Toyota Harrier in Pearl White: Full Detail

Hey guys! I had the privilege to detail this almost new Toyota Harrier. Just want to say that this is going to be a short write-up as I didn’t spend too much time taking progress pictures of this car, it’s big!

Also, the car being only 4-months old, I did feel stressed prior to detailing the car as it’s just way more difficult to bring an improvement to a new vehicle’s appearance compared to a few years old daily driver.

Some before and after photos.

Read about the whole process after the jump!

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Here’s the car upon arrival. Surrounding areas of the bonnet has been taped up to demonstrate the basics of paint correction and protection to the owner.

Before correction

After correction

Tyre dressing sling-off in the wheel wells

In usual fashion, I started with the wheels.

• Tires and wheel wells cleaned with Meguiar’s Super Degreaser
• Wheel wells dressed with Meguiar’s Hyper-Dressing
• Wheel face and barrel cleaned with Meguiar’s Wheel Brightener
• Old wheel weight residue and tar removed with Osren Tar Remover
• Wheel face polished with Meguiar’s #205 Ultra-Finishing Polish on a Lake Country Uni-ball
• Wheel face deep cleansed with Jeff’s Werkstatt Prime Acrylic
• Wheel face protected with FK1000P Hi-temp paste sealant
• Wheel barrel protected with Enviroshield

Osren Tar Remover at work

Ingrained dirt loosened and removed from polishing

The engine bay had a light cleaning with some Meguiar’s All Purpose Cleaner and dressed with Meguiar’s Hyper-Dressing.

The washing stage of the car consisted of:

• Washed with a mixture of shampoo and degreaser(Osren bubble and wax + Osren Multi clean)
• Paintwork smoothened with Osren Magic Clay cloth
• Tar removal on lower panels of paint work

With the car washed, I turned my attention to the glass sunroof, which was full with water spots. The horizontal surfaces of the car also had some form of white coloured over spray.

Process for the glass sunroof:
• Watermark removed with acid
• Overspray removed with Osren Magic Clay Cloth by hand and Soft99 Glass Z compound via ROB(and Lake Country CCS Orange).
• Two coats of Rain-X applied for strong water repellency

Tomcat Watermark Remover

Before

After watermark removal, prior to overspray removal

50/50

The glass compound dries up quite fast and has to be constantly ‘re-activated’ with plain water

The dried compound is removed with Meguiar’s Glass Cleaner

After

Up-close

Note to self, always wear gloves when working with strong acid!!

Door pillars were corrected using:
• Meguiar’s #105 Ultra-Cut Compound on a 4″ Lake Country Orange CCS pad via rotary
• Meguiar’s #205 Ultra-Finishing Polish on a 4″ Lake Country White CCS pad via rotary

Black paint transfer from the single stage paintwork.

Tight areas and door handle wells hand polished with M105.

Before

After

Process for paintwork was:

• Compound with Meguiar’s #105 Ultra Cut Compound on a Lake Country Purple Foamed Wool
• Polish with Meguiar’s #205 Ultra Finishing Polish on a Lake Country White Kompressor Pad
• Finishing and jewelling with Meguair’s #205 on a Lake Country Flat Black pad.
• Deep cleansed and base sealant with Jeff’s Werkstatt Prime Acrylic
• Sealed with Jeff’s Werkstatt Acrylic Jett Trigger
• Final wax with Meguiar’s #16 for longer durability and protection.

It was really hard to capture the defects in the paint because of the light colour and high metallic flake content.

Generally the paint had light swirling as well as some random isolated deep scratches(RIDS) which necessitates the step of compounding with purple foamed wool.

Before

Before

After correction and protection photos below,

Again, every centimeter of the paintwork wasn’t perfect under the LED lighting, but I would say I managed to achieve complete correction on 85%-90% of the car.

Headlamps polished with M105/M205 combo and protected with Meguiar’s PlastX

Other things done but no pictures were:

• Leather cleaned with Meguar’s Step 1 Aloe Cleaner, conditioned with Meguiar’s Gold Class Rich Leather Cleaner/Conditioner
• Glass cleaned with Meguiar’s Detailer line Glass Cleaner
• Interior plastic and vinyl wiped down with Meguiar’s Quik Interior Detailer.
• Exterior trim dressed with Meguiar’s Ultimate Protectant

Thanks for looking! Apologies to the owner for the lack of pictures this time around, will get better ones next time.

Comments and critiques always welcome!

^^V