2006)

Looks fantastic Marc :thumb: brilliant


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## A20 LEE (Feb 20, 2007)

Very nice job, RS Focus at 21. Lucky!


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## Wozza (Mar 3, 2007)

Very nice :thumb: Good correction :thumb: 
I am hoping to try some Zymol on my car soon, perhaps at the Nottingham meet this weekend. Jetseal 109 is also my wheel coating of choice, nothing else seems to come close.


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## waxy (Feb 27, 2006)

Very nice work,great colour rendition from the Concours; i bet the owner was very pleased


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## Richy888 (Mar 18, 2007)

Awsome work :thumb: 

Well worth the effort


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## navylynx (Jan 12, 2007)

Very very nice, beautiful finish on an awesome car. Lovin' that colour too.:thumb:


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## giarc (Feb 8, 2006)

Nice job, good photography too


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## dw0510 (Oct 22, 2006)

Lovely work is that aZymol wheel brush?


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## ianFRST (Sep 19, 2006)

pull the tags off the MF cloths 

good work


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## Bigpikle (May 21, 2007)

another cracker - car and detail.


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## Tiauguinho (May 1, 2007)

Very nice writeup, enjoyed to read! Lovely finish :thumb:

I'm curious to what wheel brush that is (I'm going crazy with the Meguiars one since it splatters all over the damn place).


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## 360modena (Jun 24, 2007)

Is it possible to know wich mark and type of microfibre do u use during the different step?

-Drying
-cleaning wax


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## Brazo (Oct 27, 2005)

Very nice Marc! How long did it take you in total on that hard, hard paint!


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## Summit Detailing (Oct 9, 2006)

very nice indeed:thumb: ..lovely colour for a spot of Concours action


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## ash_xt (Apr 22, 2007)

great results  and my dream car... hopefully will own one after this one at the moment, just awsome machines!!  biased maybe but hey lol


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## Detail My Ride (Apr 19, 2006)

Awesome


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## Rasher (Mar 6, 2006)

Cracking Job


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## RobDom (Oct 26, 2005)

Nice work on a nice car. What is 'ro water' out of curiousity?


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## donnyboy (Oct 27, 2005)

Another great car, great detail and great write up.

Fantastic..:thumb:


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## gerry connelly (Nov 16, 2006)

Wow, must be a contender for the June Competition!!


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## wfenix (May 13, 2007)

as usual marc the zymol making great work of the finish still dont think theres much to beat the menz polish though, great work pics and write up mate


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## Thomas-182 (Mar 5, 2006)

Lovely job, that RS looks fantastic.


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## Richy888 (Mar 18, 2007)

RobDon said:


> Nice work on a nice car. What is 'ro water' out of curiousity?


Reverse Osmosis Water :thumb: Water than dries without the water marks


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## CK888 (Apr 23, 2006)

Great job and finish there:thumb:


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## Dave KG (Feb 23, 2006)

Excellent results there and a great writeup of the process - Concours giving a lovely deep shine on the blue! :thumb:


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## Mark M (Nov 29, 2006)

Proper mint job.

Love your attention to detail on the wheels, and the pics certainly do the whole car justice


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## wd40 (Jun 20, 2007)

NIce work mate:thumb:


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## msm (May 24, 2007)

Nice work but why put the bike on the Roof!!!!?? LOL HEHEH


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## BMW^Z4 (May 15, 2007)

great job


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## GlynRS2 (Jan 21, 2006)

A fantastic detail and write up :thumb:

The video walk around shows off the quality of the finish really well


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## Imperial-blue-rs (Oct 1, 2006)

That does look very very nice indeed, you could almost dive in!
Great write up and the step by step pics help too.

Just a quick question?
How long did it take start to finish?

I found doing mine a real pain in the ****, the paint is so easy to mark, just softly running your nail over it will leave a mark! 
But trying to get the swirls out even with a polish with quite a cut still struggles even tho its soft paint apparently?
Shouldn't it be easier to correct in this case?

Anyhow once again fantastic job, bet he was well chuffed with the finish.


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## Frank (May 21, 2007)

Awesome shine mate!


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## Richy888 (Mar 18, 2007)

Imperial-blue-rs said:


> I found doing mine a real pain in the ****, the paint is so easy to mark, just softly running your nail over it will leave a mark!
> But trying to get the swirls out even with a polish with quite a cut still struggles even tho its soft paint apparently?
> Shouldn't it be easier to correct in this case?
> 
> Anyhow once again fantastic job, bet he was well chuffed with the finish.


