Congratulations to Tim Hardisty of Salisbury for winning our February show n shine. Having recently purchased the new Meguiars G220 Dual Action Polishing Machine and a boxful of other detailing goodies from us, Tim decided to tackle his wife's 10 year old Nissan Micra ahead of his own Subaru Impreza Type 20 - not only did this earn him valuable brownie points, but it also served as a trial run before taking the machine to the Impreza!

As you can see in the pictures below, Tim had his work cut out. Being the family run around, the car had not been washed more than a dozen times in ten years, and everything was suffering - the engine bay was full of leaves and grime, the interior was tired and dust covered, and the bodywork was looking exceedingly dull, with numerous scrapes and dings from car park abuse. Speaking of parking problems, the cracked and scuffed wheel trims were also binned at this point, to be replaced with new items at the end of the detail.

After a high pressure wash to get rid of loose surface grime, the wheel arches and engine bay were sprayed with Meguiars Super Degreaser and left to soak for 10 minutes or so. The whole care was then foamed with Autobrite Super Snow Foam using an Autobrite foam lance attached to a Karcher pressure washer. After rinsing off, the exterior was then hand washed with Poorboys Super Slick & Suds Concentrated Car Wash and a Meguiars Lambswool Wash Mitt, using the two bucket method. To complete the wash stage, Tim rinsed the car off again (including the wheel arches and engine bay) and then dried everything off with a Poorboys Waffle Weave Towel.

The next task was to remove 10 years worth of bonded contaminants from the bodywork using a clay bar, and as you can imagine this was quite a task. So bad in fact, that Tim destroyed his clay bar doing it! With the paint now decontaminated and taped up ready for machine polishing, the question was what polish to use? Tim had bought a triple pack of Menzerna polishes (originally recommended for the harder paint on the Subaru), and opted to start out cautiously with 106FA on a Lake Country CCS Technology Light Cut Pad, due to Nissan paint usually being quite soft. Spreading the polish at speed 2 and then working it at speed 5 as per our recommendations produced good results and broke the polish down very well - so well in fact that no further polishing stage was required. Instead, Tim opted to apply a final coat of Menzerna One Step Acrylic Jacket, in order to refine the finish and add a nice layer of sealant protection.

To complete the detail, the tyres and under bonnet plastics were dressed with a coat of Blackfire Long Lasting Tyre Gel, and the exhaust tip was brightened up with Autosol Metal Polish applied using fine wire wool. The interior was vacuumed, and the dashboard and other plastic surfaces cleaned with Tesco Value All Purpose Cleaner before being dressed with Poorboys Trim Restorer. The glass was finally cleaned inside and out with Meguiars NXT Glass Cleaner, and the new wheel trims fitted. As you can see below, all of the hard work has paid off, with the little 10 year old Nissan looking like a different car now, with many more years of service left in it. Our congratulations to Tim on a sterling effort - well done mate!