I am impressed that my local Audi dealer has a few S3's as loaner vehicles. I had my SQ5 in for a 55k service and received a virtually brand new silver S3 for the day. What a fun car. Apart from some slight turbo lag at launch, the car is a rocket. I prefer the SQ5, but if the time ever comes to pick up a second car, I'd have to take a long hard look at the S3.

A friend of mine purchased a pre-owned 435i X-Drive with the exclusive ZHP package. I say exclusive since only 100 were made. It's a beautiful car. He brought it over today to have some little details dealt with. There were a few rim rash spots on the passenger rear and driver's front wheel as well as some significant scuffs in the 3M clear on the hood. I used a propane torch to correct the scuffs, and used some semi-gloss paint to touch up the rim rash. I touched up some obvious blemishes in the paint with my Rupes Mini and iBrid, but I will do a full paint correction/polish in the Spring. If you want to learn a little about the ZHP, click here.  

I had a few days to detail a friend's white Nissan Murano.  I spent most of the 8 hours on the interior.  I performed a shampoo of the carpet with Fabric Clean by Chemical Guys.  I used an ounce of the Fabric Clean and diluted the rest of my Tornador foam gun canister with water.  I attached a soft bristle brush to my Flex polisher to work the foamy solution into the carpet and extracted it with my shop vac.  The results were nice.  I used Griot's Garage Leather Care on the seats and Cockpit Premium by 1Z on the rest of the interior panels and dash.  I washed the exterior with Chemical Guys Citrus Wash & Gloss.  I used Griot's Garage Wheel Cleaner on the wheels.  I used a combination of different grades of steel wool to bring the exhaust tips back.  All of this happened while it was snowing outside, so I was thankful for the comfort and convenience the garage provides when detailing.  Here's some photos.  

With my permission, Quickjack is using photos of my garage for their online marketing of the QuickJack lift system.  It is pretty cool to see my garage getting this kind of exposure.  Here's a screen shot from the Quickjack.com website.  They have introduced a character named "Jack" to answer questions about the system.  I wonder if Jack's physical appearance should have been based on me, but I'll leave that for you to decide.  

It took me the better part of two full days, but the polish and coat of the SQ5 is complete.  I spent all of Tuesday this week polishing it with my various polishers.  I found my new Rupes iBrid to be an amazingly helpful little tool.  It was effective in getting into the little spots that are too small for my Mini Rupes.  My Bigfoot Mini was amazing as well.  I did ruin a few pads with it, though.  Not sure what happened, but a few pads simply gave out.  I may have to conduct some research into the issue.  I used Menzerna's Medium Cut 2500 polish and the results are terrific.  No need for any follow up in my opinion.  Once all the paint was looking pristine, I spent a few hours on Wednesday coating the paint with GTecnhiq's C1 Crystal Lacquer nanocoating followed by a coat of EXO V2.  The paint glistens and should be well protected as we head into winter.  I had plans on doing a video, but I just didn't have the time given how labour-intensive this job was.  Here are a few photos of the project.