BMW 325 CI | Ceramic Coating & Convertible Roof Cleaning Video

Although this car came to us mainly for the cabriolet hood to be cleaned and reproofed, the car needed a polish, so we set about it with our machine polishers and made it as shiny as we could.

James polishing the car, giving it a final touch. He is using his random orbital polisher over a soft cloth.

The bonnet had been repainted at some point and was looking a little dull. It was wet sanded, a process where we flat down the paintwork with wet and dry sandpaper, then repolished. Once the hood was cleaned and re-coated and the car polished with our four stage polishing process, we treated the paintwork with Matrix Blue, a 3-year ceramic coating.

The hood was a little green with some moss growing in it, but not too bad. There wasn't a terrible amount of wear, so we were able to clean it up okay. After it had been treated with our hydrophobic nano-coating, it looked and felt amazing. When a hood is freshly re-treated the water will bead up and roll off, but this only lasts a while because as the hood collects dust, that will break the surface tension of the water. However, the fibres of the fabric are still waterproof. The water will soak through and drop onto the rubber membrane underneath but leave the hood practically dry rather than sopping wet. This is how you end up with problems of the hood rotting. 

In addition to cleaning and reproofing the hood, we also cleaned all the guttering and drainage where the water is supposed to run away. Most people don't realize that convertible cars come with a whole load of extra bits to make it all work and make sure the car doesn't fill with water. It all needs to be kept clean in order to avoid issues.  

New Again are Cabriolet Roof Cleaning Specialists, so if your convertible is looking a little tired, give us a call today and ask what we can do for you.

My Cabriolet Roof has faded. Can you put some of that blue dye on?

Only in very rare circumstances do we ever use a product like Reviver or Back-to-Black on convertible roofs, it is something we don't recommend.

The only time we recommend it is if you have a vintage car and a replacement roof isn't available, so one would have to be hand-made otherwise. 

The reason we don't use these products, if we can avoid it, is that the results really aren't that good. Without boring you with technical and chemical details, you can only really dye a fabric once. Further, dyeing just doesn't take. So these products are actually a paint, and the results you get are exactly what you would expect if you brush paint your hood -- you will get a thick deep colour, but it looks like it has been painted on. 

We were recently contacted by somebody who decided to change the colour of their roof from black to red. This isn't going to work either, the hood is ruined, and they will have to pay a cabriolet roof fitter to put on a new one, which is likely to be into thousands of pounds. All-in-all we would advise you stay away from these products unless you have a specific reason to use them, and you know what the results will be. 

But don't worry, because you would be surprised just how well a faded hood comes up. It will darken up when we clean all the dust and grime out of it. It will darken up even more when we apply the weatherproof coating to it. It isn't a "blackener" that you need, a waterproof coating will do the job.