First go at cleaning my pink V70

[Foeux]

My 1997 Volvo V70 TDI cost me £725 (I think) a couple of years ago. Since owning it I have done all the maintenance stuff (belts and tensioners etc) and continue to maintain it well, ‘Ron-boxed’ it, wound up the turbo pressure and absolutely kicked the stuffing out of it. It is often overloaded with tools and car bits, it was blasted around Europe at an outrageous average speed for 10 days last summer and still it lives, nay thrives.

Mechanically bomb proof, the biggest let down was the paint. I have tried to improve it as best I can but it is still stone chipped, faded in places and sub-optimal to say the least. I should have taken some before snaps but didn’t. Below is the process I used for making it nice. It will now be used and abused in the usual fashion until it gets its annual clean next year.

Process:

1) Wash with Halfords cheapest car wash soap and a pressure washer.
2) Silverline rotary polisher, farecla G3 paste, pump up spray bottle of water and ‘mop’ every panel.
3) Wash with Halfords cheapest car wash soap and a pressure washer to remove white G3 slurry.
4) Dry with a chamois and leave overnight.
5) Autoglym super resin polish put on with lint free cloth. Left to dry off for 40 mins or so and removed with a microfibre cloth.
6) Farecla G3 wax paste. Applied with the ‘waffle applicator’ and removed with a microfibre cloth. Doesn’t take long to ‘dry’ and goes on very quickly.
7) Windolene the windows inside and out.
8) Invisible Glass to all exterior glass and mirrors.