"I've owned my BMW Z4 M Coupe since January 2009. I'm ashamed to say it's mainly used as a daily driver, and rarely sees entertaining sections of tarmac. However, during a spirited Pistonheads run, it sustained significant stone chip damage, necessitating a full front end respray.

After the respray, I sought the savvy advice of the team at Polished Bliss. Being local, I was able to wander the Aladdin’s cave of products that is their warehouse and I inevitably came out with far more than I required for the task in hand! The detail itself was carried out over three days, and amounted to about 21 hours of work in total.

The car was initially pressure washed and foamed with G101 at 50 °C to remove the majority of loose grime. Following a dwelling period of 10 minutes, I worked my way around the car using copious amounts of G101 to clean around the grills, shuts, seals and badges. Once the bodywork was clean, I raised the car onto axle stands to allow proper access to the arches. Again, these were pressure washed at 50 °C and then cleaned with Meguiar's Super Degreaser, Autosmart Tardis and various brushes.

The wheels were treated to a similar process, albeit with the addition of Wolf's Chemicals Decon Gel; a new product to my detailing collection. Whilst no iron was identified on the wheels, following a recent refurbishment, the arches and hubs showed large deposits, and these were wiped away with an old towel. The final stage in the cleaning process was careful claying and refitting of the wheels (following a good coat of sealant).

On completion of the wash process, defects associated with poor finishing from the bodyshop were obvious. A number of polish/pad combinations were tried and I eventually settled on a Meguiar's Cutting Pad and Menzerna 3.02, with an extra splash of 3M Fast Cut Plus here and there. This gave ~85% correction on the original panels and a near flawless finish on the recently sprayed parts.

After compounding, I pressure washed the car again to remove all of the dust and then refined the finish using Poorboy's Black Hole (one of my favourite products for dark coloured cars) and a Meguiar's Finishing Pad. This process took no more than a couple of hours. The final stage was to apply protection in the form of a coat of Swissvax Saphir, which gives a really glossy look.

To complete the detail, the carpets and mats were vacuumed and cleaned with G101, and then sealed using 303 High Tech Fabric Guard. All trim were dressed with Poorboy's Natural Look Dressing. Another new product was used to treat the seats; Raceglaze Leather Balm, which gave a nice finish without the oily look I’ve seen from a number of other products.

To mark the completion of the detail and all the hard work that went into it, the bad weather temporarily broke and it stopped raining for long enough to allow me to take some pictures. I enjoyed this detail immensely and can’t praise the products used enough; they certainly eased the process."