I just recently completed a 20+ hour detail on a 2000 BMW 740i. The original plan was to spend about 15 hours but the results wouldn't have been satisfactory for both the client or myself, so I put in some extra time to exceed expectations. The car was just bought from a private seller and brought to me the next day. The car has 112k miles on it and based on the condition of the car it was never really maintained. The front left tire was heavily covered in rust. Some areas as thick as heavy posterboard. (Only thing I could think of to compare it in thickness too lol). According to the previous owner the car was driven and wore the brake pad down completely to the metal. Supposedly the car was still driven causing the metal on metal to cause huge amounts of metal rust particles. This rust was all over the car in the clearcoat down the entire drivers side and even around to the back and there was some on the passenger side but no where near as much.

Due to the customers budget and time I had available to work on the car the main focus was to clean up the car first focusing on the interior, metal/rust particles embedded into the clear and the heavily contaminated wheel and to correct the paint.

Car was washed with CG Citrus using Glimour Foam Gun and CG Maxi Suds II using two bucket method. This had no effect on the rust embedded in the car. The only thing that worked was some aggressive claying. Thank goodness for detail clay. I was only able to do a one step correction due to time. I went with surbuf pads on a PC DA using M205 as this seemed to be the best combination. Because the car is a daily driver paint correction wasn't the number one priority but I was happy with the results and so was the client. Tailights and headlights were wet sanded and then polished. Interior leather was conditioned using leatheriqe and all interior surfaces were protected with 303 aerospace protectant. All of the before and after pics can be found at www.firstplacedetailing.com

www.photobucket.com/bigblue740i

 

Nice work. Any reason why you didn't remove the wheels and clean the inner barrels?

 

Part of the reason was due to all of that rust that was baked into the paint and face of the one wheel that took around an extra 6 hours and mainly the owners budget. Between the paint and the one wheel that was completely caked on the outside, it took at least an extra 6 hours of work to get it cleaned without damaging the wheel or paint. I explained to the owner that I didn't remove the wheels but I don't think he cared because he was selling the car anyways. I probably could of spent less time on removing all of the rust particles from the paint and the owner would of been just as happy but my OCD for perfection got the best of me.

 

That's some great work, especially on those wheels! I thought they were bronze the first time I looked at them!!

 

Incredible turn around of those wheels!

 

wow nice job! If you don't mind me asking, how much would this cost someone?

 

As for the price it all comes down to each individual detailer. A company might charge less but you might not get as good of results. Then there are guys like me that aren't in it for pure profit. For this car I charged $650. I would say most places though that have storefronts are probably around $75 an hour that will produce similar results. Just don't be fooled by someone that advertises using words like hand wash and hand applied wax or high speed buffing. From my experience these are the guys that usually do a rush job and do more damage to the paint than when the car was brought in. To an average person this sounds good because most people don't use/own buffers and it's assumed that a hand wash is safer for the car.