Same with the Astra  You scratch it by closing the door with your fingertips!!  But it is a pain to get marks out of  It beats me


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## NKS (Feb 22, 2007)

Awesome write up Marc and fantastic reflections!

I have just ordered some Concours and now i know roughly how much i will use, so thanks!


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## Roman (Jun 14, 2007)

Excellent job.

What mix of Autowash did you use for claying?


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## HeavenlyDetail (Sep 22, 2006)

Thanks guys....

Ok unfortunatly this rs took me around 11 hours in total as i started at 8am and finished around 7 pm but i loved doing it from start to finish and i have to agree that concours made the bonnet so deep i just couldnt imagine any thing better to be honest.......

I use approximately a capful of autowash to a litre of water and shake....

Ok cloths...

I rarely use anything now other than aquatouch drying towel , zymol microfibres , sonus polish and sonus buffing cloth......For a final wipedown with field glaze or detail spray i use sonus concours towel....:thumb: 

David was over the moon with it and is hoping to show it at Fast Ford in August so i have told him to come round just before and we can have some more fun with it and slap another layer on and field glaze the hell out of it......

I LOVE RS,s........


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## nighty (Jan 28, 2007)

graet write up and great results love the rs's to bits very rare now as well.
Every write up you do mate is amazing not a detail missed out great work.


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## Guest (Jun 27, 2007)

nice job mate looks real good!!:thumb:


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## JJ_ (Oct 26, 2005)

Thats a great detail, you have a very particular eye, very impressed.


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## bazz (May 15, 2007)

good job


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## Phil H (May 14, 2006)

very nice indeed! excellent write up! i did a focus RS a while back and yes the paint is hard as fook!!


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## Curtiz (Aug 11, 2006)

awsome! really love ur threads  very detailed!

"Before pouring 50 litres of ro water over it to help with the drying and wing mirror drips issues"

can i ask what is ro water?


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## drnh (Jun 2, 2006)

Another cracker from Zymol Marc 

Daz


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## HeavenlyDetail (Sep 22, 2006)

Hey Love chems guy as much you know...:lol:


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## ash_xt (Apr 22, 2007)

got a new comment on this one.... my work collegue who sits next to me looks at a few of the cars on here when he pears over to see why i'm on the net lol... and he turns round and says "hey that is the best i've seen on there yet!!"


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## HeavenlyDetail (Sep 22, 2006)

Cool....:thumb:


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## Vag_Dave (Jun 14, 2007)

Great Car, Great Job!!


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## james_RScos (Mar 13, 2006)

Great work, know Dave well he's been on about having his car detailed for ages glad to see its happened at last top detailing mate.


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## Ultimate (Feb 18, 2007)

nice job!!

where can you get wheel brush like that looks smaller than most i have found could do with one for my ST?


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## HeavenlyDetail (Sep 22, 2006)

james_RScos said:


> Great work, know Dave well he's been on about having his car detailed for ages glad to see its happened at last top detailing mate.


James will be at fast ford sunday probably wearing a vxr team shirt so say hello.......


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## *MAGIC* (Feb 22, 2007)

great detail marc as always


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## tm_dw (Apr 24, 2007)

Awesome work!

I'm surprised that after using the (PC with) Megs cutting pad you had no hazing and had a LSP ready finish. Consensus over at MOL is that the W7006 will cause hazing and you'll have to follow up with something less aggressive - W8006.

I've worked on hard VWAG finishes and avoided using the cutting pad.

Any comments?


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## BMcN (Jan 7, 2007)

tm_dw said:


> Awesome work!
> 
> I'm surprised that after using the (PC with) Megs cutting pad you had no hazing and had a LSP ready finish. Consensus over at MOL is that the W7006 will cause hazing and you'll have to follow up with something less aggressive - W8006.
> 
> ...


The paint on the FRS is* very* hard, hence why they are normally peppered in stone chips.


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## Finerdetails (Apr 30, 2006)

great job Marc.

I have found the RS ranges do tend to be harder than the normal ford range...

Might be time to invest in a rotary mate 

I've done three back to back hard paint jobs, each having to use a light cut pad, menz IP and the rotary at speeds between 1500 and 1800 rpm. Paint cooking levels


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## V8burble (Jul 3, 2007)

Nothing that hasn't been said already... great work as always Marc :thumb: 

Thanks for sharing


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## wookey (Jul 13, 2007)

excellent write up :thumb: 

brilliant results


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