Mercedes SL-500 Full Monty Special | Hood Clean

This Mercedes SL500 came in for what we call the Full Monty package -- hood clean and reproof, full machine polish on the bodywork, drain flush, rubber seal conditioning throughout. Doing all of it together as one package works out considerably cheaper than booking each job separately.

The hood had come in dull and patchy with green moss growth across it. The rear plastic window was hazed -- we put a specialist anti-fog coating on that to bring the clarity back and stop it deteriorating further.

On the bodywork, inspection under a halogen light showed the swirls were bad. The car had had some previous paintwork, and whoever had washed it since had used a sponge with grit on it -- you can see the pattern of the marks and tell exactly what caused them. A standard three-stage polish would improve things, but we recommended adding a fourth cutting stage (£98 extra at the time) to properly address the worst of the swirls. The fourth stage is the most aggressive cut, specifically to flatten the deep marks before the finishing stages remove the buffer marks and restore the gloss.

The end result was a car that looked completely different. All of the swirling cleared, chrome popping, bodywork gloss to a high standard. The kind of result you get when a car is long overdue a proper machine polish rather than another hand car wash.